Smash Mouth sings

Smash Mouth's latest album, "Astro Lounge," is a treat of lyrical excellence as each song is filled with interesting thoughts—stemming from the creativity of the writers.

The 15-song CD is a mix of pop, punk rock, and hip-hop with a sci-fi styling that creates fun music that is easy to listen to. 

The album is refreshingly without profanity, and the band's strength is in Greg Camp's well-written clear lyrics with fairly good instrumentals and vocals to along.

The raspy and rough signature voice of lead singer, Steve Harwell, keeps the songs from being labeled soft music, yet some of the songs are definitely slower and more thought provoking.

"All Star," one of the band's most popular songs on the radio, is a song written with fast lyrics and a strong beat.  The positive message of the lyrics is "you can do whatever you want and you can have fun doing it," seems to be a central theme throughout many of the songs. 

Some songs reflect a contradiction of the band's message as heard in "Digging Your Scene," which implies an anti-drug attitude and in "Stoned," which says "I'm getting stoned and what's wrong with that?"