POP MUSIC REVIEW : Blasters Tie the Knot--Again--With New Guitarist

When it comes to musical marriages, the Blasters have been about as lucky in love as Elizabeth Taylor. But like the undaunted bride who’s willing to give it yet one more try, the group is trotting back to the rock ‘n’ roll altar with new member Greg Hormel, the band’s fourth guitarist in three years.

Treated to an effusive reception Saturday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Hormel is following in three fairly respectable pairs of footsteps: songwriter-guitarist Dave Alvin, who quit in 1986 for solo pursuits and was replaced by local legend Hollywood Fats, who died shortly thereafter and was in turn replaced, ever so briefly, by former guitarist X-traordinaire Billy Zoom.

It’s as if, after a string of broken superstar marriages, Liz suddenly showed up at church with the mailman in tow. But Hormel’s persuasive, take-no-prisoners debut left no question that this is one postman who delivers--without having to ring twice.

In a familiar set drawn from the band’s four albums and rounded out with several choice oldies from the blues-rock-R&B; repertoire, Hormel first used his hollow-body Gibson to squeeze out b-i-g , thick chords that helped the Blasters’ all-American sound reverberate down to the soles of your shoes and into the floorboards.

Subsequently he alternated between the Gibson and a Fender Stratocaster for a stingy twang that provided caustic, visceral contrast. He’s every ounce the guitarist Dave Alvin was--but Alvin’s strength was always more in his pen than his pick. Hormel doesn’t have Hollywood Fats’ bottomless well of musical ideas and outwardly effortless technique. Who on the planet does? But his compact solos provided as much rootsy punch and zeal as anyone could ask for.

The real star of the post-Dave Alvin/Hollywood Fats/Billy Zoom Blasters, however, remains Phil Alvin’s pliant voice, which has the purity and power to remind anyone within earshot of the unfettered joy that made them fall in love with rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

Whether on the subtly haunting, solo introductory verse of “Dark Night,” the delicately phrased loner’s plea in “Help You Dream” or the all-stops-out push of “Marie Marie,” Alvin reaffirmed his status as one of the great proto-rock vocalists.

The next crucial step for the band will come later this summer when Phil is due to put on his songwriter’s hat and try to pick up where Dave left off with return performances in Los Angeles that will showcase new material.

For now, the Blasters have passed the first test--they’ve brought the new guy home to meet the family and everyone loves him. We’ll have to wait awhile to see whether this promising new union can muster the materials to build a musical home that they can call their own.

The opening set by the Ivan Neville Band picked up the family theme from another direction. The newest contribution from the first family of New Orleans R&B--he;’s the son of Aaron (“Tell It Like It Is”) Neville--Ivan may just strike the widespread commercial success that has generally eluded his famous dad and uncles.

Ivan, who could show Terence Trent D’Arby a thing or two about vocal passion, offered songs from his forthcoming major-label debut album that proved--in the finest Neville tradition--how harmoniously up-to-the-minute-sounding R&B; can coexist with the timeless soul of the blues.

Neville injected such intensity into “Falling Out of Love” that the lyric “Sometimes I feel like I’m running out of time” took on a scorching, other-worldly desperation. And in “Another Daze Gone By,” his smoldering, quivering vocal lent this eulogy to a broken romance the air of utter confusion and loss.

He may not have inherited his father’s creamy-smooth style, but Ivan need apologize to no one for a dark, husky voice that often dredges emotion up from the soul, by way of the heart.