perfidy

When Jack White teamed up with Loretta Lynn last year for Lynn's (don't call it a) comeback record Van Lear Rose many critics - including me - rushed to hail the return of rock to country and country to rock. While I still maintain that Van Lear Rose is a very fine record that picks up where Gram Parsons and Sticky Fingers left off, I have to admit to engaging in a certain amount of revisionism in my review. Rock and country never really broke up in the first place.

Country-tinged rock has always been there on the margins, if you knew where to look. Even in the skinny-tie 1980s, Green on Red were tie-dying their Nudie suits, and through the 1990s Neil Young was releasing now-classic albums like Freedom, Ragged Glory (which led off with a track called "Country Home''), Harvest Moon, and the double-live Weld. The Jayhawks have been making harmony-drenched roots rock since the days of Def Leppard. And most notably (from a rock snob perspective), the No Depression scene of the early 1990s fostered the careers of bands like country punks Uncle Tupelo and that band’s descendents Wilco and Son Volt. While Uncle Tupelo veteran Jeff Tweedy drove Wilco away from rootsy rock into arty and critically acclaimed experiments, his bandmate Jay Farrar chose to tow the country-crunch line in Son Volt.

Best known for their 1995 college-radio hit "Drown," Son Volt released three albums of guitar-driven roots rock (what would now be dubbed "Americana") between 1995-1998 and then went on semi-permanent hiatus. (There is a new Son Volt album out this year, but Farrar is the only original band member remaining.) Anchored by Farrar's reedy voice and his concisely stated guitar lines, 1995's Trace (Warner Bros.) didn't so much depart from Uncle Tupelo's sound as much as bear down on the rough parts. Subsequent albums, 1997's Straightaways and 1998's Wide Swing Tremolo (both also on Warner Bros.) introduced jangly midtempo alt-rock into the mix to (what some say were) diminishing results.

For a band with only three full-length albums under its belt, Son Volt have cast a long shadow. Although now perceived as Megadeth to Wilco's Metallica, the slightly ragged, plaintive sound they pioneered is now classic, and echoes can today be heard in every third track on Adult Alternative radio. Thus, the time is right for Son Volt - A Retrospective:1995-2000, just released on Rhino.

It is a little puzzling as to who Retrospective was intended to please. Although the compilation starts out strongly with four excellent selections from Trace and a worthy bonus song and proceeds chronologically from there, this otherwise logical scheme inadvertently points out Son Volt's weaknesses as much as plays to the band's strengths. Thus, the running order risks turning off newcomers. On the other hand, Rhino chose to make fully half the selections an odds-and-sods mix of EP, soundtrack, and unreleased offerings, suggesting that this collection is aimed at diehard fans. The trouble is that diehard Son Volt fans (I know a few) are the type most likely to have already hunted down promo EPs and bought the soundtrack to the 1996 grungesploitation flick "Feeling Minnesota" just for the one Son Volt song.

So, what are those strengths and weaknesses that emerge? And are the unreleased bits worth it? Well, first things first. Jay Farrar is a heck of a songwriter, with a strong sense of structure and melody. The guitar work in particular walks the line between Marshall crunch and country twang. The band display an admirable sense of epic restraint that keeps them from spiraling off into eight minute Jay Mascis jams, as if Neil Young (circa Zuma and Bruce Springsteen (circa The River) were writing songs for Nashville. On the quieter numbers, Farrar’s country side generally turns his introspective and melancholy lyrics into universal laments, which is the hallmark for all good country ballads.

However, these same tendencies get the band in trouble. The same restraint that keeps the hooks hooky and the songs short leads the band to try the same tricks repeatedly with the result that their style doesn’t seem to evolve as much as flatten from one era to the next. Though excellent songs appear from all three albums, Farrar over time seems to succumb to the dreaded Mid-Tempo Syndrome where every song stays timidly in a neat little box. That's not to say that Jay Farrar doesn't have a singular and beautiful way with those pretty country gems: on the contrary, he does. But a collection of such songs back to back to back would be as interesting as tan wallpaper no matter how good any single song might be.

The running order ultimately saves Retrospective from petering out too quickly. For example, although track nine, a previously unreleased acoustic cover of Woody Guthrie's "I've Got To Know," is okay, if it were sitting between the mild midtempo of "Back Into Your World" and the downcast "Creosote" (both from Straightaways), even the most dedicated fan would be fast asleep. Since this is the point at which the disc seems to enter its second act, it’s important that this not happen. Luckily, the compilers keep the energy up by puttin the excellent (and loud) "Picking Up The Signal" from Straightaways between "World" and the Guthrie song. Similarly, wonderful gems like "Windfall," "Rex' Blues" (a compilation track with Kelly Willis) and "Tulsa County" gain by being paired with the more uptempo "Drown," "Route," and "Straightface." This dynamic holds through the first two-thirds of Retrospective.

Still, for listeners unconvinced of the genius of Gram Parsons, the band's quieter moments finally threaten to bog things down in a somber haze that intelligent programming can’t fix. This tendency is especially pronounced in the disc’s third act. The last ten tracks alternate between selections from Wide Swing Tremolo and various unreleased and rare tracks. Unfortunately, the selections from Tremolo smear together into a slightly bland mess of REM-ish pleasantness, and the sketchy and diffuse bonus cuts don't help matters. A desultory Lead Belly cover ("Ain't No More Cane") slouches by between two moody album cuts, and by the time we reach the mournful cover of "Holocaust" from Big Star’s glorious wreck of an album, Third/Sister Lovers, Retrospective feels more like a funeral than a party.

The compilation closes out with a few demos, a live track, and a cover of Springsteen's "Open All Night," from Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. The band's performance on the Springsteen song underlines what bothers about the whole second half of the disc. Although Farrar does his best Springsteen impression and the band keep pace with pleasant and tasteful noises, the song ends up feeling a bit listless and empty, like an unfinished throwaway.

Although Son Volt - A Retrospective:1995-2000 is a worthwhile introduction to the band’s career, it remains trapped between its twin obligations to the newcomers and the dedicated. The first half is uncommonly strong (and on its own worth the price of admission) but by the end Son Volt come across not as ahead-of-their-time Americana visionaries but as a band hemmed in by their influences who didn't risk a grand display if a modest gesture would get them by.

(This post also appears on blogcritics.org, which you should be reading daily.)