The members of Cracker, on this one, totally yielded to their love of music from the 1970's "album oriented radio" scene. Indeed, the country-influenced licks, bits of "lay down and die blue" and Southern rock are all over the place here.

How's that different from any of the other Cracker discs? I mean, wasn't the band always bordering on being a throwback to the 1970's? Yes, but it sacrificed completely to it's urge to sound like bad Foghat or .38 Special on this disc. Gone are those high-energy songs that were off-kilter enough to be cool. Instead, Cracker put together a sprawling album that wanders on for over 72 minutes with no real focus.

There are very few songs that stand out on this disc. Gone are the songs like "Eurotrash Girl," "I Hate My Generation," "Low," "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)," "Happy Birthday to Me," "I'm A Little Rocket Ship" or even "Don't F--- Me Up (With Peace and Love)." Those tunes, see, really gave a bit of character to the band and offered the listener something unusual and darn fun to listen to after a long day.

All of the pep and energy just sounds drained out of Cracker on this one. Sure, there are a couple of songs like "The World is Mine" and "I Want out of the Circus" that stand out, but the rest of the album is divided into two types of songs. Grinding, blues and/or country based rockers and just plain miserable, down-tempo blues numbers. One or two of those are fine, but the album is just packed with them, and it's easy to get lost on this album. Worse yet, it's so easy to get frustrated with the bland songs here that one might be tempted to shut the album off and set it aside for good. Alas, I'm afraid that happened often with this disc.

Now, the two songs I mentioned are pretty good. "The World is Mine" sounds like a song from the Cracker band that many of us love. David Lowery's husky voice is darn fine on this energetic, snotty tune. Johnny Hickman's guitar is sweeping and slashing here, too. This is about the only tune here which sounds like the band was interested while recording it.

"I Want Out of the Circus" is another fine one. With it's pulsing beat and a keyboard track that sounds like it was borrowed from the local merry-go-round, it just grabs your attention. "My Life is Totally Boring Without You" borders on being a good tune, but doesn't quite make it. "The Good Life" is a song that could have been good if the band hadn't recorded a few other songs like it before.

And, sadly, that's the case with the rest of the songs here. Like I said, it sounds like bad 70's rock at its worst and uninspired cover songs from that era at its worst. A lot of it, though, just sounds like the band has entered self-parody mode, which is a dangerous place for a band to exist. When bands run out of creative ideas, that's a sign that they might not be around for much longer. I hope that doesn't happen to Cracker.

After all, David Lowery was in Camper van Beethoven in the 1980's, and that band's trend-setting blend of punk, country, folk, weird stuff from the 60's and pop sensibilities made it one of the more creative bands around. Lowery brought a lot of those elements to Cracker, and I hope he hasn't sucked that well dry.

Well, I'll keep waiting to see what will happen next in the history of the band. Hopefully, they'll come out eventually with an album that sounds energetic and fresh again. Seeing how their latest one is a two-disc compilation entitled Garage d' Or and that means a new studio album hasn't been issued in three years, I wonder if there will be anything else from this band.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Going to Sleep