Over the holidays a friend of mine burned me a CD of Christmas
\nmusic. This is funny (a) because I’m the Jewish-leaning half of my
\nmulticultural marriage, and because (b) my friend’s choices were,
\nshall we say, a little on the weird side. Among other things, there
\nwere snippets from old TV and radio shows mixed in with Ella
\nFitzgerald and Elvis cuts. My favorite, though, had to be the
\nclassic old routine with David Bowie and Bing Crosby dueting on
\n“White Christmas.”<\/p>\n
That particular cut is an example of what we used to call
\n“trippy shit.” Smooth alongside edgy, avant-garde juxtaposed with
\ntraditional… these combinations usually come out either
\nhead-scratchingly odd or, when done right, ear-to-ear-grin
\nfabulous. The same, of course, could be said for concept albums; it
\neither works or it doesn’t – there’s rarely an in-between.<\/p>\n
This album — an ambitious concept album fusing ’70s melodic
\nrock with the entire range of Y2K production flourishes (samples,
\nbeats, loops, echo, the occasional rap and a head-banging guitar
\nriff or two) — works.<\/p>\n
To complicate things further, this is actually part one of a
\ntwo-part concept built around the breakup of Everclear mastermind
\nArt Alexakis’ marriage.
\nVol. One<\/i> is the “falling in love” set-up, though
\nappropriately tinged with angst, premonitions of disaster and
\npremature nostalgia. The contrasting moods are a key part of the
\nconcept, putting you right there on the emotional rollercoaster
\nwith your protagonist.<\/p>\n
For sweetness and light, there’s the lead-off track “Songs From
\nAn American Move pt.1,” a heartfelt, completely disarming ode to
\nAlexakis’ daughter, and its counterpart finale, “Annabella’s Song.”
\nHowever uncharacteristic these tracks may be — Everclear’s sound
\ntypically leans to the heavy side — they are essential to the
\nimpact the rest of the album carries.<\/p>\n
Tracking forward, Alexakis effectively captures the early bliss
\nof a relationship in bloom. In particular, the group’s take on
\n“Brown-Eyed Girl” is brilliant, reshaping a ’70s classic into a
\nfresh, thoroughly modern celebration of falling in love. “Learning
\nHow To Smile” offers another close-up of love at it best (“I can
\nhandle all the hell \/ That happens everyday \/ When you smile and
\ntouch my face \/ You make it all go away”). These early tracks ride
\nyou high into the sky, making the cringe factor that much greater
\nwhen things start to fall apart (“Thrift Store Chair”). Your
\nnarrator tries hard to keep it together, pleading for both parties
\nto try to be better people (“Otis Redding”), but it’s no good.<\/p>\n
The downside packs all the punch of what came before, and more.
\nWhen the relationship’s clearly done and Alexakis finally pulls out
\nthe poison pen for a kiss-off song (“Now That It’s Over”), he
\ndoesn’t pull any punches (“Nightmares just don’t scare me now \/
\nBaby without you”). The dude is *pissed*. And why shouldn’t he be?
\nWhen he sings with wrenching bitterness of his own parents’ divorce
\nin the affecting “Wonderful,” you realize just how well he
\nunderstands what’s been lost and who’s being hurt most by the
\nbreak-up.<\/p>\n
Bassist Craig Montoya and drummer Greg Eklund provide expert
\nsupport throughout, switching gears and styles effortlessly in an
\nimpressive show of musical adaptability. Also worthy of note is the
\nendlessly creative work of Lars Fox (engineer) and Neal Avron
\n(recorder\/mixer), who co-produced the album with Alexakis. This
\nalbum has one of the clearest, tightest and most diverse sounds
\nI’ve heard in a long time.<\/p>\n
Soaring and beautiful in places, raw and savage in others,
\nVol. One<\/i> is remarkable for reasons far beyond its melding of
\n’70s melodicism with 21st century production values. It’s a great
\nalbum because it has a lifetime’s worth of emotional truth behind
\nit. Creed-clones everywhere, your attention please: if the past
\nthree years of the alt-rock scene have taught us anything, it’s
\nthat just about anybody can write a heavy rock song with a downbeat
\nlyric and a meaty guitar hook. The question you have to ask
\nyourself is, have you given the audience a reason to care? With
\nVol. One<\/i>, Art Alexakis and Everclear do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":25680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6484],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37534","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-everclear","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37534"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}