Exploring Familiar Terrain and Emotional Themes

While assorted Orange County modern-rock talents break through to national success--or at least get a good shot via deals with established labels--Jon Melkerson, maybe the most talented O.C. alternative rocker of all, can still be found working behind the counter of a pawnshop in Anaheim.

Melkerson is a quiet man who lacks the showmanship and self-promotional instincts of a born star. He makes up for it as a gifted rock triple-threat who can impress as a singer, songwriter and guitarist.

Lunar Rover is a new vehicle for Melkerson, but it covers the same stylistic terrain as his two previous bands, Eggplant and Eli Riddle. The earlier bands featured solid players whom Melkerson has known since high school; his capable Lunar Rover associates are new: guitarist Dan Lawrence (who produced this self-financed album on a $1,000 budget), bassist Mickey Zolezio and drummer Rob Jacobs.

There is nary a song, riff or guitar solo here that can’t be traced in a straight line back to Melkerson’s three great influences: Television, Neil Young and the Velvet Underground. But if the styles and structures are familiar, the songs don’t sound like rehash. Vividly, they carry themes and feelings that are his own.

The philosophically inclined Melkerson always has written aphoristic songs about keeping one’s sanity and motivation in a limiting world seemingly designed to frustrate hopes and ambitions. “Lunar Rover” is his most wounded album; confession isn’t Melkerson’s style, but raw nerves from his short-lived marriage two years ago wind through these nine songs (plus a 10th track that’s an experimental home recording).

Suffering has fed art: The “Eli Riddle” album, from 1994, found the reticent Melkerson gaining confidence as a singer, but the strong emotions of “Lunar Rover” have compelled performances that shatter any reserve. He sings what he feels, without histrionics, but with urgency, bite and undisguised yearning.

Melkerson hits his emotional low on the atmospheric dirge “Eighty-Seven Hours,” in which his desolate vocal gives way to a deeply expressive, sob-from-the-chest guitar solo.

I’m the quietest man in the world,

Eighty-seven hours since I said a word.

I’m stuck on a bridge about to burn,

With nothing to give, so nothing’s returned.

But the second half of “Lunar Rover” points toward recovery. “Downstream” has the charging, inexorable surge of prime Television; while Melkerson sings about what it’s like to be beaten down emotionally, the band’s determined performance and its leader’s fiery guitar soloing are all about resiliency and guts. Melkerson turns the act of assessing deadening defeat into an energized triumph.

“God Knows” is a winning, Velvets-style ballad, all warmth and caressing comfort. “Curry Favor” finds Melkerson contemplating new leaps into the unknown, aware that he might drown but hopeful he can swim. The closing “Guiding Light,” in which he is joined by his old Eggplant/Eli Riddle mates, John Kelly and Dave Tabone, is a beseeching and affirming Neil Young-style country-rock song that envisions lasting friendship and connection.

Clocking in under 40 minutes, “Lunar Rover” is one of the rare CD-era albums that leaves a listener hungry for more. Given all its tremendous bursts of guitarist talent set against kinetic marching beats and exciting, well-crafted riff architecture, one especially craves an extended, Television-style epic guitar-rock excursion that never does come.

Even if Melkerson remains in a pawnshop job and a routine of pauper’s-budget record-making and low billings in the local dives, “Lunar Rover,” his fourth richly rewarding album in seven years, is full of proof that he travels in a very high creative orbit.

(Available from Vital Music, 409 Utica, Suite 41D, Huntington Beach, Calif. 92648)

Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.