Catching Luna live this past Saturday night at the gilded basketball gym that is San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, I found myself contemplating the band's meandering history and its latest release, The Days of Our Nights. In the context of Beulah's inspired opening set, Luna's Dean Wareham is easily pegged as a progenitor of '90s indie rock. His seminal band Galaxie 500 set the table in the late '80s, updating the Velvet Underground's rhythm guitar- based rock and serving as a reference point for the explosion of indie bands that would crowd the coming decade. Just as it's hard to imagine Galaxie 500 or Luna without the Velvets, imagining Beulah without Wareham's work is equally as difficult.
Upon first hearing the news that Wareham had left Galaxie 500 to team with the Feelies' drummer, Stanley Demenski, I remember thinking it was a good idea. And largely, it's been one. With Luna, Wareham has produced a consistent if not earth- shattering catalog in the '90s, never quite matching the surreal jamming and energetic brilliance of their first effort, 1992's Lunapark, but never quite embarrassing himself, either. Somewhere between 1995's Penthouse and 1997's Pup Tent (which also marked Demenski's departure) the band shifted to a warmer, more sultry sound-- a trend not entirely abandoned on The Days of Our Nights, and most evident on the album's opener, "Dear Diary."
Heard amidst favorites from throughout the band's career (unlike many long- lived recording artists, Wareham seems neither in denial nor ashamed of his past), the songs off the new album blend nicely. "Superfreaky Memories" is this album's "Bobby Peru," an instant pop gem, while "Four Thousand Days" and "Seven Steps to Satan" both mark a return to the band's more instrumental, Velvets roots. That the album so effectively captures the band's sound is to its detriment, though, as the songs lack some innovation and surprise. Where Pup Tent seemed a step up for the band, Days is another Penthouse- ish respite. "The Slow Song" is another creepy foreign language affair, while their cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine," comes off disappointingly similar to what one imagines it to be.
There's a story to this album, too-- one that will likely taint most consideration of it. Dropped by Elektra just before the album's scheduled release earlier this year, the band and album sat in limbo through the summer and early fall until Luna hooked up with Jericho Records. Thus, The Days of Our Nights carries with it the added weight of anticipation and the aura of transition sparked by a label change. Considered correctly, however, outside this context (after all, the change was not made on an artistic basis), the album is the estimable follow- up to Pup Tent, and neither ground- breaking or transitional. Yep, it's a Luna album, alright. But as we've come to expect, it isn't half bad at all.
