Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 10/12/2004
In 2002,
Camper Van Beethoven reunited for a nationwide tour on what seemed like a whim, occasioned by a closet-cleaning belated issue of a song-by-song cover of
Fleetwood Mac's
Tusk, an album they'd recorded as a joke back in 1987. The tour must have gone really well, because unexpectedly, the full band -- the original lineup of
David Lowery on vocals and guitar, violinist
Jonathan Segel, guitarist
Greg Lisher, bassist
Victor Krummenacher, and drummer
Chris Pedersen, with alumni
Chris Molla and
Monks of Doom cohort
David Immerglück pitching in -- trooped into the studio to record an all new album that, surprisingly enough, stands with the group's finest work. A loosely connected semi-
rock opera telling the story of a Texas teenager who joins the military after a 9/11-like event, becomes disillusioned, and joins an anti-government militia, this is the most explicitly political record of
Camper Van Beethoven's career, resurrecting and amplifying the themes that colored the band's last two albums,
Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and
Key Lime Pie. While some of
Lowery's trademark surrealist jokes and hilarious one-liners factor into these songs, there's an undeniable darkness to the album, both lyrically (the story seems to end with the ex-soldier becoming a suicide bomber) and musically. The band's usual forays into faux-
ethnic instrumentals,
country, and
psychedelia are less lighthearted than before, but their tour-sharpened chops are intact, making this the tightest, best-sounding album of their career. In particular, the sardonically folky
"Militia Song," the deep-
psych swirl of
"I Hate This Part of Texas," and
"Come Out," which is built upon
Steve Reich's 1966
tape-loop piece of the same title, show the group's effortless eclecticism, and the bitter
"Might Makes Right" and the
Twin Peaks-quoting
"That Gum You Like Is Back in Style" are as good as any songs
Camper Van Beethoven did in the '80s. Like their fellow
college rock stars
Mission of Burma and
Antietam did earlier in 2004,
Camper Van Beethoven have pulled off the difficult trick of not only reuniting, but picking up exactly where they had left off.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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