Cracker matures but keeps spirit

Forever\nCracker\nBack Porch Records\n"God gave you life, so get outta mine," begins David Lowery on Forever's third song, "Don't Bring Us Down," "And take your sorry ass back to Florida." It is a moment so emblematic of all the crazy wit and idiosyncrasy that has run through Lowery's musical history that one might think that he or she were listening to something from the cannon of Lowery's former band, the heroic indie genre-hoppers, Camper Van Beethoven. But it's been a while since those days and still Cracker's core of Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman seems to have stood the test of time, wearing well with age. Ever since Cracker flooded the music buying public's consciousness in 1993 with its biggest hits "Low," "Eurotrash Girl" and "Get Off This," Lowery and Hickman have been on what seems to be a linear artistic progression, all culminating with Gentleman's Blues in 1998. That album showed Lowery slowing down the hyperkinetic wit and hitting a more mellow groove spiced with Hickman's ever-more-distinctive guitar sound in a genuine BYOB rock and roll chill-out. Forever continues along this path. \n"Brides of Neptune" opens the album, continuing the laid-back feel of its predecessor in a smooth toe-tapper augmented by background strings and Flaming Lips-like ambience. "Ain't That Strange" is a Southern-guitar-and-keyboard-flavored groove with gospel back-up vocals and down-home feel as if the band were performing right outside on the front porch. And later, "Sweet Magdalena of My Misfortune" chills it out even further with a stripped down lament, Lowery reminiscing about the lover who lies by him only in body not mind or heart.\nBut Cracker hasn't completely forgotten its quirky roots. Apart from "Don't Bring Us Down," there is "Merry Christmas Emily," a total jumpin' and jivin' tale of the singer and Emily, in which the singer remembers that "we had some good times drinking cheap wine and poppin' pills/Spending the holidays getting drunk at the Rusted Nail." And then there's "Shine," an upbeat song of encouragement, accented by liberally used female backup singers, sung to a girl who Lowery compares to both a Russian acrobat and Burt Bacharach in the same verse.\nNonetheless, Forever makes several things crystal clear. While Cracker is not as young as it used to be, Lowery and Hickman have evolved musically into a more mature band. Cracker has grown older and perhaps wiser, but all the while has held on to its youthful wit, energy and spirit. And that should last for some time.\n

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