Any band that kicks off its major-label debut album with a barrage of drums and still rings up platinum sales is blessed with guts, talent and luck. On their 1994 breakout record, When I Woke, the Pittsburgh-bred sextet Rusted Root made joyous, jamming music without the pop contouring of other roots rockers such as Blues Traveler or Dave Matthews Band. Remember is a worthy follow-up, with a harder feel and richer, more ambitious tonal coloration. But Rusted Root's visceral folk-rock eclecticism has gone to the band's head. The result is a stew of spiritually stoked musical explorations that too often suffer from self-consciousness. Where the loose limbed, celebratory attack of When
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I Woke delightfully recalled the late-period Talking Heads – with acoustic grooves and greater improvisational depth –
Remember is notably labored and a lot more straight-faced.
Ironically, the Heads' Jerry Harrison produced Remember, and his influence seems to have pushed Rusted Root toward open song forms and greater rhythmic and textural shifts. That's all very interesting but often excessive, especially the singing of frontman Michael Glabicki, whose vocals have grown distractingly mannered. Glabicki's idiosyncratic style of chant-singing is all over the map, veering from a Robert Plant-like plaint to the titter of Tiny Tim.
Glabicki is reined in nicely whenever Liz Berlin's ethereal, charming backup vocals cut through the dense mix. The two singers bring an easy chemistry to the Grateful Dead-cum-gospel shuffle of "Heaven" and the tensely focused melody of "Faith I Do Believe." And the group's songcraft really shines on "Sister Contine," an affecting plea for redemption. But Remember could have used more leavening and less pathos. (RS 749)
MATT DAMSKER
