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BY RANDY SILVER |
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American Water The Silver Jews (Drag City) In the 1980s, there was hair metal, New-Wave pop and underground punk. Every yuppie on TV wanted to quit his advertising job and write the Great American Novel. Then came the '90s. Music flip-flopped: Now there was underground pop, hair punk and New-Wave metal. Every yuppie wanted her own start-up company. And a man named D.C. Berman wrote the Great American Novel. Well, sort of. Berman's novel comes in the form of the new Silver Jews album, American Water. It's a cross-country ride of a record, filled with the type of characters you'd normally find on the page. "I think it's in a tradition with certain writers," says Berman. "I can place [American Water] in with a lot of '80s fiction, like Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff. American lives, not necessarily spectacular people...trying to heighten the detail of what could be a normal life, trying to find magic in something as common as a glass of water or an ashtray." Berman also takes a turn as a late '90s Bret Easton Ellis on "We Are Real," singing, "We've been raised on replicas of fake and winding roads/And day after day on this beautiful stage/We've been playing tambourine for minimum wage." But he sings with such detachment that he sounds as if he's desperately trying to convince himself of the stanza's close: "But we are real, I know we are real." That confidence crisis is at the heart of the dichotomy that finally allows the Jews to step out of the shadow of another band, Pavement, whose Steve Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich are both sometime-members. Their presence has relegated the Jews to side-project status and led many to ignore Berman's own talents. The Jews' previous album, The Natural Bridge, was Pavement-free, though not by initial design. "[Malkmus] expresses a confidence in his guitar playing," Berman says. "The reason Steve couldn't be on The Natural Bridge was because those songs didn't have a space for that kind of confidence. They were too wounded. They didn't sound good when he played on it." Berman and Malkmus have it both ways on American Water. The album opens with Berman all a-swagger, singing, "In 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection." Later in the same song, he's wounded: "So if you don't want me I promise not to linger." But he tries for one last chance at revenge, sneering, "But before I go, I have to ask you about the tan line on your ring finger." Malkmus' melancholic lead guitar speaks up briefly, then surrenders to the horn section. "I write music that is fairly simple," says Berman, which, like most of his pronouncements, is true to a degree. On American Water the melodies are your basic post-country rock, but producer Nicolas Vernhes and the band have embellished the basic tracks, filling them out and bringing them to life. Coupled with Berman's lyrics, it's what makes the album such a breakthrough. Maybe he hasn't yet realized the step the Jews took on American Water, but it doesn't sound as if Berman's attitude towards songwriting has changed. "I think it's a compensation that I write [lyrics] so floridly," he says. "Perhaps if I was a much better musician, I would slack off a little bit on the writing, but I feel like I have to lift the bar a little. You do what you can do, and that's one thing I can do. I know I can do that."
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