Scroll down for Will Kimbrough, Great Crusades and E'Nuff Z'Nuff reviews

Jets To Brazil
Four Cornered Night

(Jade Tree)
www.jadetree.com

While not a perfect analogy, it could be said that this album is to emo-rock what Wilco's Summerteeth was to alt-country. Like Wilco's masterpiece, this album finds a band that manages to apply traditional rock and pop concepts to a sub-genre of music to stretch an already considerable artistic bent into something visionary and moving.

Jets To Brazil is comprised of members of well known 90's punk bands, fronted by lead singer Blake Schwarzenbach, formerly of the revered Jawbreaker. Although the band has not abandoned crunchy guitar numbers, Schwarzenbach's keyboards, particularly his piano, often dominate the proceedings.

This is best exemplified on two numbers that are strongly reminiscent of classic Mott The Hoople - the pensive "In The Summer's When You Really Know" (which kinda has a Wilco vibe, too) and the finale "All Things Good And Nice". The latter number brings to mind Mott epics like "Hymn For The Dudes", the Jets replacing Mott's characteristic melodrama with a large dose of good cheer, as Schwarzenbach gives props to pretty much everyone in his life: "I love my drummer and all the things he plays/I wrote it in half-time just to say thanks."

This little pep talk is a soothing coda for an album that primarily focuses on busted relationships, personal fears, and alienation. "Milk And Apples" is a nifty punk-pop riff fest with a swell acoustic guitar bridge, detailing the woes of a guy trying to impress the girl behind the desk at the car repair shop: "crashing the car just to make a connection each week/greasing the palm of the grease monkey keep it discreet." The band channels the lost spirit of the Wonder Stuff on "You're Having The Time Of My Life", while The Jam seems to be somewhat of an inspiration for "Pale New Dawn".

The best of the failed romance tunes is the country tinged "Empty Picture Frame", where Schwarzenbach, whose gruff voice seems to mix Social Distortion's Mike Ness, Joe Strummer and a bit of David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven, laments the lover who just moved out: "so I got stoned/until I thought this house a home/but when I came down/I found myself alone." While Schwarzenbach sometimes dabbles in very opaque poetic flights of fancy, he is capable of cutting to the chase with the best of them.

In the midst of these personal relationship tales, "Mid-Day Anonymous" is one of the most powerful songs released in many a day - kind of an "I Don't Like Mondays" in reverse, it probes the mind of someone snapping and shooting into a crowd. Beyond the acuity of the lyrics, the song begins with a mournful organ, which segues into a shuffling rhythm and jangly guitars, seemingly mirroring the apparent normalcy of those who unexpectedly do terrible things. The song then explodes into the chorus, with the protagonist celebrating his role as "a savior with a scope/and a holster full of hope." This song is on par with the most dramatic moments of The Clash and The Who.

It should be clear that this is by no means a straightforward pop album - but it is a complex, living and breathing rock album that builds on great influences from the past. I think there's enough here for the pop fan who has a background in some of the artists I've used as bases of comparison to pick it up. I know it's the best album I've heard this year.

GRADE: A+

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Will Kimbrough
This

(Waxy Silver)
www.waxysilver.com

This solo record from the former leader of Will and the Bushmen finds Kimbrough plying a less purely pop sound, but not letting a more 'mature' approach and the slight rootsy touches get in the way of his ability to deliver smooth and soaring hooks. For all of his songwriting skill, Kimbrough's voice is the most compelling aspect of this disc. Kimbrough's voice is deceptively rangy, and at times reminds me of Neil Finn if: a) he had a bit of a drawl, and b) sounded a bit more like a regular Joe (drawl not necessary for this quality). His voice makes every song immediately interesting.

Of course, Kimbrough has the tunes to support the pipes. On splendid acoustic pop songs like "Closer To The Ground" and "Need You Now", his soaring voice is the vehicle that drives the choruses into that special area reserved for great hooks. On both these tunes, Kimbrough is to ebullience what Marshall Crenshaw is to wistfulness - joy just radiates from every note.

He is equally effective dialing it down. "Dream Away" could easily be mistaken for a lost Jeff Lynne/Roy Orbison collaboration, with the simple verses augmented by subtle synthesizers, slide guitar and a sweet violin, and a chorus that is pure swoon. Kim Richey's backing vocals are merely the icing on the cake (and Kim can be heard on a few other tracks on the album). "I'm On Your Side" will hit the spot for fans of Crowded House's work with Mitchell Froom - downbeat subject matter set to a slinky groove. And "Goodnight Moon" is a stunning ballad that deserves to become a standard - the directness of Hank Williams combined with a pretty melody of a classic 50's slow dance song - someone call Aaron Neville, quick!

