EVERCLEAR
Welcome to the Drama Club
Eleven Seven
· Everclear is back with all new members – not like you’d know it.
With a new lineup, new label and a new album called Welcome to the Drama Club, you’d expect Everclear front man Art Alexakis to have some new ideas, right? Well, don’t let your optimism get the best of you. Alexakis sticks fiercely to what he knows on Everclear’s seventh (!) album.
If you’re familiar with Everclear, you’ll be ready for the power chords, those weird siren sounds in the background of just about every song, and Alexakis’s less than Shakespearian way with words, (from lead single "Hater" for example: "Sometimes I wish you would go away/ go away and never come back"). You also won’t be caught off guard by Alexakis’s bizarre production, slathering on layers and layers of vocals and guitar to the point where he would need about 40 people onstage with him to reproduce any of the songs live.
In fact, he’s only really picked up one new habit since 2003’s Slow Motion Daydream – really awkward use of street slang. Hearing him try to pull off the line "don’t even try to play me" is nothing less than hilarious.
OK, so Everclear isn’t the most inventive of modern rock bands, but there’s still something charming about the way Alexakis can transport you back to the mid-’90s with simple songs about hating his life and wishing he could disappear. Give them credit for knowing what they do and doing it well.
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