metric reflection

A Tasty Cracker

I think the last time I heard anything new from Cracker wasn’t too long after the “Low” days.  Low was a catchy hit perfect for the early 90s: along with “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)” it defined the hopelessness of the early 90s.

The songs were sloppy. But so was everyone else. I was in high school, the perfect time to embody the slacker lifestyle and still be a little bit intellectual (ie no internet to distract us).

I think somewhere I have Garage D’or, a compilation from 2000 featuring those two songs and a couple other fun ones (Eurotrash Girl, Shake Some Action). But this seemed like a final send-off from a band a couple years past their prime.

All this is leading to something, right? Well, band focal point David Lowery and company have a new album out – in fact, it’s the first album I’ve run across as it came out. On a lark, I grabbed it, and was shocked.

It’s kind of a cliche to see older musicians release a new album in which they let loose and simply rock out. R.E.M. did it last year with Accelerate (and supposedly are working on another); U2 have done it a couple times now, etc. Usually they sound like the artist is trying too hard (I’m thinking, sadly of Pearl Jam’s self-titled album) and it just comes out flat.

For at least half an album, though, Cracker brings on the rock. “Show Me How this thing works” is a rallying cry for an old man, fumbling around with his computer until he breaks out in frustrated song. (I picture a geriatric breaking out into a choreographed routine around a living room.) Snark aside, it’s really a song about how life itself works, and how no one can really figure it out. The next song, the hopeless “Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out With Me,” is as much about figuring out how life works and what society expects from you as it is about stepping away from the mainstream . It’s not a surprising struggle; later in the album he sings that “dying is easy, it’s living that’s hard.” It’s a sentiment borne of frustration (to quote one of their contemporary bands) with the strictures we face.

The highlights continue with We Will all Shine a Light, which frames a cruising melody with a grizzled old rock rhythm, and Hand Me My Inhaler, which is probably the first song about asthma with a guitar solo. (Actually, Hand Me My Inhaler has the same ridiculousness (and humor) as an action movie some aspiring filmmakers made about an asthmatic action hero, but that’s a different post.)

Most of the rest of the album slows down, which allows Lowery’s growl a little too much sonic space. It tries to go Americana and bluesy, but it seems like a bit too much of a shift, at least when listening to the album in one sitting. Moreover, these seem to have stepped aside from the overall tone and quest of the rest of the album, making them seem out of place. Nonetheless, there are a surprising number of hummable songs to keep this around for a while.