Train - My Private Nation

Train's My Private Nation, the 2003 follow-up to their breakthrough, finds the San Francisco band polishing big-hearted pop rock to a high shine.

Their third studio album reunited them with producer Brendan O'Brien, whose layered, textured production gives Pat Monahan's soaring vocals plenty of room to move. It also marked the end of an era, as the last Train album with bassist Charlie Colin and guitarist Rob Hotchkiss in the lineup.

Lead single "Calling All Angels" became one of the band's defining songs, a widescreen prayer for reassurance in uncertain times, all chiming guitars and a chorus built to lift a whole room. "When I Look to the Sky" slows things down into a tender ballad, "Get to Me" bounces with radio-ready charm, and "I'm About to Come Alive" carries enough emotional weight that country singer David Nail later made it the title of his own debut.

Critics noted the self-deprecating humour in the lyrics and the real feeling hiding under the shine, and those songs have aged remarkably well, sounding warmer now than they did on the radio.

It's the sound of a band at the peak of its first act, earnest, melodic and unashamedly built for singing along with the windows down on a long summer drive.