Cracker's Gentleman's Blues

By Daniel McGarry

Lower than Garth Brooks would dare to go...

Maybe country music isn't the spawn of Satan after all. Or maybe nobody knows how to blend it into the larger whole better than Cracker. Certainly, Gentleman's Blues will not be confused for country. Instead, it carries on the fine Cracker tradition of soulful, meaty rock with a Fresno shadow.

Guitarist Johnny Hickman is part of the reason Cracker's fourth album takes such a noticeable detour inland. On the previous three albums combined, frontman David Lowery let Hickman write and sing only two of his own songs, which were easily the two most country-esque tunes in Cracker's repertoire. Most of Gentleman's Blues is co-written by Hickman, who gets three songs all to himself. One of those three, "Hold of Myself," has lyrics so country they approach parody: "Think it's time I got me a dog/ Last one I had got hit by a car/ It kept right on going/ And I took it real hard."

But the rest of the album stays the course. The first single, "The Good Life," is yet another perfect driving song in the vein of "Movie Star" and "Nostalgia." When Cracker leave the backroads, they make rock 'n' roll as solid and tuneful as any out there. If at times Hickman steers them dangerously close to country, never fear. In the most charged song, "Wedding Day," Hickman skips aching and breaking over his former lover, warning that "the Devil will send demons to fly around your wedding day." Cracker has friends in places lower than Garth Brooks would dare to go.

Uneasiness darkens Gentleman's Blues, lurking just below the surface. It finally shows itself in the album's closing track, "Cinderella," as perverse as it is infectious. Even this, however, breaks new ground for Lowery & Co.: it features a female lead vocalist for the first time. It's all in a days work for the only band to have opened for both The Grateful Dead and The Ramones--always playing the same Cracker Soul. (Virgin)

Back to A&E...