Thursday, October 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

CDVS

Too often, the Replacements don't get their due. The 1980s Minneapolis band all but invented "alternative rock," evolving album by album to fill the gap between punk and pop. They're the godfathers of grunge, the enablers of emo, a blessing and a curse. The Replacements' most acclaimed album, Let It Be, sounds as original and vibrant today as it did when it struggled for attention amid the New Wave and heavy metal minions in 1984.

After the Replacements broke up in 1991--a crash-and-burn affair--all its members took off on solo projects, but frontman and songwriter Paul Westerberg has received the most attention, delivering an uneven but sometimes brilliant series of albums. But while Westerberg has been followed closely by critics and a small but loyal fan base, he has been largely ignored by everyone else.

Undaunted, this week Westerberg released two albums on two different labels (plus a DVD documentary). The main course is Come Feel Me Tremble, from Vagrant Records, while the dessert is Dead Man Shake, a Fat Possum-produced album by Grandpaboy, which is Westerberg by another name.

Come Feel Me Tremble's grab bag of guitar rock strongly echoes classic Rolling Stones, with a couple of touching acoustic numbers thrown in. Westerberg has largely abandoned his high-gloss balladeering of the '90s and reverted to Replacements-era lo-fi three-chord rock. This works best on tracks such as "Making Me Go," a bouncy piece of hit-worthy rock, and "Dirty Diesel," a rootsy, soulful ramble that would make Keith Richards proud. "Hillbilly Junk" is a country-flavored rocker, while "These Days" does justice to its melancholy author, Jackson Browne. "Pine Box" is an anti-war anthem that brings to mind Aerosmith, but suffers from the vocals being overwhelmed by the rampaging guitars.

On the downbeat side, Westerberg hits home runs with the somber, nostalgic "Meet Me Down the Alley" and the Sylvia Plath suicide-themed "Crackle & Drag (alt. version)," in which Westerberg rasps, "Now they're zipping her up in a bag/ Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag?/ And the Cadillac's waiting to take her away."

As for Dead Man Shake, it's a jumbled compilation of blues, rockabilly and country numbers that, one must assume, were rejected for Come Feel Me Tremble but the writer felt were good enough to put out. For the most part, they are, but just barely. Westerberg's exploration of rock's formative styles shows admirable respect for music history but an inability or unwillingness to do anything particularly new with it. And his voice--suitably raw but sometimes howl-at-the-moon out of tune--just doesn't work on some songs.

"MPLS" is a raggedy version of the Stray Cats, while the bluesy "Do Right in Your Eyes" has the coffee can sound of an Alan Lomax field recording. The album's best track, "Vampires and Failures," has a Rolling Stones vibe--complete with Mick Jagger vocal inflections--and probably could have fit nicely on Come Feel Me Tremble. "Get a Move On" is heartland rock a la John Mellencamp (not a bad thing).

"No Matter What You Say" is Westerberg's homage to easy-does-it Chicago blues, while "Bad Boy Blues" is its uptempo counterpart. A honky tonk flavor pervades "O.D. Blues." Westerberg does not fare well on two covers: John Prine's "Souvenirs," an otherwise fine country song on which he sounds like a cat being strangled, and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," which has been done better by, well, Williams and lots of other people.

In Westerberg vs. Westerberg, the winner is Come Feel Me Tremble, because it's more original. But this victory isn't decisive enough to get anybody too excited.--Geoff Schumacher