How Does Your Garden Grow

08/25/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bill Holdship

Some of us probably doubted that Better Than Ezra would ever get to make a third album for a major label, let alone one this fine.

Although the trio formed--and now resides--in New Orleans, Better Than Ezra was signed out of Los Angeles, and this reviewer certainly remembers them, slugging it out with literally hundreds of other bands on the sleazy Sunset Strip, playing the Coconut Teaszer and dives throughout Hollywood. Truthfully, when the band was signed, it really seemed to be a lucky fluke. Their major-label debut LP featured the now-familiar radio staple, "Good," which sounded about as good as radio-friendly New Wave pop ever got in the '70s and early '80s. But that certainly didn't prepare listeners for the growth the band demonstrated on this third LP.

BTE (or, namely, singer-songwriter Kevin Griffin) seems comfortable enough these days to reclaim their New Orleans roots--the album was recorded at the band's new studio, right smack-dab in the middle of the Crescent City's Lower Garden District, hence the title--although listeners shouldn't be expecting "Iko, Iko" or the latest Cajun tunes. And yet, in classic New Orleans tradition, the band explores interesting rhythms and new instruments within a pop mode, while there's a laid-back spirit throughout that could only come from Louisiana. "Je Ne M'en Souviens Pas" opens the album with an appropriate, keyboard-fueled mystical feel, before kicking into a pretty cool white-boy rap, bursting with neat sound effects and harmoniums all over the place. "One More Murder" could be about any major American city--but New Orleans has been at the top of the murder capitol list for years now, and the Ezra boys have turned the whole tragic notion into a haunting, memorable tune. In fact, the first four tracks here, culminating with the immediately sing-alongable pop-rock tune, "Like It Like That" are as fine as anything you'll hear this year. From hypnotic mood pieces to latter-day Costello-esque folk-pop, the music on Better Than Ezra's third album is way better than their best work to date. Who'd've ever thunk it?