CRACKER
Greenland
Cooking Vinyl/True North
· When their old label was going to put out a retrospective that excluded the band from the profits, Cracker retaliated by releasing Greatest Hits Redux – new versions of old songs – and told fans to boycott the other version.
Cracker are best when they deliver easygoing roots rockers or kick out the jam on explosive barnburners. While Greenland offers both extremes, the band’s eighth studio record doesn’t deliver like its best records. It’s stacked with great guests (including Whiskeytown’s Caitlin Carey and Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous) and you’d be hard pressed to find a self-loathing ballad as endearing as the leadoff track "Something You Ain’t Got." It’s when the album veers into territory usually reserved for Built to Spill, The Who or Kid Rock that Greenland goes off the rails. Gargantuan guitar solos and studio trickery are no match for front man David Lowery’s fantastic vocabulary and Cracker’s southern-fried tendencies. Still, there is a reason Cracker are around while all their MTV buzz-bin contemporaries are long gone – they are great songwriters. Greenland is a grower, not a shower.
3/5
(last week it was only) 2/5
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