Trouble vision

Royal Trux get lost in the swamp

by Stephanie Zacharek

With rock-and-roll albums, sometimes excess is wonderful and sometimes it's just -- well, extra. Sweet Sixteen (Virgin), the sixth album from Royal Trux, easily answers the question "How much is too much?" The answer: "This much." Sweet Sixteen showcases Royal Trux's hallmark fascination with glam, '70s R&B, and raw-boned blues, but unlike 1995's wonderful, regally excessive Thank You, it doesn't have any spring in its step. It's tedious, disorganized, and swampy, mucked up with contrasting sound textures that just don't mesh, as if the band -- basically vocalist Jennifer Herrema and guitarist Neil Hagerty, with additional musicians clustered around -- were making a desperate bid to prove how zany and eclectic they are.

It's a shame: the fuzzy, opulent textures of Thank You had shaggy elegance to spare, like a frayed jeans jacket trimmed with bits of a Victorian crazy quilt. Thank You was Royal Trux's first release on a major label (the band released their first EP in 1988), and though some fans -- predictably -- called it a sellout, the complete, crisp vision behind its lankiness was nothing short of impressive. Herrema, with her ragged, weirdly masculine voice, managed to come off as both theatrical and expressive. And the supple, seductive groove of "Ray-O-Vac" alone was worth the price of admission.

But with Sweet Sixteen, all that easy grace is gone: this is the kind of music musicians make when they're trying to prove how brilliant they are. Herrema's vocals are raw as ever, and yet they seem to have lost all their innate drama. She sounds haggard and careworn, but in a way that's steeped in pretension, and her intoning of lyrics like "Morphic resident/You helped me change my mind/Morphic resident/You do it every time" doesn't help.

The opening track, "Don't Try Too Hard," with its doofy-sounding carnival keyboard riffs, fake horns, and sprinkling of glockenspiel-like fairy dust, seems to be playing off a candy-colored nightmare version of Sgt. Pepper. Maybe it's supposed to be ironic, but it just comes off as misguided. In "The Pick-Up," floaty orchestral washes are layered over funky wah-wah-pedal stuff. Like almost everything here, it's curiously lacking in both structure and spontaneity. These songs probably haven't been arranged much at all. They all sound improvisational in a tedious, noodly sort of way, and the interplay of textures seems haphazard and strained instead of innovative.

Once in a while a song sounds as if it could maybe, just maybe, take off, like a feisty chicken (if not a funky one) wanting to fly so badly that it nearly wills itself into the air. A section of "10 Days 12 Nights" features a galloping drumbeat decorated with fussy little guitar dingles, with a squirrely filigree of horn sounds layered over everything. The effect is a little too ornate to sound completely natural; overall the band, rounded out by Dan Brown on bass and Ken Nasta on drums, with Patrick Caird on sax, sound as if they needed both to tighten up and to relax -- but at least they manage to build a little momentum.

The big problem with Sweet Sixteen is that Royal Trux sound as if they cared only about sounding cool -- you can't hear them trying to connect with their audience. Of course, there are lots of rock--and-rollers who aren't "giving" performers; they spread their egos for all to see, they don't pander, they want to make it clear they don't want you to love them. (It's the ethos punk was built on.) But performers have to give the audience something -- to make us see something in a new way, or at least just put on a great, ass-kicking show. Sweet Sixteen comes off as a careless, self-indulgent album, as if Royal Trux thought that most of us aren't worthy of their genius. Sure, you can tell the world to kiss your grits. But if that honor is all you're selling for 16 bucks and some change, don't be surprised if the world spits them right back in your face.