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 The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
Having
lived through such fare as “Everybody Hurts” and the Icarus-bound
attempts to become the American U2, it’s easy to forget what
a mysterious and interesting band R.E.M. were in their
nascent years. It was a group of strange contrasts: Peter
Buck’s earthy, guy-around-town demeanor cutting against Michael
Stipe’s cipher-like personality—with his ultra-serious, art-
student pose, cupie-bow lips, and shoulder length curls. As
a singer and lyricist, Stipe muttered esoteric platitudes
through gravelly pipes, Mike Mills’ sunny counter-cries coming
off like a clarion call. Underpinning it all was beetle-browed
drummer Bill Berry, who seemed like a downhome Georgia boy,
a real, ballsy rock drummer in the wrong band.
There was a tinge of Southern-gothic strangeness, something
Americana (but not quite) about R.E.M. There was something
kinda-sorta like the Byrds in Peter Buck’s hamfisted but just-right
Rickenbacker arpeggios. And beneath all the jangle-pop charm
lay stirring emotional resonance. Then there were the words.
If you could decipher Stipe’s lyrics at all, they flooded
your ear like cryptograms. Reckoning (1984), the
band’s second album, came at you in its opening moments with:
“They crowded up to Lenin with their noses worn off/A handshake
is worthy if it’s all that you’ve got/Metal shivs on wood
push through our back/There’s a splinter in your eye and it
reads ‘re-act’” (from “Harborcoat”). It was clear though that
the words had been laid carefully, stone by stone.
 More
so than its wonderfully murky and arcane antecedent, Murmur,
Reckoning was an album about propulsion, about displaying
the drive the band possessed live. But hampering the LP all
of these years has been the tinny sound, which this deluxe
reissue makes right. Pitchfork gave this rerelease
a grade of 10 out of 10, and I imagine it is that cataclysmic
if you’re a Twittering indie-rock fashionista who spends all
day listening to Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio; otherwise,
a more levelheaded perspective recognizes it as a slab of
greatness on the way to the unremitting power of Lifes
Rich Pageant (1986) and Document (1987).
But the remastering gives it a new kick, infusing the burner
“Pretty Persuasion” with the burst its always needed, and
casting the burnished tones of “So. Central Rain” and “(Don’t
Go Back to) Rockville” in richer light. The extras are interesting
if not essential: a strapping 1984 concert from Chicago, the
most interesting aspect of which is the inclusion of the tracks
“Driver 8” and “Hyena,” which wouldn’t end up on record until
1985 and 1986 (respectively).
If this reissue pushes my nostalgia buttons because it reminds
me of what R.E.M. used to sound like, Dinosaur Jr.’s
new effort, Farm, sends me back to halcyon days because
they haven’t changed the template at all. And on paper it’s
not supposed to work: a cloudburst of guitar scrum with J
Mascis’ voice creaking like a hinge through the songs, interrupted
only by Mascis’ frequent, pealing forays into guitar-hero
wankery. But it does work.
 Back
in 1989, Mascis had unceremoniously expelled bassist-songwriter
(and eventual Sebadoh and Folk Implosion wunderkind) Lou Barlow
from the group, but in 2005 the originals reconvened. 2007’s
Beyond was terrific, and this is too—mostly because
of Mascis’ downright soulfulness. Yes, soul; that’s
what makes this stormy, dense alt-rock work. It’s there in
Mascis’ wobbly but meaningful vocal delivery and in the way
he squeezes every ounce out of his Fender Jazzmaster, jettisoning
between roiling distortion walls and pointed, poker-hot leads
and solos. The melodic burst of the opener “Pieces” is already
classic Dinosaur Jr., but then Mascis lights off on a bright,
skipping solo that takes it to exhilarating heights.
On the nearly eight-minute slow burner, “Said the People,”
Mascis really displays the “soul” thing I’ve been talking
about, with his most felt vocal ever on record and titanic
solos that just keep cresting from emotional rise to emotional
rise. I’m sorry: Did Wilco release an album recently? I must
have missed it while listening to Farm—album of the
year.
Young South Carolina singer-songwriter Trevor Hall
has released a fine album as well (out July 28th on Vanguard).
He sings in a groovy Jamaican-patois but somehow steers clear
of the Jack Johnson-like blandness that afflicts so many of
his ilk. Listening to his self-titled LP, which is fraught
with themes of peace and cultural acceptance, I am reminded
of artists such as Dave Wakeling (English Beat, General Public)
and Peter Gabriel, artists who have blurred, blended, and
ultimately dissolved musical color barriers on the way to
crafting great pop songs. It’s no accident that this album’s
great single “Unity” is a cowrite and performance with Hasidic
Jewish reggae-rap-singer Matisyahu. The LP also has a grandiose,
full production bed that showcases the pop-rock elements that
reside in Hall’s muse, as evidenced by the powerful U2-like
bombast of “Volume.”
 Our
final album, Grand Duchy’s Petits Fours, returns
me a bit to the nostalgia trip, as it’s a collaboration between
Pixies leader Frank Black and his wife, Violet Clark. (Clark
has previously appeared on a couple of Black’s solo albums.)
Here, Clark shares vocal duties with her more famous husband,
and her influence brings aboard more synthesizers and electronic
touches than Black would typically ever get near. All in all,
though, the effort falls flat. The more grungy, rocking “Come
On Over to My House” reminds me a bit of Toadies’ 1994 alt-hit
“Possum Kingdom” (which, well, borrowed from the Pixies, so
I don’t know what to do with that), while the throbby, electronica
bed of “Ermesinde” simply doesn’t work with Black’s vocal
approach. Clark adds a real Kim Deal-like give-and-take to
the proceedings at times, but it just makes you pine for the
real thing, while her Europop-isms simply seem way out of
place.
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