So Much For The Afterglow - Everclear

...to write an opinion, and so here goes. Happy reading :o)

-=The Band=-
Everclear hail from Oregon in the US; and the band is made up as follows:
•Art Alexakis (lead vocals, guitar, keyboard, banjo, etc)
•Craig Montoya (vocals, mandolin, keyboard…)
•Greg Eklund (vocals, slide whistle, drums, keyboard etc)

So Much for the Afterglow is the follow up to their album Sparkle and Fade, and it was ...
...associating myself with that title, so we’ll loosely call them “rock”.

-=I better talk about the actual album then=-
The first song on the album is the title track (So Much for the Afterglow – just in case you weren’t keeping up). The song lulls you in a false sense of security by being really quite at the beginning, and is solely made up of Ahh, ahh, ahhh’s, Wee-eee-eee’s, and some vague humming. This goes on for about forty ... more

I was flicking through my CD collection today, in the hope of finding something that I had not listened to for a while – I came across Everclear’s “So Much for the Afterglow”. Whilst listening, I became inspired to write an opinion, and so here goes. Happy reading :o)

-=The Band=-
Everclear hail from Oregon in the US; and the band is made up as follows:
•Art Alexakis (lead vocals, guitar, keyboard, banjo, etc)
•Craig Montoya (vocals, mandolin, keyboard…)
•Greg Eklund (vocals, slide whistle, drums, keyboard etc)

So Much for the Afterglow is the follow up to their album Sparkle and Fade, and it was released back in 1997. The best way to describe their overall sound is grunge, but I don’t like associating myself with that title, so we’ll loosely call them “rock”.

-=I better talk about the actual album then=-
The first song on the album is the title track (So Much for the Afterglow – just in case you weren’t keeping up). The song lulls you in a false sense of security by being really quite at the beginning, and is solely made up of Ahh, ahh, ahhh’s, Wee-eee-eee’s, and some vague humming. This goes on for about forty seconds before there is a big burst of guitars and drums, and the lyrics “This is a song about Susan” come crashing out of the stereo! This song is really upbeat, and for the most part comes out of the speakers at about 100mph! When the song gets going I can’t help but want to dance/jump about like a thing possessed – if I try to stand still, I feel like I am literally forced to tap my toe. After a while the song starts to slow, before picking up again for the big finish and the lyrics “so much for the afterglow” being repeated over and over again. Excellent start to the album, leaves you wanting more, which is always a good thing. I *always* sing along to this song!

“Everything to Everyone” is the next song on the album, this time starting with keyboards (that remind me a siren, sort nee-norring), before the drums and guitars kick in. This song is slower than the last, but still fairly upbeat, and I love the lyrics:

“You know all the right people
You play the right games
You try to be everything to everyone…”

This song is definitely another toe tapper, and I think that the vocals sound like they have been dripped in honey. Delicious.

Between the last song and the next is a little “media intro”, but I won’t go into details about that! The next song is “Normal Like You”. I think that this song has teenage angst written all over it since it has lyrics like “I can be normal too/but I’ll never be normal like you”. This song is fairly similar pace to the last, but has a touch of keyboards in the background, to set it apart a little bit. You can definitely hear that some real effort is going to the instrument playing, and the vocals have real feeling in them.

Up next is “I Will Buy You a New Life”. This one starts a bit slower than the last two, and is generally quite slow throughout the entire song. The guitars are much quieter, and the drums only get louder from the chorus – there is a much greater focus on the vocals on this song;

“I will buy you a garden/where your flowers can bloom
I will buy you a new car/perfect shiny and new…”

To me, the change in emphasis points to the fact that they actually want you to listen to what they have to say in this song, and the lyrics are almost sarcastic, ie money can’t buy you a “new life”.

