Featuring more of the sextet's festival- and fair-friendly, folk-infused pop, the Strumbellas third long-player, Hope, loads the track list with memorable anthems and stomping rhythms. The singalong opener "Spirits," the band's first Billboard number one after it topped the Alternative Songs chart, turns out to be typical of the majority of Hope's songs. A couple of ballads offer audiences a break from rhythmic clapping to sway with phones in hand, though the piano ballad "I Still Make Her Cry" stands as the lone truly intimate moment of the record which, despite its enthusiastic choruses, harbors reflective, self-doubting lyrics. ~ Marcy Donelson
