Bill Janovitz is no stranger to rock fans. As the front man of Buffalo Tom, Janovitz helped create a remarkable body of work, six albums’ worth of great songs that make the band one of the touchstones of Nineties post-punk alterna-rock, the rightful peers of groups like The Pixies and Pearl Jam.
After Buffalo Tom suspended operations, Janovitz reinvented himself, releasing two excellent folk–tinged solo records. But with Fireworks on TV, he’s made a triumphant return to his rock roots, backed by Crown Victoria, a crack band that includes Buffalo Tom sideman Phil Aiken on keyboards, Josh Lattanzi (Ben Kweller, Juliana Hatfield) on bass, and drummer Tom Polce, who co-produced, mixed and mastered Fireworks. Most of the songs on the new disc were recorded live over a period of three days in Boston’s legendary (and now defunct) Fort Apache studio, and you can feel it in the music—there’s a ragged, spontaneous electricity at work here, the sound of a band coming together in the moment, living inside the songs they’re making.
Those songs range from infectious rockers like “My Radio†and “Sinking,†to ballads like the country-flavored “Fireworks on TV†and the soulful “I Found Outâ€; from radio-friendly tunes like “Almost Beating†and “Revealed,†to a pair of haunting story songs: “One Two Three†(about a housewife who staged her own disappearance in 1961), and “Mary Kay†(told from the perspective of the teenage lover of the jailed schoolteacher, Mary Kay Letourneau). Presiding over it all is Janovitz’s distinctive, startlingly expressive voice — gruff and whispery one moment, soaring with passion and clarity the next — one of the most interesting voices in rock music today.
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