Scanning the lyric sheet, there are a lot of people being missed, lives being broken, and folks just plain getting screwed. It is a credit to Kimbrough that the album avoids stridency or moroseness, as he manages to take some negative situations and make music that still has really affirmative qualities. This is the type of record that deserves massive airplay on Triple-A radio.

GRADE: A-

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The Great Crusades
Damaged Goods

Checkered Past
www.checkeredpast.com

Lead singer (and lyricist) Brian Krumm has a whopper of a voice, that has a worn, gritty sound that at times is nearly a dead ringer for Tom Waits. He also has more vocal range than Waits, but then again, who doesn't? What he chooses to do with his voice may be the key to how much you will like or loathe The Great Crusades. Whereas Waits tends to go the low-key route with his voice, rarely pushing things and letting its natural character do its stuff, Krumm tries to go one better, taking an approach similar to folks like Adam Durvitz of Counting Crows or Joe Cocker - pushing the voice to maximum intensity. There often seems to be two settings here - emotional and really fucking emotional.

The problems with this approach are twofold: 1) when you have a rumbly, greasy voice, trying to really belt out the tunes sometimes diminishes the greatest characteristic of the voice; and, 2) you really have to write songs that merit the drama and theatrics of the vocal performance.

Despite these potential pitfalls, this album succeeds more often than I expected. Some of the songs are pretty durned good, striking a balance between "Jersey Girl"-isms and the Jersey stylings of early Bruce Springsteen. And the band sounds spectacular. Two members deserve to be singled out - Brian Leach (Autoliner's leader) is an extremely sympathetic keyboardist, adding tremendous color to the proceedings, and Christian Moder is a spot on drummer, always keeping the songs from dragging. As a unit, The Great Crusades never try to match Krumm's dramatics, finding the right balance between urgency and restraint.

The group is shown in the best light on the fine trio of songs that open the disc, particularly the epic "Lucky", which has Krumm's most emotionally shredding peformance. The rocking "Now That I Recall" and the barroom Weill of "Liquor Park" are also highlights. But I found that although many of the individual tracks sounded good as I tracked through the disc, listening to all 13 songs at once was an exhausting experience. A little of Krumm and his colleagues goes a long way.

GRADE: B-

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E'Nuff Z'Nuff
10

Spitfire Records www.iit.edu/wszucent/ENUFFZNUFF.cgi

In the middle of "Your Heart's No Good", the song breaks down into The Donnie Vie Choir, wordlessly harmonizing, moving up the scale with each "ahhh" while a brief guitar solo plays underneath and the rest of the band just rides the groove - this is a melodic epiphany, the type of sequence that all pop fans live for, so exciting, they should sell a pack of cigarettes with every copy of the disc, so fans can unwind after the first 20 times they hear the song.

E'Nuff Z'Nuff hasn't chalked up such a perfect moment since their first single, "New Thing", and they haven't made an album this good since their debut. Always miscast as a hair metal band (though its their own damn fault) Vie and mainstay bassist Chip Z'Nuff have honed their Cheap Trick/John Lennon inspired hard rock to a very sharp point. A lot of pure pop fans who have avoided E'Nuff Z'Nuff might want to check this disc out.

The biggest surprise for those who have missed out on EZ is how some of the strongest cuts are acoustic-based: "Suicide" highlights E'Nuff Z'Nuff's strange facility at utilizing musical motifs derived from late-60's psychedelic rock, without sounding remotely psychedelic; and "All Right", which revisits the melody of "Make Believe" (from *1985*), but makes it even better. Hungering for some pop Trickery? "The Beast" and "Holiday" will satisfy the craving. And "Bang On" is just a nice ol' rockin' romp, appropriate for parties and rousing set closers.

In a couple of spots, the ghosts of E'Nuff Z'Nuff's arena past come to the fore. Both "Wake Up" (with verses strongly reminiscent of the Jackson 5's "I Am Love") and "What Can I Do?" seem to sell the sizzle as much as the steak, with perfunctory choruses (more *Standing On The Edge* than *Heaven Tonight*, if you get my drift). Still, even these songs sound much better than 95% of the new songs clogging AOR playlists today.

The band acquits itself nicely on solid covers of "Jean Genie" and "Everything Works If You Let It", the latter featuring Billy Corgan on guitar. These numbers are tacked on in a manner of bonus cuts, but might have been even more effective if they were sequenced in the midst of the other songs. So, not only do I recommend this disc, but suggest you hit the shuffle button and find a song combination that works best for you.

GRADE: B+

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