Everclear’s ‘Afterglow’ Rings With Contradictory Images
Everclear
“So Much for the Afterglow” (Capitol) ***-1/2
Everclear’s third album rings with the clamor of clashing images. A sweet, sunny, Beach Boys-style chorale is abruptly swamped by pummeling rock and lines about “the scary things you see from the corner of your eyes.” Later, the sound of playground laughter is shattered by an ominous message. “Why’d they have to call my school/ tell me my mother had a nervous breakdown?” Art Alexakis sings with raw intensity.
Innocence interrupted is Alexakis’ beat, and in this follow-up to Everclear’s 1995 breakthrough album, “Sparkle and Fade,” the singer-guitarist-songwriter walks it with authority. The battle for equilibrium in the wake of emotional trauma, the search for comfort and connection - Alexakis makes it all vivid through accumulation of detail, and he spits it out with a Lennon-like candor and an unruly, unstoppable energy.
The Portland trio’s spiky rock is punk-rooted, but Alexakis’ production broadens the range, applying touches of pop craft - from string orchestrations to a taste of banjo - without compromising the basics.
Ultimately, the struggle outlined in this music carries a hard-earned sense of healing. The hopefulness that emerges may be wary, but this band makes clear that it’s better than none. (Everclear plays a free show today at the Hard Rock Cafe in Universal City.)
Richard Cromelin
Steve Earle
“El Corazon” (E-Squared/Warner Bros.)
***-1/2
The veteran country-rocker has a knack for taking unexpected points of view. Most memorably, “Ellis Unit One,” from the “Dead Man Walking” soundtrack, looked at Death Row from a prison guard’s perspective, but not without compassion - or a larger social point. His latest album offers another ambitious ballad, “Taneytown,” a tale told by a retarded young black man. It’s a chilling portrait of racism, framed by Earle’s ominous blues guitar and Emmylou Harris’ keening backing vocals.
“El Corazon” is most compelling, however, when Earle’s giving it to us straight. His careworn voice limns tragedies large and small, lamenting absent heroes of the people on “Christmas in Washington,” mourning the more personal loss of his friend Townes Van Zandt in “Fort Worth Blues.”
With co-producer Ray Kennedy, Earle crafts these spare songs from a palette of folk, country, blues and rock. The music is unified by a pervasive melancholy that not even the gritty “N.Y.C.,” featuring Seattle punks the Supersuckers, fully escapes.
And when Earle gets just plain down ‘n’ dirty, he still does it with a twist: “Telephone Road,” a decidedly secular celebration of debauchery, features backing vocals by gospel act the Fairfield Four.
Natalie Nichols
Mike Watt
“Contemplating the Engine Room” (Columbia)
**-1/2
More streamlined than its star-studded predecessor, Watt’s second solo effort is a collection of spare, punked-out sea chanteys that serve as vehicles for the singer-bassist’s quirky ruminations. The dynamic among Watt, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Steve Hodges is sharp and lively, with squalls of salty guitar crashing into fat, undulating rhythms. At times, however, stretches of abstract noodling cast the songs adrift.
Sandy Masuo
The Sundays
“Static & Silence” (DGC) **-1/2
A five-year hiatus has matured, smoothed and enriched Harriet Wheeler’s attractive voice as she abandons her trademark skips and leaps. Otherwise, she and partner David Gavurin stick to the English group’s adult alternative formula of pretty tunes and mildly yearning lyrics, though Gavurin’s guitar groove on “Another Flavour” and some flute solos on “Your Eyes” add some sonic dimension.
Steve Hochman
Various artists
“Paint It, Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones”
**-1/2
House of Blues. The blues turns the tables on the Stones in this tribute compilation, as veterans such as Junior Wells and the late Luther Allison essay Jagger-Richards classics. Most of these fine performances favor the originals but don’t really fire the imagination. More satisfying are tracks such as Taj Mahal’s stripped folk-blues take on “Honky Tonk Women,” which infuse the Stones’ essence into unique interpretations.
Natalie Nichols