X”Hey Zeus!” Big Life / Mercury* *...

X

“Hey Zeus!”

Big Life / Mercury

* * *

X’s first four albums chronicled the energy and anxiety of life in Los Angeles in the early ‘80s as artfully as the Doors and the Eagles documented earlier eras. If X didn’t reach as wide an audience, it’s largely because the quartet’s music--a masterful mix of super-charged punk instincts and roots-rock heritage--was too radical to command mainstream airplay during that conservative pop-rock age.

By the late ‘80s, some of the urgency disappeared from X’s music and the group called it quits--an act as sensible and as brave as the Clash’s break-up. With alternative rock a much more viable commercial force today, it’s fitting that the band regroup for a second shot at that wider audience.

And X still has much to tell us. John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s best songs here--including “Country at War” and “Into the Wind”--speak about private desires and misplaced values with the insight and passion of the group’s most commanding past moments.

The music, however, doesn’t always keep pace. While there are flashes of X’s old intoxicating rhythm, many of the arrangements seem undernourished. Even if not as trailblazing as before, however, X’s music remains honest, liberating and welcome.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).