Dear You
JAWBREAKER
Blackball
Let's recap: Nearly a decade ago, in the wake of Green Day's Dookie breakthrough, beloved Northern California punk-pop act Jawbreaker signed to major label Geffen Records. A large percentage of their underground fanbase was scandalized, but it was generally perceived as a foregone conclusion on both sides of the indie/mainstream fence that Jawbreaker would be the next fringe band to go all Nevermind on young America's ass.
It never happened. Their Geffen debut, Dear You, tanked; hipper-than-thou former fans decried it as a slick, mid-tempo sellout, and Geffen, dismissing it as unmarketable, declined to lend the album more than the most cursory initial promotion. Frustrated, disillusioned and in debt, Jawbreaker dissolved. Dear You went out of print shortly thereafter.
In most cases, that would've been the end of that. But now, eight years later, Jawbreaker have many times more fans than they did while they were touring and recording. The band is regularly referred to as either the godfathers or instigators of emo. Their titles still in print continue to sell steadily. And up until it became well known that Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler was planning to re-release Dear You on his Blackball Records imprint, fans were paying absolutely sick prices for copies of it on eBay and at bootleg-friendly record shops.
Listening to the expanded reissue of Dear You, it's easy to hear why the disc fell through the cracks between audiences. It's a challenging, intense, disorienting work — especially when compared to something like Dookie's masterful three-chord simplicity — full of meandering arrangements, multiple stylistic personalities, and singer/guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach's lyrics, which shift from surreal wordplay to unsettlingly personal starkness at the drop of a chord change. For every overt hook or infectious chorus, there's a dark instrumental twist, a slightly out-of-tune guitar melody.
Dear You isn't a punk album at all. If anything, it's an ahead-of-its-time modern rock album that ably showcases three talented collaborators outgrowing the former limits of their abilities. Though there are several tunes ("I Love You So Much It's Killing Both of Us," "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault," and "Shirt" and "Boxcar" from the five newly included bonus tracks) that could ostensibly be called pop-punk, most of the record concerns itself with inventive alt-rock experimentation. A lot of it incorporates punk-influenced riffs and choruses, and all of it is much better than merely good, but songs like the marvelous pseudo-ballad "Accident Prone" and lengthy, deconstructive "Basilica" aren't even kidding themselves about inviting purists along for the ride. These are rock tunes — dynamic, layered and anthemic, but often too adventurous for the Alternative Nation of 1995.
And probably too edgy for the radio of 2004, as well. While no longer exactly futuristic, much of Dear You's more ambitious fare remains doggedly iconoclastic. It's a brilliant record, a truly maverick one, and if it doesn't deserve a spot on every rock fan's Desert Island Top Ten, it certainly demands a space in every rock fan's CD rack. 
1/2
—Scott Harrell
So-Called Chaos
ALANIS MORISETTE
Maverick
She's no longer the unkempt 21-year-old yelping threats into the 'phone, the girl who scared and turned on so many men in the mid '90s. Alanis is 30 now, with a perfect, toothy smile and softer mien. While her singing is shrill at times, it no longer pushes to the breaking point, the point that made her dangerous. So-Called Chaos works a similar formula, though: the confessional, often didactic lyrics bunched into crowded stanzas; the simmering verses and explosive choruses. If it all doesn't quite seem stale, it's at least anticlimactic. A few listens brings several of these songs to life, although none approaches the visceral sucker-punch of "You Oughta Know" or melodic exuberance of "All I Really Want." Alanis breaks the mold once, on "This Grudge," which sounds for all the world like a sequel to "You Oughta Know." Here she's conciliatory. "Maybe as I cut the cord, veils will lift from my eyes," she sings. "Maybe as I lay this to rest, dead weight off my shoulders will rise." The song stays tender; the chorus does not blow up with big guitars. Alanis has made a competent, listenable album that just doesn't get under the skin. 1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise
THE VANDERMARK 5
Atavistic
With apologies to all you jazzheads who've had the following cliche crammed down your throats for years, a renowned critic once dubbed jazz "the sound of surprise." Based on the title of his eighth V5 album, reedman Ken Vandermark apparently embraces the notion. And his penchant for surprise courses through the music as well. The Chicago-based Vandermark's unique genius is to artfully walk the line between avant-garde excess and listener accessibility. Yes, he willfully engages in over-the-top saxophonics — at times emitting the kind of cacophonous din that the untrained ear might dismiss as anti-music — but he balances this sonic anarchy with sturdy riffs, a feel for the blues, a rugged sense of swing and ace chops. On the frenetic neo-bop of "Telefon," he pushes his tenor into the squeak-squawk zone, but with such a canny sense of structure and rhythmic push that it does not come off as overindulgent. The first minute-and-half of "Strata" features a sax freakout that flirts with free rhythm, and then just like that the song dials down into perky swing and angular melody. For sheer exhilaration, there's the baritone solo on "Six of One," a brawny, heavily percussive excursion that deftly explores the low register. Vandermark surrounds himself with a crack unit of fellow travelers — bass, drums, trombone and another saxophonist. The addition of the second reed enables the quintet to thicken textures and fatten melodic snippets, upping the gutbucket quotient as needed. By now, it's obvious that Vandermark is capable of consistently delivering terrific albums, none better than when he's with his flagship group, the V5. (www.atavistic.com) 1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
Writer's Block
Evergreen Terrace
Eulogy
Covers albums are almost always a mixed bag of the inspired and the misguided. Even if most of the tracks are disposable, you can almost always find a couple of tunes that'll make you smile, if nothing else. Jacksonville screamo outfit Evergreen Terrace's cleverly titled collection is no different. There are a few songs here that elicit minimally positive responses — Michael Sembello's "Maniac," Hum's "Stars" and the hidden acoustic hair-metal medley — before the initial novelty wears off. But the rest of the album's a much tougher sell, largely because of the phlegmy, shrieked vocals that go so far toward defining the true style of the band (and about a hundred million others just like them). It's tough to tell where the band is sincerely paying homage to an influence and where it's being edgily ironic (a la Limp Bizkit's cover of George Michael's "Faith"). Either way, while the instrumental performances are solid, somewhere in there they're gonna let those unlistenable howls rip. And who wants to hear U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" delivered that way? Hell, for that matter, who wants to hear Smashing Pumpkins' "Zero" again at all?
—Scott Harrell
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2004.