The original Jane\u2019s Addiction was destined to fall apart quickly, which was part of the charm. Provocative lyrics, an amalgam of styles and a volatile musical stew mixed with an offhand charm defined the band\u2019s first two records, which became and remain mainstays of the then-new alternative rock movement. Shortly after Ritual De Lo Habitual<\/i>, the band ceased making music in the studio, turning its attention to Lollapalooza (which they founded, of course) and, eventually, solo projects. The implosion was swift and expected, but Jane\u2019s had paved the way for alt-rock to take over the airwaves and the zeitgeist, so their job was done.<\/p>\n
But like most alt-rock bands, the allure of nostalgia and the need for money due to failed solo projects brought most of the band back together; in Jane\u2019s case, it was in 2003, to headline the failing Lollapalooza and try to recapture what made them great before. They walked back into a musical world that had drastically changed in 12 years; gone was grunge and accessible alt-rock and in its place was nu-metal, rap-rock and the beginnings of the brief garage-rock revival. <\/p>\n
To their credit, Jane\u2019s didn\u2019t try to fit in, but the songs on Strays <\/i>also show the expected maturity gained in the preceding decade. A decade after starting out as an art-school kid singing of the decadence he witnessed firsthand in Los Angeles, mingling sex and Jesus into lyrics and an album cover that got banned, Perry Farrell would have looked and sounded ridiculous following that same path into his 40s (a lesson Anthony Kiedis has yet to learn, but that\u2019s neither here nor there). The band has grown up, and so the lyrics are smoothed over, agreeable, unmemorable.<\/p>\n
Dave Navarro remains potent, though, doing the most to make this band sound like Jane\u2019s Addiction, and certainly their sound remains unique. The missing element is bassist Eric Avery, who has clashed with the band multiple times, and whose basslines are sorely missed; one review at the time said every great Jane\u2019s song has a memorable bass riff, making Avery the unsung hero of those great early records. <\/p>\n
But this album is not to be dismissed either, because it\u2019s still three-quarters of Jane\u2019s Addiction, and it\u2019s still good alt-rock music. \u201cTrue Nature,\u201d \u201cJust Because\u201d and \u201cTo Match The Sun\u201d are solid, pretense-free rock songs, while \u201cWrong Girl\u201d adds a bluesy Zeppelin-inspired guitar riff to the band\u2019s repertoire, suggesting another direction they could (should?) have taken with their sound. The title track and \u201cSuperhero\u201d are fine songs as well. Really, there\u2019s not a bad track here, other than the trite ballad \u201cEverybody\u2019s Friend,\u201d though a few of the cuts like \u201cHypersonic,\u201d \u201cThe Riches\u201d and \u201cSuffer Some\u201d don\u2019t leave much of an impression.<\/p>\n
The odd thing is, there are probably some fans who think the best moments of Jane\u2019s are the straight-ahead rockers like \u201cMountain Song\u201d and \u201cStop!,\u201d and that contingent will get the most out of this. There\u2019s plenty to like about Strays<\/i>, to be sure, but it\u2019s also evident that maybe what made the band so great in 1988-91 was their weirdness, their provocative nature, their psychedelic sex, the genuine sense that listening to them was somehow wrong.<\/i> You don\u2019t get that on this album, and maybe that\u2019s for the best, but it still stops the album from being genuinely necessary. After this one, Jane\u2019s would call it quits again for another decade, then try again with a similar-sounding album in 2011, with much the same results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6050],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46408","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-janes-addiction","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46408","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=46408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46408"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}