Everclear
The Vegas Years
2008, Back in the late 90's Everclear released a promo EP consisting entirely of covers. It was good stuff - The Stooges, Yaz, The Go Go's, Neil Young... And I guess I figured that The Vegas Years was basically an expanded official version of that EP. I was half right. So some of those songs appear here (sadly, no "Search And Destroy" and no "Walk Don't Run"). But the weird thing is - as Art has been wont to do these days - several of those tracks have been overdubbed to feature his new Everclear 2.0 band, which is kind of a slap in the face to Craig and Greg. Those original recordings were great how they were. Anyway, this is a covers album by the book for Everclear. And I do enjoy covers albums. But I don't know, a lot of it feels pretty stiff. "Rich Girl" works better than I'd have guessed. But "This Land Is Your Land" is pretty cringe worthy. And covering "American Girl" or "Brown Eyed Girl" feels borderline wedding band. On the other hand, covering theme songs to "Land Of The Lost" and "Speed Racer" is at least INTERESTING. And their live take on "Jenny" is at least rocking for a wedding band. Overall it's a fairly good idea for the band who were always happy to play covers. I just kind of wish that it focused on archiving the original history of the band's covers more, instead of trying to shape a new record out of those old recordings. The new version of Everclear plays it a little too safe, resulting in something that unfortunately does sound a bit too "Vegas-y" for my taste. It's not a horrible album, but I feel like it could have been much better.