by Jason Ankeny
Put simply, Everclear is AMC's masterpiece. Benefitting immensely from
improved production values, the album crystallizes the band's often erratic
vision into a unified, endlessly complex whole. While the arrangements
are typically diffuse -- "Crabwalk" is shambling rockabilly,
"Royal Cafe" is sweet country-pop, and "Rise" is anthemic
alterna-rock -- there is a consistency of tone and a sense of place which
runs through these songs that is absent from the band's other records.
Similarly, Mark Eitzel's compositions achieve an uncommon emotional balance,
never once slipping into pathos or melodrama; the atmospheric "Miracle
on 8th Street" and "The Confidential Agent" offer cinema-verite
evocations of relationships at the breaking point, while the brute force
of alcoholic laments like "Sick of Food" or the funereal "Why
Won't You Stay" is staggering -- never before or since has this loser
been quite so beautiful.
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