3 out of 5

Label: Pitch-a-Tent

Produced by: Camper Van Beethoven

There’s greatness somewhere in CVB’s 2004 ‘return’ (post a couple of warm-up oddities), but it gets muddled by a long-winded narrative and an unclear musical approach.  The latter could be joked off as a result of the group’s home-brewed mix of folk / ska / rock / ragga / etc., but that arrives intact, and tight as ever; instead, it’s more that the group doesn’t quite come across as so assured as they once did, falling back into habits that sound like repeats of albums past, or crossing over into something more fitting for lead David Lowery’s other main band, Cracker.

New Roman Times backing story, though interesting, gets a little lost without the foot-notes found inside the CD; the album is easier approached as a 9/11 reaction, one that’s critical of governmental glad-handing and war-mongering.  While these are more directly political themes than Lowery tends to deal with, they certainly fall within his smartman slacker wheelhouse of poking at our various human failings, and New Roman Times features plenty of his crooked, dumb smile lyricisms.  When it works, it packs a punch; when it becomes a bit too self-aware, CVB start sounding like old-man rockers, trying to be clever.  And the same goes for the music, which – while always excellently performed – strays into rather generic (for Camper) klezmer-y riffs and instrumentals, or cuts that lean into the Americana jam of Cracker, all broken up by more fascinatingly layered, mature stuff that’s suggestive of the unified sound the group would find on followup releases.

So at first pass, the album is uneven, and frequently steps away from its narrative – or at least seems to – in a way that makes certain tracks feel rather slight.  Once you know to expect this kind of up and down pacing, though, relistening to it is very rewarding: there are a lot of fantastic production touches throughout, and while the tone shifts, each song on its own is really strong and catchy.

A concept album seemed like rather heady stuff for a band established in a haze of weed smoke, singing about Lassie and skinheads bowling, and, yeah, the material might’ve ended up being slightly beyond their reach.  Given some leeway, though, the CVB crew offered up plenty of evidence that they still had a lot of fresh ideas to work through, and could deliver some staple-y greats in the meantime.