Who knew Elliot Easton could sing? Or even warble? I certainly didn’t think he would be the first non-Ocasek Car out of the garage with a solo album.
Co-written with Jules Shear, I’ll say this for it, it tries. The entire MO seems to be to let Easton out of his shackles. And, it almost works on that front. He’s downright blistering on “Wearing Down Like a Wheel” a song that couldn’t fit anywhere in the Cars’ catalog but is better than a goodly portion of their output, at least on the 3rd and 4th albums.
This is generic Power Pop. But that’s what it is. In the tradition of Raspberries & Bay City Rollers & The Andersons…just without the songs.
Side Two is where the shit hits the needle and you start to wish you’d never heard this. But, you can’t unhear the faux R&B, white boy soul and semi-rap of “I Want You”. Which sounds like the Theme to Sanford & Son if written and recorded by Dee Dee Ramone.
But the album tries to right itself with the Country Rock, “The Hard Way”, a song that suffers from mediocre lyrics & bad singing but has an easy, truck down the highway, big country sound, but is ultimately a failure.
The record fumbles around but finds it’s energy towards the end. “Change” is a rocker, the kind we hope would come from the fingers of the legendary southpaw axeman.
Grade: C
ASide: Wearing Down Like a Wheel, Wide Awake
BlindSide: Tools of Your Labor, Help Me, Change
DownSide: I Want You
