Everclear – Welcome to the Drama Club
Welcome to the Drama Club is the best album Everclear has released since they debuted on Capitol Records with the album Sparkle and Fade in 1995. That being said, you could make the argument that Welcome to the Drama Club isn’t technically an Everclear album at all, being that out of original members; Art Alexakis, Craig Montoya and Greg Ecklund…only Alexakis remains.
The new Everclear has gone from a Trio to a Quintet this time out, featuring Alexakis on vocals and guitar along with Sam Hudson on bass, Dave French on guitar, Brett Snyder on drums and Josh Crawley on keyboards. After the release of their fifth studio album, Slow Motion Daydream, and a greatest hits album, Ten Years Gone, Everclear the Trio went their separate ways, with Montoya and Ecklund forming their own solo projects, Tri-Polar and The Oohlas respectively, and Alexakis deciding to recreate Everclear. The new lineup and a less than happy recent past for Alexakis seem to have put a spark back into Everclear that was sadly missing in recent years.
Since Sparkle and Fade hit in the mid nineties, with songs like Santa Monica and Heroin Girl, Alexakis seemed to have found his comfort zone melodically. While giving his songs a trademark Everclear sound, it also had the tendency to make several Everclear songs sound the same. On Welcome to the Drama Club however, the Everclear sound is still there, but the songs as a whole are full of energy, anger, angst and hope which give them the feeling of not having been heard before. The album sounds fresh, not rehashed and while the topics of divorce, addiction, financial ruin and even love have been covered several times before by Alexakis, the events that made up his recent years seem to have energized him as a writer and given him something more to say.
Sonically, Welcome to the Drama Club is crisp; not over produced as some of the band’s recent outings have been. The addition of a second guitar and keyboards do a remarkable job in helping to shape the sound of Welcome to the Drama Club into something that is both familiar and fresh. Josh Crawley’s keyboard work is the most noticeable new color in the Everclear palate, lending a funky vibe to some songs while expanding the sonic base of the album as a whole.
Change is tough. Change is also unavoidable. We don’t like change; we all have our comfort zone. We get used to things, they way they are and the way they make us feel. Sometimes though, you just have to jump…and once you do, you realize that change really isn’t all that bad. There’s new life in change and Welcome to the Drama Club is a perfect example of that.
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