Album Reviews : Getting D/Railed, Fry’d and Rugburned

D/Railed and Ed Fry represent two generations of Orange County rock--D/Railed being one of the newer contenders on the county’s well-established alternative-rock scene, and Fry and his cohorts hailing from O.C.’s even more venerable ‘70s mainstream pop-rock movement. Also reviewed is a new CD from the Rugburns. Ratings range from **** (excellent) to * (poor). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

*** D/Railed, “D/Railed”

(no label)

Its name notwithstanding, this strong, versatile Orange County band could hardly be more on track with this striking debut CD.

D/Railed has everything one looks for in an emerging band: sterling sources, strong singing and musicianship (including a more-than-passing acquaintance with the vanishing art of backing harmony), a good ear for melody, and an individual point of view that’s applied to substantial themes. D/Railed also had the good sense to record at For the Record, the Orange studio where producer-engineers Eric Garten and Jim Monroe are making a cottage industry of lending splendid clarity and a muscular presence to local bands on a do-it-yourselfer’s budget.

To stretch a metaphor, D/Railed runs on two primary stylistic tracks: ‘60s-style garage-psychedelic rock; and a raw, chunky, roots-inflected rock approach akin to Cracker. The band adds a bit of its own spice by occasionally augmenting its basic guitar-bass-drums trio attack with two rockin’ trombones.

Among the psychedelic nuggets is “Electric Asian Angel,” an offbeat account of skulduggery in the heroin trade. “Peppermint Sun” (the title evokes Traffic in its lysergic phase) manages to be both trippy and brawny, while “Never Comin’ Down,” a sinister descent into a modern hell of greed and ecological mayhem, doubles biting lead guitar lines as it brings to mind the psychedelic glory days of Spirit and Cream.

As the album proceeds, the sunnier side of D/Railed’s disposition breaks through and the rough, rootsy style begins to dominate. The back-to-back pairing of “Californy,” an idyllic vision of the Golden State as a beautiful, harmonious Utopia, and “Never Comin’ Down,” a reflection of the same mythic landscape’s worst contemporary realities, encapsulates the album’s central thematic and stylistic tensions.

The band’s idealistic streak wins out, but not without putting its hopeful outlook through a reality check. The album’s closing song, “Where Do Ants Go?” is a Sugar-like slashing anthem that holds onto a wry bravado in the face of apocalyptic dangers.

Did we mention that the album includes a fervent, rocked-up romantic folk song in Portuguese? Is it clear that D/Railed isn’t just another new band on the block?

(Available from D/Railed, P.O. Box 1506, Sunset Beach, CA 90742-1506; (310) 592-2338.)

* D/Railed, the Ziggens and the Coltranes play Friday at Linda’s Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim. $5. (714) 533-1286. ** 1/2 , Ed Fry, “Stranger in Town”, Ziggy Records If your idea of audio hell is an hour spent in a time warp listening to a conservative album-rock station, circa 1984, consider yourself forewarned about Ed Fry’s debut CD.

While the idea doesn’t sound very appetizing in our alternative-leaning mid-’90s, Fry and his two main sidekicks, Laguna Beach studio veterans Steve Wood and Mike Hamilton, make the actuality of it consistently appealing.

Like a good, old-fashioned AOR station, Fry and crew keep the program perpetually catchy (these guys know more about hooks than your average fishing-derby champion), and they mix it up well stylistically.

On various tracks, at various moments, Fry recalls the likes of Steely Dan, the Eagles (the latter-day, post-country-rock edition), Dave Mason (the latter-day, late-’70s hit-making edition), Huey Lewis & the News, Hall & Oates, and even, on the bright rocker, “Ride My Dinosaur,” a bit of Van Halen in its “Jump”-y pop-anthem mode.

Setting aside a lapse or two, producer-multi-instrumentalist Wood, of Honk fame, arrays the tracks with plenty of attractive touches, making them lush and shiny, but not too busy and generally not too slick.

Guitarist Hamilton is a sharp session pro who dabs on diverse touches as the situation demands--from emotive David Lindley-style slide guitar bits to Eddie Van Halen curlicues and Steely Dan-like precision. Fry’s singing is also appealing--he usually sounds like a more cottony, less-astringent cousin to Donald Fagen.

