It’s been … more than one week since the Barenaked Ladies’ release of their quadruple platinum album “Stunt.” The Ladies, fostering much of their mainstream fame from their first number one hit, “One Week,” have resurfaced with their sixth album entitled “Maroon.” With the release of “Maroon” in September, the band marries their preceding vibrant and goofy sound with that of a slightly different, more mature sound. “Maroon” keeps with the traditional mix of humor fusing humor and seemingly silly lyrics with serious and profound words. The majority of the album has an upbeat sound, invoking you to jump up and clap your hands along with the beat. The tireless first five songs are filled with the mellow and groove sounds of the sixth song, “Conventioneers.” While the first half of the album cohesively captures its essence, the second half is much more discordant and forgettable. Following in the footsteps of “Stunt,” this album digresses from previous custom of including at least one lyrically ridiculous song into the play list. Perhaps one reason for its disregard is the movement towards more introspective lyrics. The Grammy winning producer Dan Was, of such artists as the Rolling Stones and B52’s, says on their website, “You put this record on and sonically, groovewise, it’s upbeat. It makes you feel good. It’s stuff you would play at a barbecue; yet lyrically they are dealing with more grownup subject matter.” Also from the model of “Stunt,” the new album introduces at least two songs with unpleasant melodies. “Sell Sell Sell” and “Baby Seat” are rather musically obnoxious sounding songs. As for the rest of the songs, they either vary from energetic full band beats to more disturbing lyrics and singing. The hidden track on the limited version CD, sung by Kevin Hearn (the key boardist), exemplifies the haunting aspects of the most recent events in the band’s history both through his shaky, weak sounding voice and the lingering piano part. Diagnosed with leukemia in 1998 just as “Stunt” was beginning to reach its success, Hearn was unable to finish the rigorous tour with BNL and needed to undergo a bone marrow transplant. The only song on “Maroon” that features Hearn as a soloist, “Hidden Sun” works well as a hidden track since it creeps up on the listener and leaves a lasting effect. It captures his tumultuous events, “Shivering madly in the dark, like an animal abandoned in the car park,” but yet offers the optimistic idea of human kindness and triumph as “inside ourselves a hidden sun can burn … but it never does any harm to anyone.” It is clearly the most profound and memorable song on the album. Although many of the other songs on “Maroon” explain a stagnant life where people are stuck in their own worlds, such as “Pinch Me” and “Too Little Too Late,” others are at the other extreme of living life to the fullest, such as “Baby Seat.” The band also experiments with new sounds on “Maroon,” and the drums contain a more synthesized sound on many of the songs, also shown in “Baby Seat.” Ed Robertson, usually sharing the main vocals with Page, only solos two of the 12 songs on the new album, and directs his attention more to guitars. While many songs on “Maroon” demonstrate the familiar sounds of the Barenaked Ladies, like the improvisational and fast singing of Robertson in “Pinch Me” and the bouncy feeling of “Go Home,” “Maroon” marks the slow evolution of the band into a fuller sound, concentrating more on music than humor. However, it may also mark the movement away from strong vocals and harmonization, and it may create a future BNL where humor is only reserved for the stage.