I’m so intrigued by album cover art, by the photo-shoot itself, by the random conversations that went into choosing that one particular picture above all the others. After all, an album cover is no small matter. Just saying the words "Middle of Nowhere" conjures one image: three towheaded, sweet-faced kids flopped on their bellies in a field, and the color orange. It’s the one thing that defines "Hanson" for the masses, even the plebeians who haven’t heard anything by them other than Mmmbop. An album cover is something you have to live with for a long time.

At first glance, the This Time Around cover didn’t provoke any particularly violent emotional reaction from me, unlike virtually every other announcement that came from the Hanson camp this week. I thought, "Oh, it’s a picture of Hanson. How surprising." And then, on the second or third perusal, it started to sink in. The uniqueness of this picture, in an almost startling way, is in their faces. In most other "official" pictures of Hanson that we’re given, there’s a singularity to them, a feeling that everyone in the picture was in the same frame of mind when the shutter clicked. For the first time, we’re seeing three different people wearing three distinct shades of moody.

The first surprise is that Taylor is in the front. It’s no secret at this point that Hanson and Co. go out of their way to keep any one member of the band from becoming The Star. (read: If nature were allowed to take its course, this would be The Taylor Hanson Band.) You’d think this would prompt some overcompensation at times, i.e. sticking Taylor in the back just to prove that he’s on equal footing with Zac and Ike. Apparently no one was worried about his placement when they chose this picture. Not only is he prominent, he’s looking you in the eye, a Taylor rarity to be sure. His eyes seem to be asking you some mysterious unknown question. Ah, the lifetimes that could be wasted trying to figure it out. Between the hair and the shirt, he looks almost... Beethovenish. A 1970s glamed out Beethoven maybe, but Beethoven nonetheless.

Zac looks like he has a secret, and a particularly good one too, considering the hint of a smile on his face. It’s interesting to me that they chose a picture where all three members of the band aren’t facing the camera directly. In the past, an act like that would have smacked of insubordination. At any rate, Zac looks quite placid and sober, maybe even a little, dare we say it, reflective. Where is the boy who used to jump around and yell, the one who bore the name "Animal" so well? From the looks of this picture, he’s morphed into something else. What? We’ll have to wait until the album comes out for that answer. Gosh, the boy’s nose is a veritable speed bump.

And Isaac. Oh dear. Beautiful wonderful Isaac. He looks so blissfully tragic, Shakespearean almost, like he thought of something exceedingly sad just before the picture was snapped. Or maybe he was just told not to smile. Whatever the reason, I’m feeling the need to just put my arms around him for a while. You know, just like I do in every other moment of my life.

So what has happened to our Hanson? Our silly zany Hanson who used to sing about dudes with big toes, who dug the color orange and decorated their liner notes with sketches of muscle men punching the crap out of each other? Somehow, when no one was looking, they grew up. Every single thing about Middle of Nowhere seems so... oldschool all of a sudden, like it happened in another lifetime. And then of course, I think about me when Middle of Nowhere came out. I was a sophomore in high school, not even 17 years old. Another lifetime indeed.

It might be a superficial thing, an "image" on the most literal of levels, but an album cover is important. This one is dark and angsty (Check the rather angrily slashed Hanson logo), and it’s stronger than the Middle of Nowhere cover. If that’s what they were going for, they pass with flying colors. Welcome, the new grown up Hanson.