Disco de Everclear: “Sparkle and Fade”

I bought this CD after hearing "Santa Monica" on the radio back in 1995. I think this is a great CD, "Santa Monica", "Summerland" and "The Twistinside" are my favorite songs. I couldn't wait for their next release, I found "So Much For The Afterglow" to be just as awesome. Everclear puts a lot of feeling in their songs and these boys can rock! I can't wait for their next CD to be released, I'm definately adding it to my collection.

"Sparkle and Fade" is the high point of Everclear's career and one of the very best (maybe THE best) albums of the '90s. It's full to bursting with amazing melodies and moving lyrics, and performed with blistering intensity. Not a word or note is misplaced. The only thing missing is the playfulness and experimentation of Everclear's later, more eclectic records-- this is straight-ahead, meat-and-potatoes rock. But it's so expertly written and played, so colorful and vital, it's hard to find any room for improvement. I can't recommend this album enough.

A while back, I purchased "So Much For The Afterglow". I loved it so much I decided to buy their older album Sparkle And Fade. I was certainly not dissapointed. This leaves So Much in the dust, with catchy tunes like Heroin Girl, Santa Monica, and You Make Me Feel Like A Whore. I realized that So Much was pop...and this was alternative with raw emotion. Strawberry made my friend cry. Sorry if Im too talkative for you, but its worth every penny!

I'm not much for hyperbole or exaggeration, but this cd is one of the best albums, in my mind, out there. "Sparkle and Fade" recounts the life of a former drug addict, poor and without hope, living a tragic life. The CD has a depressing overtone, but that does not consume it, or taint the music. It's both heartfelt and emotional, without being overbearingly so, and is an album in which the listener can feel the emotion through the music. Produced when grunge rock was popular, it is similar to the genre but wholly different. While songs such as "Heroin Girl" and "Electra Made Me Blind" are heavy and guitar driven, other songs, such as "Santa Monica" are slower paced and have a more mellow feel. This CD is nearly flawless, each track is a great song. The standouts, however are "Heroin Girl", a rage filled song about the death of a lover to heroin, "Queen of the Air", an emotional song about his mother's suicide, "Santa Monica", about leaving home for the West Coast, and the best of all is the classic "Summerland" a song about escaping his former life and starting anew. Overall, an outstanding album, and a must listen for anyone who is a fan of rock.

I bought this album some years ago. Working in a record store meant that I heard many albums before the break-through single was released and they were climbing the charts, so for a summer, this was an undiscovered gem that I played daily. Then, 'Santa Monica' came out, and the rest is history. Though later albums by the band were seemingly crafted to be radio hits, this one was raw, volatile, and unrelenting.

With a certain Pacific Northwest chic, Everclear rips through the archetypical rock topics of sex, drugs, and desperation, the band lays down thick grunge riffs without slipping into hardcore mode; as a result the record retains a certain approachability- think of the pop they later embraced minus the sell-out factor.

In other words, it's loud enough to make you want to jump in the pit, but catchy enough for people who usually prefer something a little more tame to keep on this list of albums to rock out to.