Melon's new album fights to keep rock flavor

New front man Travis Warren brings back the '90s — sort of.

By Lindsay Eanet

Published April 22, 2008

It's hard to talk about the '90s without a sense of blissful nostalgia these days.

And what wasn't to love? We had economic prosperity. We had the golden age of MTV. Shit, we had "The Adventures of Pete & Pete!"

And now most of the flagship rock bands of the '90s are gone: Kurt Cobain's dead, Eddie Vedder's lost his relevance, Perry Farrell has turned into the viciously self-promoting mastermind behind Lollapalooza, Oasis is only touring in, like, Canada and the Foo Fighters have lost the edge and humor that made them so fun.

The last of these bands that anyone ever expected to make a comeback was Blind Melon. They had this fantastic pop single, "No Rain," and two excellent, critically acclaimed jam-rock-by-way-of-grunge albums. And then front man Shannon Hoon overdosed on cocaine, and the band fell apart.

But apparently, they're back and touring now with a new front man, Travis Warren, who sounds an awful lot like Hoon when he tries, and a new album, "For My Friends." The efforts here even tend to sound like outtakes from the "deep cuts" section of their first self-titled album. The opening track "Wishing Well," even contains the line "We'll be there when you wake," a direct throwback to "No Rain."

And it's a faithful reproduction: the first half or so of the album rocks just as hard as anything that came out in '94. Warren's powerhouse vocals and the well-muscled wah-wah guitar jams move "Wishing Well" along, ending on a "la dee dah" refrain that echoes the original easygoing Blind Melon aesthetic pretty well. "Down on the Pharmacy" has plenty of catchiness and jam-rock sensibility with killer vocals and impressive harmonies to boot.

The title track reflects a moody, nostalgic turn for the band, but the tight riffs and coming-of-age-story lyrics make it easy for today's modern rock audience to connect to the sound, proving the band can still be relevant.

Warren's howling, yelping and epic endurance in his vocal performances recalls Hoon during the band's heyday. He's a decent replacement front man but sometimes an inconsistent one. Something about his voice feels manufactured, lacking the earnestness and slacker charm that made Hoon so distinctive.

When the band lapses into straight-up alternative territory, leading to a pretty stiff second half, exemplified on "Make A Difference," he is far more Chad Kroeger than Shannon Hoon, a sad, generic turn for a band that in the '90s was ahead of its time.

But that's not to say the entire second half of the album is a generic, stiff disappointment. The light at the end of the album comes in the form of the bonus track, "Cheetum St.," the band's only acoustic offering on "For My Friends." Employing simple plucking and slide guitar and a bluesy, barefoot aura, the song is evidence that the band might have its groove back, that Blind Melon is still capable of making music like they used to.

As a reunited group, the band is already facing the potential pitfall of losing their roots-rock flavor and trading it in for latter-day alt-rock. In order to succeed, they will have to stay fresh and relevant and keep finding ways to do so, even without Hoon. A few standout tracks here prove there is hope for them yet. We might not get "Pete & Pete" back for a while, and we might not have the same, wonderful Blind Melon we knew and loved, but dammit, at least they're trying.