Local H: Having It All

Over time Kurt Cobain couldn't bear to live up to the weight of his own archetypal creation, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that almost nobody else has managed to either. In the past couple years, I've heard only two new bands whose albums catch more than a little piece of Nirvana's powerful magic. Last year there was Everclear's Sparkle and Fade (Capitol). This year there's Local H's Good As Dead (Island).

Like Nirvana, both groups feature a single guitarist/vocalist as auteur: Art Alexakis in Everclear, Scott Lucas in Local H. Both these guys employ what you might call the Boy Roar -- the burred, big-throated yowl that has been the modern rock norm since Nevermind -- and, like Cobain, both use it to signal at once rage and pain, antagonism and vulnerability, a yin-yang combination that instantly connects with young people seeking to escape the deadened emotions and dead-end lives of their lovers, friends, and/or communities. Thirty-four-year-old Alexakis made a very strong album by connecting the sound to memories of his troubled past as a junkie. Twenty-five-year-old Lucas is a lot more basic, railing at crass jocks, former lovers, and happy couples as a way to express the emptiness of his small-town life.

In side-by-side comparison, though, Local H are far more Nirvana-like than Everclear -- in part because Lucas isn't following the rutted grunge trail as doggedly as Alexakis. In contrast to that scheming ex-cowpunk, Lucas has been working on the same dense assault since 1988 when he was a high-school junior in Zion, Illinois. He and his band first delineated their sound on 1995's Ham Fisted (Island), and they take a giant leap in accessibility with numerous small changes on Good As Dead: higher mixed vocals and highlighted riffs, a few acoustic slow ones for relief, even a thematic concept in the lyrics (the many ways Zion blows chunks). When Local H played Axis two weeks ago, it all came together in a performance that was a little like seeing Nirvana on Saturday Night Live just before Nevermind broke: a direct, unpretentious, youthful, inclusive, accomplished, completely fresh dose of kick-ass rock and roll.

Part of the originality comes from the line-up of just two and a half members: Lucas on guitar and vocals, high-school pal Joe Daniels on drums, and roadie Gabe Rodriguez occasionally running in to shake a tambourine or blow a kazoo solo. On record they augment that with overdubs, but live Lucas achieves the sound of a roaring grunge trio by adding a bass pick-up to his bottom two guitar strings and feeding everything through both a bass and a guitar amp. The most thrilling part of watching him switch from throwing down bass lines to slashing out chords is that the gimmick embodies his impassioned will to have it all.

It didn't take long for the several hundred college-aged men and women to connect to the display either, and their energy fed right back to the band. "Boston, when we played here last May, maybe 10 people showed up. We didn't know this was happening," said a stunned Daniels during a brief break in the barrage. They even dedicated their next-to-last song to the city "for making us rock stars." It was "High-Fiving MF," a slow-burning condemnation of macho grunge jocks that drove all the macho grunge jocks into a high-fiving frenzy. The irony was dizzying. Like Cobain or Eddie Vedder or Bruce Springsteen, Local H won't be able to run over that irony forever, but you have to love them for trying.

-- Franklin Soults