In the 1980s, the punk band X was one of the leading lights of the scene, especially in their native Los Angeles. Upon their breakup at the end of the decade, lead singer Exene Cervenka went solo and completely changed genres, going with a folk persona on Old Wives\u2019 Tales <\/i>and a sort of folk-alt-rock hybrid on her second outing, Running Sacred.<\/i><\/p>\n
This disc has almost nothing to do with punk, either lyrically or musically, but stakes out a well-produced college rock niche, similar to 10,000 Maniacs but with a little more energy. And the singing has something to be desired; punk may be able to get away with semi-tuneless vocals, but folk rock demands some vocal ability, and Cervenka\u2019s passion is greater than her range.<\/p>\n
Fans of the Maniacs, Juliana Hatfield, or Green-<\/i>era R.E.M. will probably get the most out of this. A very slight country influence creeps into the guitar playing, particularly on \u201cMissing Nature\u201d and \u201cIt Fell,\u201d though the lyrics and singing detract a bit from the music. \u201cSlave Labor\u201d is the worst offender, all chiming Byrds-like guitars set to particularly dumb lyrics (\u201cEverybody has a boss \/ My boss is my heart \/ So you see that I \/ Can never quit my job\u201d). <\/p>\n
It is the more downbeat minor chord songs that succeed, especially on the short acoustic \u201cClinic\u201d (proof that Cervenka can sing when she tries), the driving \u201cJust Another Perfect Day,\u201d and the way the riff breaks into the driving chorus on \u201cRed Dirt,\u201d the standout track here. <\/p>\n
The songs are fairly simple, all mid-tempo and not prone to experimentation or variety, but that is to be expected when switching genres. Running Sacred<\/i>, then, ends up being of little consequence, although there are a handful of minor gems to be found for those inclined to look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":31302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9036],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-42998","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-exene-cervenka","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42998","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42998"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}