AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB
Love Songs for Patriots (Merge)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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For American Music Club, Love Songs for Patriots marks a return after a 10 year hiatus from recording, reformed and recorded at Closer Recording Studios in San Francisco. Enjoyment of this, or any other American Music Club recording, is largely a matter of how one feels about Mark Eitzel as singer/songwriter and general muse, a forceful presence who spent much of that hiatus as a solo performer. He tends toward the drunken and the melodramatic; self-indulgent almost to a fault, he is one part crooner and another Darby Crash. Consequently, he is viewed as one of the more enigmatic performers in the pantheon of modern rock and Eitzel isn't one to waver from his brusque emotional tones, something he does here on the admirable "Patriot's Heart," a sort of veiled slaying of wartime idealism. It is that dark tone however, that often alienates his storyteller and in turn, quells the effort of American Music Club to create a truly haunting appeal. The songs on Love Songs for Patriots are no exception: they feel like Eitzel songs, only equipped with new, old backing and name appeal.

Of course that might be a selling point for American Music Club and a lightning rod for their prodigal return into the arms of their cultish following. By no means a bad record, Love Songs for Patriots trumps a number of cards in this hand of rock recordings, but alas isn't of a high enough suit to clean up at the table.

© 2004 - Erick Mertz