Thursday, August 07, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Listening Station

Alkaline Trio

Good Mourning

Chicago-bred Alkaline Trio's fourth album, Good Mourning, has such a shine to it, you can envision the inevitable debate in the college record stores of the world: Is it punk? To hear it from the purists and so-called real punks, the Trio lost its underground cred with every label it signed with (the band has recorded for Vagrant since 2001). And if you consider the band roster for a label like Vagrant, or a tour like Warped, you realize punk has changed to accommodate the bands rather than the bands having changed to accommodate punk.

Leadman Matt Skiba and company took three months in rather high-end studios to complete the making of Mourning, and it shows, both in the clarity of the sound and the strength of the songwriting. Gone is the unpolished charm the band exuded on past releases like Maybe I'll Catch Fire, but here the various sound elements aren't jumbled together in a maelstrom of glorious muck. Background vocals are crisp, high-hats chime and instruments you'd never expect to hear in a Trio song surface without throwing you off.

The band's songwriting prowess almost comes off as a "fuck you" to anyone who turned their nose up at the band's more accessible 2001 album, From Here to Infirmary. Some of the songs here, despite the usual gallows humor, exude an uplifting spirit, like "Fatally Yours," "Every Thug Needs a Lady" and "Continental." Obviously, the band's knack for penning solid tunes also makes a difference. Potential single "We've Had Enough," which is actually a diss on radio, is a keeper, as is the unplugged finale, "Blue in the Face." All in all, Alkaline Trio won't be dissonant and on the cheap for the sake of outdated integrity. Meet one of the new standard-bearers.--Mike Prevatt

The Swords Project

Entertainment Is Over If You Want It

When Portland's The Icebreak and Slower Than jammed together in 1999 and formed The Swords Project, they declared themselves "hired assassins of rock." Whether this means devil-may-care music vigilantes who strive to undo indie-prog or kowtowing bitches of convention is unclear. But what is clear is the threat these assassins pose would put even poor Damocles to sleep. Assassinations are worthless without a little violence. And Entertainment Is Over is a feather-blade in a sword's hilt--no threat or progression, just a lemming run to the sea of key and guitar-driven electronica.

Many of Entertainment's effects, samples and distortions weave into an intriguing polyphony, particularly with TSP's drumming duo and Liza Rietz's violin/accordion work (always the panacea, seldom the spotlight). "Audience of One"--a 10-plus minute monster jam--is certainly the album's most distinctive gem; again, Rietz's violin enters precisely, lingers long enough and saves the day. Nevertheless, Entertainment's tapestry is too often typical--burdened by ho-hum vocals and song structures, and prog-by-numbers keyboards. Corey Ficken's vocals pose so little threat as to be of no real consequence, yet they are usually so minimal they function more as an instrument in the band than as traditional lead-vox. When highlighted, however, crooning tunes like "Immigracion" skirt Top 40 balladry.

Regrettably, Entertainment lacks that consistent spark of true rock assassins, and poses little imminent threat of mutiny, conspiracy or shakedown. Were this a Rocky and Bullwinkle world, the moral of our Fractured Fairy Tale might read: Prog is truly mightier than The Swords.--Chad Lietz

Drive-By Truckers

Decoration Day

What else can you call an unknown band with the audacity to record a double-disc "concept album" about Lynyrd Skynyrd and the nerve to title said album Southern Rock Opera but...awesome? Awesome as half a jar of corn whiskey, a 302 Mustang and an empty stretch of dirt to spin the tires on; and this year, Drive-By Truckers follow up their unforeseen master work with another neo-Faulknerian plunge into the Southern Gothic, Decoration Day. Neither as cohesive nor as political as Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day still roams the same territory, waxing gloomily on incest, alcoholism, poverty (both material and spiritual) and death. Granted, it ain't pretty, but it is raw and real and immediate, like a Greek tragedy or a bottle to the head. Take "Marry Me," for example: "Well, my daddy didn't pull out, but he never apologized/ Rock and Roll means well/ but it can't help telling lies."

Propelled by lead singer Patterson Hood's scratchy, persistent timbre--think a less-nasal Tom Petty meets Wilco's Jeff Tweedy--and Mike Cooley's soaring guitar, Decoration Day grabs you by the throat and never lets up, ending some 60 minutes later with the fittingly titled "Loaded Gun in the Closet." And although it might sound unbearably depressing, Decoration Day actually seems an affirmation of life, as if the Truckers only root around in the shit to show us that it isn't all that bad (or it could be worse). But perhaps Hood says it best on "Hell No, I Ain't Happy": "Hell no, I ain't happy/ But I ain't too crappy, too crappy at all."--Newt Briggs