New ‘Rule 62’ Brings Back Rock Guitar

Electronica is in, and rockers have been trip-hopping all over themselves lately to get with the groove and avoid being tagged as that oh-so-passe creature, the guitar band. Given the plodding, predictable nature of too much mid-’90s guitar rock, you can see their point. So perhaps the best news about Rule 62’s new album is that it gives rock lovers good reason to play air-guitar again.

The record’s ear-pleasing secret is its ambitious and varied sonic architecture. The guitar tandem of Brian Coakley and Jon Goodell isn’t selling Jeff Beck-like virtuosity, but with the help of a scintillating production job by Ron Saint-Germain, they make rock guitars flow like a shifting current charged with possibility. “Rule 62” begins with a feint toward conventional rock wisdom; the opening track, “Maybe I Will,” is dense and heavy, and the catchy “Drown” is a straightforward punk-pop anthem.

But then the textures and hues start changing, overlapping and turning the album into a ride on a now-roaring, now-rippling tide created with fuzz effects, E-bow synthesizers, string-scraping percussiveness or acoustic jangling--anything to keep the sound-scape fresh and alluring. Rule 62 isn’t stretching the boundaries. The enticing intro to “Someone That You Know” echoes Collective Soul; the bounce in “Zero” could have been borrowed from “Santa Monica,” by Everclear; “Cow” has some of the Church’s complex moodiness; the bluesy ballad “Believed” calls to mind the Ten Years After chestnut “I’d Love to Change the World.” If this is theft, though, it’s in the service of a worthy cause--making the rock guitar interesting again.

Coakley’s songs are far more than vehicles for craftily arrayed guitars. What strikes a listener first, even before the guitar sounds, are his excellent melodic hooks and dramatic but not overdone singing. His voice, leathery and dark, is like a post-grunge heir to the likes of Eric Burdon and the Smithereens’ Pat DiNizio.

Coakley’s anguish is palpable in songs that bear sad witness to the needle and the damage done; other tracks blasting such perceived societal failings as TV enslavement, heedless greed and nature-despoiling piggishness hammer away with just enough sour humor and tuneful lift to avoid sounding self-righteous.

Coakley says the idea for the album cover, with its bovine vision, came to him in the shower. Although Bart Simpson should never be contradicted lightly, we wouldn’t want any rock fans to miss out on the pleasures of “Rule 62.” Do have a cow.