THE GOOD AND THE BAD

CREEPER LAGOON'S TAKE BACK THE UNIVERSE: Creeper Lagoon’s press release starts off by telling us how “crazy” and “wild” the members of this excruciatingly bland quartet of San Francisco wuss-rockers are. After a “mind-expanding” romp of mushrooms, booze and illicit narcotics early last year, the band supposedly put together their best album to date, Take Back the Universe (And Give Me Yesterday). If by best they mean the worst goddamn urinal cake of an album you’ll ever hear, I would whole-heartedly agree. For a band that was voted Best New Artist of 1998 by the readers of Spin, it is truly amazing that Creeper Lagoon could put out an album that is so uniformly blasé and devoid of any standout songs. The opening ditty, “Chance of a Lifetime”, is the kind of pseudo-sappy arena drivel that sounds as if it were written expressly as background alt-music for a lovesick cheerleader in a WB teen drama. The rest of this album, which contains vomit-inducing titles like “She Loves Me Not” and “Lover’s Leap,” spews out enough by-the-number party tunes and sensitive-guy platitudes to make the Goo Goo Dolls look like deep, lyrical geniuses. Do yourself a favor and leave this one on the store shelf.
HOPEWELL'S THE CURVED GLASS: The Curved Glass, New York-based Hopewell’s second album, traverses space-rock soundscapes in the vein of Radiohead and neatly encapsulates the “wall-of-guitar” sound found on your average Built To Spill or Flaming Lips record. It’s as if their goal was to create a giant rock cocktail, with the whole tasting better than the sum of its ingredients. For the most part they succeed. “There is Something/There is Nothing” floats in on ambient guitar hooks and winsome vocals. Just as the psychedelia starts to ebb away, the song re-emerges and leaves you awash in layers of churning guitar and froth. The better songs on the album, including the Pink Floyd-tinged “Moonman” and the dirge-like closer “The Fish”, capitalize on a similar formula. At times, the obvious influence of other bands threatens to bundle Hopewell into the hordes of derivative musicians. Thankfully, however, they manage to make the varied sounds all their own. Their recent Bernie’s performance was more urgent than their studio album indicates. The band tore through their set with true rock star intensity, even turning an incident with a broken string into a guitar-free jam. If they keep up their current pace, Hopewell will find themselves free of the indentured servitude of three-dollar gigs and on their way to the big time.