By listening to the lyrics, you can understand taht someof the songs are very personal. The same with the song Father of Mine . By listening to So Much For the Afterglow , it sounds like the band has matured. There are some experimenatl items on this album but it's more or less the same old everclear style. Pop-melodies and catchy rhythms couldn't be a more descriptive term for this album especially.
Some songs still have the heavy, distorted guitars but most are just soft and melodic.
I would consider their sound as pretty, yet heavy. Everclear has a very diverse sound. A nice mix between their first two albums, this one is a little bit poppier, but no worse.