[Review] Cracker: Gentleman’s Blues (1998)
Rock and roll dipped in brown liquor and wrapped in barbed wire.
Kronomyth 4.0: Good rock, ye merry gentlemen.
This is the fourth Cracker album and, by now, I’ve stopped comparing them to Camper Van Beethoven. That train has left the station and it isn’t coming back. What this does compare favorably to is their last album, The Golden Age. With David Lowery and Johnny Hickman as the creative forces in the band, the material lives or dies by Lowery’s voice and Hickman’s lead guitar. Fortunately, a hot lick or clever lyric is almost always close at hand on Gentleman’s Blues. The music of Cracker is, I believe, an acquired taste. The melodies and structures are meat and potatoes, a stew of old and new. But then there’s that liberal left hand holding a hot sauce bottle over the whole thing, and it dawns on you that the two cooks in the kitchen might be aiming for a little indigestion. That’s where the “barbed wire” comment comes in. As much as your lizard brain wants to embrace the familiar blues-rock melodies at face value, your monkey brain senses that they might be holding a knife behind their back. It’s in the lyrical wordplay, where Lowery throws his knives into the starmaker machinery on The Good Life, Star, Seven Days and The World Is Mine. What else to expect from a band that pours their heart into making good music and barely scrapes the Top 200 in return? And then there are the usual tricks: hidden tracks (Cinderella), the phone numbers of famous people. Cranky until the bitter end, this Cracker. I haven’t heard a post-CvB album from any member that isn’t worth owning. Okay, maybe Breakfast on the Beach of Deception is unusual even by their liberal standards. It struck me though how Cracker and Lowery’s ex-bandmates had parted ways just to arrive at the same place. In fact, a few tracks on here (e.g., the ghost-like James River) sound a lot like the solo music of Victor Krummenacher. The aging punk icons from the 80s (Pixies, Husker Du, Replacements, CvB) enjoyed a long if not exactly lucrative curtain call in the 90s, and I say bully for them—with the caveat that bullies thrive when the world is too weary to fight them.
Original CD version
A1. The Good Life (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A2. Seven Days (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A3. Star (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A4. James River (David Lowery)
A5. My Life Is Totally Boring Without You (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman/Bob Rupe)
A6. Been Around the World (David Lowery)
A7. The World Is Mine (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A8. Lullabye (David Lowery)
A9. Waiting for You Girl (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A10. Trials & Tribulations (Johnny Hickman)
A11. Wild One (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman/Bob Rupe)
A12. Hold of Myself (Johnny Hickman)
A13. Gentleman’s Blues (David Lowery/Johnny Hickman)
A14. I Want Out of the Circus (David Lowery)
A15. Wedding Day (Johnny Hickman)
A16. Hallelujah (David Lowery)
A17: (hidden track) Cinderella (David Lowery)
The Players
Johnny Hickman (lead guitar, vocals), David Lowery (vocals, guitar), Bob Rupe (bass, vocals) with Charlie Drayton (drums), Frank Funaro (drums), Steve Jordan (drums), LP (lead vocals on “Cinderella”). Produced by David Lowery; engineered by John Morand, Rich Hasal & Mike Snyder; mixed by Don Smith. Or produced, engineered and mixed by Don Smith, depending on whether you want to believe the inlay or the back cover.
The Plastic
Released on compact disc and cassette on August 25, 1998 in the US (Virgin, 46263-2/4). Reached #182 on the US charts.
- Re-issued on 180g vinyl 2LP in 2025 in the Netherlands (Music on Vinyl, MOVLP3815) with booklet.
