Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite CD, August 8, 2002
I own hundreds of CDs, but this is by far the best one. It's definitely the most emotional, sad, bittersweet, and depressingly beautiful album of all time, (the Cure's "Disintegration" close at it's heels.) Mark Eitzel is one of the greatest, most under-appreciated living songwriters. His music and lyrics are like none other. The "noise" on "Everclear" which another reviewer complains about is actually drawn out pedal steel and lap steel guitar notes that are of the utmost importance, as they often resolve or completely change Eitzel's gorgeous chords. The use of this technique makes "Miracle on 8th Street", "The Confidential Agent", "Sick of Food", "Why Won't You Stay", and "The Dead Part of You" my personal favorites. My only complaint is that "Crabwalk" doesn't fit in with the rest of the songs at all. This entire CD is produced perfectly, drenched in layers of reverb and delay (very appropriately.) There are so many great things I have to say about this album, but words don't really do it justice. I can't explain how beautiful it is.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Confessional Masterpiece, December 1, 2002
Mark Eitzel's voice ranks amongst the greats and his poetic writing is unique. It does often veer towards the desperate, the seedy and the hopeless on these American Music Club albums of the 1990s. There's much alcoholic despair but don't get the wrong impression; those may be the themes, but the atmosphere is dignified, infused with a vital touch by his stirring vocals and the understated virtuosity of the band.
Kicking off with a tender rock ballad, Why Won't You Stay, smoldering, with just the right amount of twanging guitar, the album proceeds into the rousing Rise with its escalating chorus a la U2 and then into the ghostly ambience of Miracle On 8th Street where the wonder turns out to be brandy turned into beer and the grievous Ex-Girlfriend that caps a catalogue of woes with the refrain "I guess you've got no one to take care of you."
The next wail of despair is carried on the up-tempo rhythmic sway of Crabwalk, a powerful riff with pedal steel guitar that climaxes in glorious dissonance, while The Confidential Agent is a spooky, atmospheric ballad that ill prepares you for the disturbing, even harrowing Sick Of Food or the intense rocker The Dead Part Of You with its lament "there's so little of you left." Phew! Hold on, only three more frames of the nightmare left. Those are the melodious Royal Café, a tremulous country song, the breathing space of the soft ballad What The Pillar Of Salt Held Up and the achingly sad Jesus' Hands where Eitzel moans "Hey brother, hey sister/Don't you see a crack form in the dam/For a loser, no one can touch him/He's slipping through Jesus' hands."
Everclear is like a musical expression of the work of the great confessional poets like John Berryman or Anne Sexton. Although the styles are different, this type of exquisite sorrow is also expressed in the work of a variety of other musicians. In mood, it reminds me of Nick Drake, while the exquisite melodies and elegant arrangements bring to mind Sufjan Stevens on e.g. Sister from the Seven Swans album. The obsession with Demon Drink is shared by another master of melancholia, ex-Swans leader Michael Gira now with Angels of Light. It's hard to decide which of California or Everclear is my favorite AMC album.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Emotive and Intelligent, December 1, 2003
This cd changed my musical horizons and brought me to a place where I could understand just what it's like to live life with your heart on your sleeve. Sometimes it's the pain of the past that drives you to drink.."Jesus' Hands"&"Ex-Girlfriend",(or just some serious introspection.) At times you are so in the moment that you are almost like a force of nature or juggernaut,"Rise." Then there's the occasional need to just hang out with the boys and have a few rounds. "Royal Cafe" It ought to be a primer for adulthood and all of the experiences that you will someday call life. Mark Eitzel is amazing performing live, and if you listen you'll hear sage advice via succinct descriptive lyrics and and incredibly emotive voice. The band really started to click on this disc and the new engineer added a wonderful feel to this recording. (He became a full time member of the band after this disc.) Yes, this is an incredibly atmosperic cd that oozes with emotion, exuberant at times, and then melancholic at others it is bottom line a seminal recording that should be in every serious music fans collection. Although Vudi,Bruce, and the boys had their differences with Mark I wish they wouldn't have split the band up. (Mark please consider just recording with them if you can't stand to tour with them anymore.) I personally love the confidential agent, Royal Cafe, Jesus Hands, Rise,... The Crabwalk took awhile to grow on me as it doesn't really seem to fit, but it shows there versatility so what the hey. Not bad for a Columbus OH native.
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