REVIEW: Linda Perry, After Hours (Rockstar)
- Chris Hill
On Linda Perry's Top 10 favorite albums list (see her website, http://www.rockstarrecords.com ), she places Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits at number one. Not surprising to those who've heard the ex-4 Non Blondes vocalist. (To jog your memory, "What's Up?" was their ' 93 rocket to multi-platinum success.) Now, as the century fades to a close, she's back with a follow-up to her first solo album, 1995's In Flight, and channeling Joplin with effortless, supernatural ease.
After Hours can't simply be summed up by name dropping the ghost of Janis. Perry takes chances on this CD: electronically altering her amazing voice on the confessional "Get It While You Can;" bringing in a Little Rascals urchin to lead off "Sunny April Afternoon" with innocent charm.
By taking chances, Perry walks that fine line between success and failure, tumbling into the latter several times. "Til the Cows Come Home" is annoying, redolent with dysfunctional pride: "We were wasting all the wine/gettin high like two old friends/shootin' shit half wit politics/rockin' til 12:09/till the neighbor up above/ didn't like our point of view/...how we love to raise the brow/of the double shifted family man." And the glam rock of "Somedays Never End" sprawls awkwardly, with clumsy lyrics like "Sometimes I'd like to throw a brick or two/at all the aggravating fates of doom."
But the successes outweigh the failures. In "Lost Command," Perry deftly explores the healing qualities of love and religion. The song makes a fine one-two combo with the soul-in-jeopardy lyrics of the next cut, "Get It While You Can:" "hell is my heaven/the devil stands right by my side/there ain't no halo/to hang above my life."
"New Dawn" is a phenomenal piano hymn, with Perry and her backing vocalist Donna Simon harmonizing like eagles in a mating flight, praising the power of Jesus and the strength and pride Perry finds in her gender: "I am woman/a mountain I will climb/I've been beat down and I've been broken/but each day I give it another try." "Fly Away" takes a flight metaphor and grounds it in a bluesy romp that takes the Joplin spirit, strains it through four whiskeys and a pack of smokes, all to showcase the roaring powerhouse that is Perry's voice.
Most brilliant of all, there's a hidden track following "Carry On," where Perry, the daughter of a Portuguese father and a Brazilian mother, delivers a Latin American slice of heaven. The track should have led off the disc, as proof of her multi-faceted talent. I hope she delivers more of the same on her next outing. But, blues-rock or samba, her voice is a big bad wolf knocking, showing no sign of leaving. Open the door, and let her in.
