| Cracker |
Alternative
It's been a few years since David Lowery sprinkled his off-kilter blend of intellectual musing and white-trash hooting upon the alt-rock scene, and while Cracker's leader has grown up some in that period, he hasn't lost his flair for creating melodies (and narratives) that make you go "Hmmmmm." Forever isn't as laden with snotty diatribes as previous Cracker offerings, and the playing on songs like the soaring "Brides of Neptune" is a bit more elegant -- thanks, no doubt, to Sparklehorse mainman Mark Linkous, who co-produced the disc. Still, there are plenty of memorable interludes, most notably "Don't Bring Us Down," an anti-love song that could be construed either as a personal kiss-off or a denunciation of today's pop charts. The kitchen-sink eclecticism of tracks like the lilting "Miss Santa Cruz County" and the underwater psych-jam "Guarded by Monkeys" is reminiscent of Lowery's early days in Camper Van Beethoven, as is the somewhat disconnected feel of the album's latter reaches. A special limited-edition version of Forever also contains an 11-song bonus disc, with such concert staples as "Teen Angst" and the band's cover of Status Quo's late-'60s classic "Pictures of Matchstick Men." David Sprague
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