The next song is one that I didn’t appreciate straightaway, but I have grown to love it over the years. This song is “Father of Mine”. This time a bass guitar starts, and the vocals start at practically the same time. As usual, other guitars and drums come in quite quickly following the start of the song. This song is about an absent father, and the lyrics are really heartfelt, and the emotion is clear in the singing. However it is unclear whether he is singing about his own father or someone else’s – if it is someone else’s, then he has a good imagination/good empathy.

“Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away”

The music gets pretty loud before the first chorus (like he is getting angry), but it quietens down again before the chorus itself, like he is emotionally calmer again/calm before the storm. Maybe I am just reading too much into it.

*Anyway* the next song is “One Hit Wonder” – another quiet start, but this time with percussion, and I think my ear spies a tambourine, fairly soon after the guitars and drums fill the music out a bit, before completely taking over. This track is medium paced, and is fairly dull. The vocals are much quieter in this song, and I think that this is because the lyrics are less significant than previous songs. I think that this is one of the weaker songs on the album, and could easily be skipped.

El Distorto de Melodica is an instrumental number, so I won’t sit here and try and describe it. I find it pretty boring, so I usually skip it, was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. So that’s a bit of useless info for you.

The next song after that is “Amphetamine”, this is another one of those really upbeat tracks in a similar manner to “So much for the Afterglow”. The lyrics are fairly nonsensical, but the vocals are quite in comparison to the music, so you probably won’t be able to make them out anyway! In case you’re interested, some of the lyrics are:

“Just take your pill
And everything will be alright”

About 2/3rds of the way through the song the music really thins out and focuses on the vocals, and at first I didn’t think that this went with the rest of the song, but when I actually think about it, I guess it’s like the musical version of coming down off of a ‘high’, which would make sense since the song is called Amphetamine.

“White Men in Black Suits” is the next song, and it has a bit of a different feel to the last one. Guitar sticks tap together a couple of times to start the song, quickly followed by Morse code dots and dashes, when I first heard this song, I just thought that it was weird! This is a relatively slow number is filled with “Aye, aye, aye’s”. I didn’t like this song much at first, but it is another one that has grown on me, although it still is one of the duller tracks on the album. Skippable.

“Sunflowers” is next. This one is more upbeat than the last, but still only medium paced. This song is made up of the now familiar drums and guitar sound, and is very “samey” the whole way through, and the only thing that really stands out from the song is the lyric “Sunflowers in Europe”. Fairly boring (in comparison to the rest of the album; it would be better situated on a weaker album, where it would probably stand out more).

After that minor disappointment is “Why I Don’t Believe in God”. This is another song with a percussion beginning, as well as a bit of a shake and tap from the tambourine. The thing that most stands out from this song is the banjo – I keep having visions of an old man sitting on a porch out in the Midwest smoking a pipe (strange imagination me). The vocals sound *really* American in places, and although the lyrics point to personal experience again, I personally find this song quite boring! Sometimes I listen to the whole thing, and sometimes I don’t.

Last song now – “Like a California King”. This song goes back to their formula guitars and drums. This is another medium paced, and the way the guitars are played gives the song a really downbeat feel. The honey dripped vocals raise their head again.

“What makes you think you’re special?”

Now that’s a million dollar question, and my answer is simply being me. Slightly poor end to the album…. But wait….

There’s a bonus track! It has a Christmassy sort of beginning, before a drumbeat slowly builds, and the words “Thank you for the Christmas Card” jumps in. Upbeat, and harks back to the feel of the beginning of the album. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I wish they had made it a main track on the album!

Okay, so then it is really over, and what do I think? Overall I think that this is a strong album, although I think it gets weaker towards the end – I have had this album since 1997 when it came out, and I have continued to listen to it in the approximate 6 years of ownership, which points to the fact that it has staying power/continued enjoyment. I couldn’t say that for any of my *cough* Take That albums, or any of the other pop pap that I own. I would bet that I will still be listening to this in another six years – not every day, or even every week, but when I need a chance to have a good jump around/sing-a-long etc, I will be whacking this into my stereo.

7/10
 

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