A new album for a new decade

By: Curtis Sindrey –

After two unsuccessful outings, Slow Motion Daydream (2003) and Welcome to the Drama Club (2006), being dropped from Capitol (their home for five albums), and a disbandment of the original lineup, it seems that Everclear has been on a commercial success hiatus for the past few years, but the ‘90s alt-rockers are back with their eighth studio album Invisible Stars, their first release in six years, which is a collection of highly melodic and highly listenable tracks that we know them for.

The album’s lead single “Be Careful What You Ask For” effectively demonstrates the general tone of the rest of the album, a careful blend of the darkness and the light, with several tracks containing optimistic auras and others not so much.

One of Everclear’s obvious strengths is front man Art Alexakis’ ability to make nearly his entire lyrics sound confessional. From finding solitude from the rest of the world in “Volcano,” with the lyrics “like it here, in this quiet room, we can turn off all the trouble when we do what we do,” to new tunes like  “Santa Ana Wind,” which reflects the influence of Alexakis’ recent move to his native state of California, after two decades in Portland, Oregon, where he founded Everclear in 1992. “Living in L.A. feels like home in a brand new way,” croons Alexakis in “Santa Ana Wind.”

This is thealbum that should have been released at Everclear’s peak to help them avoid the musical entrapment that is the ’90s that some bands have endured. It would have been a colourful successor to Songs from an American Movie Vol. 2 (2000).

Alexakis does surpass the ‘90s nostalgia with the track “Jackie Robinson” which demands the listener’s attention with its attention to detail. It follows the story of Luther Jackson green, who saw Jackie Robinson play baseball on his 10^th birthday sometime around 1949, even though at the time Robinson was hated by racist white baseball fans, “you didn’t understand why those people were said such horrible things,” sang Alexakis. Then, “Luther Jackson Green went to law school in 1963. In the summer he worked in Alabama with Martin Luther King.” Finally, the song ends with Green watching the Obama’s victory in the 2008 election with Alexakis, “we put a black man in the White House, a thing he never thought he’d see,” Alexakis sings as the song fades out.

For Everclear purists, the album may not exactly live up to the band’s past triumphs ala So Much for the Afterglow, but with chugging guitars, bright snares and Alexakis’ fun, yet introspective lyrics, they’ve managed to take the best parts of the ‘90s and renewed it for a different decade.