Seven years ago - has it been that long? - everyone was a fan of Live. "Selling the Drama" and "I, Alone" were radio hits, the band played MTV's "Unplugged," its videos were in heavy rotation, and Live had what has become an eternally 90s classic in "Lightning Crashes."
The only negative side effect of Live's success is that everything the York, PA-bred rock band has done since the early 90s has been unfairly compared to the group's stellar sophomore album, Throwing Copper.
What the ever-fickle pop-music gods have done is relegate Live to that category of once-messianic 90s rockers who seem to have "lost" their edge and profundity amidst the apocalyptic music landscape of Limp Bizkits, N*Stinks, and Destiny's Children. That the last record they released, 1999's The Distance to Here, went relatively unnoticed and under-appreciated is a travesty. (If you haven't heard it, go buy it, it's worth ten times what you'll pay for it at a used CD store.)
Throughout its 12-year existence, Live has made solid, innovative music. Guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer, and drummer Chad Gracy are fundamentally sound, which is better than many popular bands can say; lead singer Ed Kowalczyk's lyrics have been unendingly influenced by Eastern philosophies and an almost religious belief in love as salvation. But his undeniable talent lies in complementing his band's music with the perfect vocal melody.
Enter V, Live's latest effort, one that seems to suggest a slightly different direction for the band. Their "maturation" album was Distance. This, their fifth (hence the title), is their "growth" album. There's the good old-fashioned, guitar-driven rock that Live has always been so skilled at; there are heartfelt slow songs; there are tracks that have a certain Middle-Eastern and/or Indian flair; there's even an almost hip-hop tinge to the way Kowalczyk delivers some of his lyrics. A lot of the things that Live tries to do in this album work fantastically. Others do not. But the band's willingness to put it all out there, whether you like it or not, is entirely commendable.
V opens with a half-minute "Intro," something not normally heard on a rock album. The practice of sprinkling an album with thematic interludes and intros is usually a convention found in rap and hip-hop albums, which may be why English experimental hip-hop and funk artist Tricky was recruited to lend his vocals to V (he shows up again in the opening song).
That track leads into the cathartic guitar chords of "Simple Creed," a song propelled by the band's enthusiasm: the guitar and drums are loud, the bass is taut, and the lyrics are at once thoughtful and aggressive - Kowalczyk's signature. It's in the best tradition of former Live hits "I, Alone" and "The Dolphin's Cry." The song also reflects a return to a toned-down sort of funkiness that was present on their first album, Mental Jewelry.
That same quality comes through in the rest of the album, most notably in "Like a Soldier" and "Deep Enough"(a far superior remix of the latter is included as a bonus track). It seems as if Kowalczyk has finally gotten over his angst and doesn't feel the need to discuss enlightenment the way he once did. He is having much more fun here, teasing, partying, and loving - every track on V deals with one form of that love or another.
One form is friendship - in addition to Tricky's appearance, the group convinced longtime friend Adam Duritz of Counting Crows to lend his voice to "Flow." The song demonstrates a nice little trick Live has picked up - shifting tempo in a song several times and never having it come off as disjointed or forced.
What do seem forced are some of the slower songs. A lot of pop-rock bands have made it onto commercial radio with these kinds of mellow, "pretty" songs. But save one, they are all old hat, shadows of their forebears; when "Nobody Knows" dissolves into ethereal whistling, you begin to hope that it ends soon. The one exception is "Overcome," an absolutely amazing song and easily among the most moving Kowalczyk has ever written (the rest of the band and their instruments are absent from the track).
Although the good songs on this album overshadow and help you forget the handful of mediocre ones, the fact remains that they are there, and that takes away from the full effect of the album. So, while V isn't as complete an album as it could've been, it still offers a great variety of solid rock songs that will give you hope that heartfelt rock will be back to the forefront soon.