“Stranger in Town” isn’t all about style and craft. In his songwriting, Fry at his best touches on relationship stresses and social tensions in ways that suggest a kinship between the forces tearing at our inner peace and those that have made society at large meaner.

He’s especially good on the two songs that frame the album. “Down to Nothing” opens on a bright, crisp rock-anthem note, but the music makes for an ironic contrast with the lyric’s plaintive portrait of a marriage unraveling. “Stranger’s Back Again,” the ominous closer, suggests that the worst demon stalking us is paranoia manufactured by our own suspicious minds.

The fetching “Erinn Jane” and the folksy “Share the Heartache” are first-class lovelorn ballads. If Fry could have stayed on this level throughout, he’d have really had something.

But “Don’t Say It’s Over” slips into stock breakup balladry, and the album could have done without its recycling of two lyrical scenarios borrowed from Police hits (“Stranger in Town” echoes “Every Breath You Take” and “Foolish Pretender” is a virtual remake of “Roxanne”).

Another flaw--again with inviting melodies and sharp playing as compensation--is the tendency of Fry’s more hopeful anthems, “One World” and “Ride My Dinosaur,” to sound a tad too much like chirpy pep talks.

If the spirit of 1984 isn’t dead, “Stranger in Town” could, with luck, find a substantial audience. But it suffers a little from the overstuffed spirit of the CD era, in which artists release hourlong albums padded with filler when they should have given their best 45 minutes and called it a wrap.

(Available from One World Productions, 26861 Trabuco Road, Suite E-158, Mission Viejo, CA 92691.)

* Ed Fry opens for Dr. John on March 2 at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $23.50. (714) 957-0600.

**, The Rugburns, “Mommy I’m Sorry”, Bizarre/Planet Up from San Diego come the Rugburns, a rock ‘n’ roll novelty act that has been trying to gain a foothold in O.C. clubs lately. The Rugburns sell the so-trendy notion that nihilistic and perverse entertainment must be cool simply because it is nihilistic and perverse.

After a folk- and country-influenced debut album last year, the Rugburns have upped the volume and jumped on the alternative-rock bandwagon. While thoroughly derivative, this six-song EP has some musical appeal.

“The Fairies Came” is a catchy and exuberant piece of aggressive guitar pop, which helps one overlook lyrics that want to seem cheeky and suggestive with their allusions to homoerotic encounters but are, in fact, just a bunch of pointless claptrap.

The best track, the jangly “Lockjaw,” is a poignant, Kinks-style ‘60s Brit-pop lament that’s subtler in its portrayal of an unrequited love that may be complicated by questions of sexual identity. A nonsense song--with an unprintable title--about Toronto has more such allusions; musically it steals from the New York Dolls and “Tent” by the Bonzo Dog Band, the excellent 1960s satiric British band that influenced Monty Python (those hungry for good rock satire and parody should turn immediately to Rhino’s best-of-Bonzos compilation).

The Rugburns lower themselves from innocuous dumb fun to reeking exploitation on “Dick’s Automotive” and “The Flood,” two tracks that wallow in the muck of warped, violent sexuality to no apparent purpose beyond pure sensationalism.

“Dick’s Automotive” rips off Patti Smith’s brilliant, galloping narrative, “Land,” to spin a grotesque 8 1/2-minute tale that’s like something out of “Natural Born Killers.”

“The Flood” is a dark, Alice Cooper-like rock ballad that follows a “Silence of the Lambs”-type hostage scenario. It could be defended as a metaphoric dissection of a sick, sadistically controlling personality. But with these guys, sickness and sadism seem to be the stuff not of incisive commentary, but of fun, games, and hey-ma-look-at-me-I’m-so-outrageously-naughty. They ought to be sorry.

Not to worry, though--the Rugburns figure to slip quickly into the same crevice that swallowed up the Dead Milkmen, Dread Zeppelin and many another rock novelty act that lacked the heart and conviction required for satire that counts.

* The Rugburns play March 3 at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim, (714) 533-1286; with Water on March 4 at the Foothill in Signal Hill, (310) 984-8349, and March 11 at the Heritage Brewing Co. in Dana Point, (714) 240-2060.