Aquaphiles Go Blub, Blub, Blub
Live, the pride and joy of York, Pa., emerge this week with a brand new
album, The Distance to Here, which doesn't sound markedly different
from their previous three.
This is good news for fans of Live's earnest strain of arena rock, but
will also provide no shortage of fodder for the detractors who find their
music overblown and their faux-spiritual lyrics self-important and drippy.
In other words, whatever your opinion of Live is, this new record is
unlikely to alter it.
Following the commercial disappointment of Secret Samadhi (1997),
the band returns to the formula that made 1994's Throwing Copper
a blockbuster — a steady diet of blustery anthems and big, fat ballads
for the masses.
The album packs few surprises — and isn't meant to.
Aquatically obsessed lead singer/songwriter Ed Kowalczyk is on familiar
terrain here. Just as one of the band's first hits was called "Pain Lies
on the Riverside," almost all the songs here seem to have something to
do with flowing like a river or being cleansed by a river ("Run to the
Water" [RealAudio
excerpt], "Where Fishes Go," "Feel the Quiet River Rage") or, of course,
listening to dolphins crying (the first single, "The Dolphin's Cry"
excerpt]).
There's a big fish on the cover, as well.
"Voodoo Lady" [RealAudio
excerpt] (not to be confused with the Ween song of the same name
— Live are the anti-Ween) contains the line, "Water wasn't my style,"
but by the time we hear this, we already know it's not true.
The criticism that most consistently dogs Live — and the one this
disc will do nothing to deter — is not the band's thematic simplicity
but rather its humorless self-importance. In fact, Kowalczyk makes a
somewhat clever reference to his dour image in "Voodoo Lady," but the
song is so overblown that any winking humor is lost: "Relax, Ed," a voice
counsels in the background. He doesn't. U2 used to have this same
complex until they went the other direction and became so self-deprecating
you actually wished Bono would just shut up or start preaching about
human rights again.
The 13 songs on The Distance to Here range from agreeably midtempo
rockers complete with fist-pumping choruses to lush ballads designed for
maximum lighter waving ("Dance With You," "Run to the Water").
Jerry Harrison, who produced this album as well as Mental Jewelry
(1991) and Throwing Copper, used to be in Talking Heads, a band
as sly and understated as Live are lumbering and obvious; he gives the
songs the glossy commercial sheen they so deserve. (One can't help wondering
if it was the Heads' cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" that
brought the two camps together.)
To Live's credit, they have their populist, stadium-friendly style down
pat. So if you like your anthems loud and your subtlety nonexistent, this
album is for you.