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Good pop music is a slight of hand best not examined too closely. Look what
that did for XTC — got ’em sacrificed to the intellectuals. That’s the same
group that slaughtered the Monkees because they didn’t really exist — no
matter how good those first few albums were. Poor Brian Wilson lost his mind
under the microscope. Which is why you shouldn’t try to figure out
Fundamentally Sound, a stacked deck of quirky melodies, perfect
harmonies, and crisp hooks that draws on 18 years’ worth of dealing out
ace-in-the-hole covers, yet never turns up an actual R.E.M. tune. Instead,
Javelin Boot flashes its Crowded House hole card — the absolutely perfect
“You” and the happily morose “Going Nowhere” — razzles and dazzles you with
good acoustic jangle and toned-down electrics, and evokes every great pop sound
from Sixties Mersey beat on. Never mind that the group doesn’t cement its own
persona or sound, or that the album itself starts breaking up at the midway
point of the “Savage Beach” instrumental. Never mind that this savvy Austin
trio breaks the long-standing rule of never letting the drummer sing more than
one or, at most, two tunes. Never mind all that. Let the illusion work.
Half the fun of three-card monte is knowing you’re being taken for a sucker.
(2.5 stars) — Raoul Hernandez
This article appears in November 29 • 1996 and November 29 • 1996 (Cover).