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Band’s staying power forever clear

Everclear has always been one of those bands that is tragically better than their ill-conceived ’90s contemporaries, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be associated with greatness. Frontman Art Alexis has a way of pumping out catchy tunes that show he isn’t afraid to remember grunge’s heyday, and Everclear has recorded quite a few hits because of it. And yet, between “I Will Buy You a New Life” (1997) and “Learning How to Smile” (2000), they recorded many songs that were too OK to either criticize or admire. Everclear’s new collection of covers, The Vegas Years, is dominated — somewhat entertainingly — by just such songs.

The yuppie-friendly rockers aren’t new to covers, scoring popularity with their renditions of Thin Lizzy’s enthusiastic “The Boys are Back in Town” and Van Morrison’s romance anthem “Brown Eyed Girl.” On The Vegas Years, an almost absurd number of pop-culture staples are reinterpreted, ranging in style from the Americana of Tom Petty to the surprising “This Land is Your Land.”

Maybe the idea of Everclear covering an arsenal of radio singles and cultural icons sounds intriguing, but the band takes a disappointingly homogenous approach to just about every track on the disc. Most are major-scale, four-by-four constructions that require some dynamic changes to be exciting when put together as a collection. However, Alexis fails to do so, instead belting out every number in his quintessential style over fervent pop-rock backing.

It’s not as if anybody listening to an Everclear covers record is going to be overly critical anyway, but when the first stuttering guitar riffs of “American Girl” come out of those speakers, listeners are going to expect either the hit they’ve come to love or something drastically different. Sadly, the effect is neither, and that middle-ground approach is a pattern repeated with nearly every song.

Thankfully, the source material for these songs is just too good to result in covers that are anything less than bearable. Both “Boys” and “Brown Eyed Girl” make predictably likable appearances, and the latter includes some audience participation that effectively plays off Everclear’s energetic fan base. Although the ’80s staple “867-5309 (Jenny)” may be a bit too saccharine for many, it still plays jovially as a sing-along live recording.

Other oddball additions also shine. Roy Acuff’s “Night Train to Memphis” is one of the few tracks on The Vegas Years that feels reinvented, and the Everclear versions of the “Speed Racer” and “Land of the Lost” themes are so smile-inducing they make the latter half of the album worthwhile all on its own.

Everclear may not prove their chops on this album, but they do challenge anyone who thinks mediocrity can’t be listenable. Hearing songs by Tom Petty, The Go-Gos, Neil Young and Hall & Oats on the same disc is always welcome, and Everclear’s distinctive pop-rock sound is a nice way to tie all those artists together. Although these covers may not be the kind of stunning reinventions Jeff Buckley and Gary Jules created, they do make for the best kind of karaoke album: familiar, fun and colloquial.

 

2 1/2  stars out of 5