Daring to isolate with its predilection for momentous bursts of keyboard-driven atmospherics, Grandaddy would rail against technology's sinister qualities. GRANDADDY, SUMDAY (V2) Grandaddy's batch of surrealistic rock was always more high concept and high art than rock 'n' roll. It's just one of the minor miracles found on Yours, Mine & Ours. Despite a presumably shoestring recording budget, his longtime producer-engineer Thom Monahan works his usual studio magic to cook up a wondrously lush sound for the album. Pernice quit Sub Pop Records in 1999 and now records for his own boutique label. "You were my life-sucking power monger," he sings sweetly. "Pine away for the Romeo trying to smash your heart into a thousand summers," he gently chides on Waiting for the Universe, and then asks, tongue firmly in cheek: "If I was the only one and you were the last alive, would we sit there like the amateurs and watch our days go by, waiting for the universe to die?"Īnd on the subdued album-closing Number Two, Pernice looks back on a toxic relationship with longing and a grim sense of irony. Pernice continues to distinguish himself with evocative wordsmithing. "Save you from the dreamy life, to the hardest love you could ever know," Pernice vows (warns?) on the latter song which, if there's any justice, will soon be blaring from car radios across the country. The results are no less affecting, whether on ballads of hushed intimacy such as Baby in Two or full-blown power pop as on the lead-off track, The Weakest Shade of Blue. On Yours, Mine & Ours, Pernice adds occasional musical nods to '80s indie-rock icons the Smiths, while ditching the sumptuous string arrangements that had embellished many of his past songs. Pernice's previous work reflected an array of influences as unlikely as they were diverse _ everything from Gram Parsons and Burt Bacharach to E.L.O., Bread and jangle-period R.E.M. Pernice's muse continues to inspire dazzling work on Yours, Mine & Ours, the highly anticipated followup to the Pernice Brothers' 2001 disc The World Won't End (Joe's older brother, Bob, is one of the band's guitarists). Pernice's talent commanded attention at every level _ lyrics brimming with emotion and unexpected jolts of humor, melodic hooks the size of skyscrapers and a quietly devastating voice echoing with the sound of distilled heartbreak. PERNICE BROTHERS, YOURS, MINE & OURS (ASHMONT) During a remarkable three-year stretch from May 1998 to June 2001, ex-Scud Mountain Boys frontman Joe Pernice released four instant-classic albums of ravishingly beautiful pop. Out of the Vein, the awaited followup to 1999's lackluster Blue, shows that Third Eye Blind has come and gone.
Some bands simply don't withstand the test of time and more than one CD.