*** Luna
PUP TENT
(Elektra)
With Galaxie 500 in the late '80s, Dean Wareham demonstrated a
tender fixation with the Velvet Underground that felt like the aural equivalent
of a dimly lit garden apartment. With Luna in the mid '90s, he expanded and
refined his obsession till it was fit for a penthouse. Fortifying his helpless
romanticism with sly humor and the band's gorgeous guitars with quick-stepping
rhythms, he led Luna on a string of CDs that rank among the most stylish, sexy,
and accessible guitar-rock efforts of the decade.
Now, the band have returned from a year's recording break with a new drummer
and oddly diminished inspiration. Over here, Wareham masks a generic tune by
blurring his vocals through a microphone embedded in a toy robot; over there,
he milks his standard lyrical format with goofy couplets. Still, spend some
time in these reduced quarters and soon enough you'll notice plenty of
beautiful views out the smaller windows, from the shifting tones of the
hard-rocking "IHOP" to the majestically wrought regret of the sweeping "Bobby
Peru." The group may have moved down a few floors, but they're still living
hundreds of feet above the ground.
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