keepers-3
keeper avg .300
"My House" and "Women" are such a modest start I could see myself being asleep by the title track. "My House" does have a crunchy guitar coda, but both seem too literal and personal to be meaningful except for the die hard. Finally the band rips into "Underneath The Bottle"****, whose deliberate pace and ruefully humorous "ooh-wee, son of a b" chorus bear more than a small similarity to Warren Zevon. Creepy monologue "The Gun" follows, and the brutal crowning glory of the title song***** comes at the end of side 1, setting up whatever follows to pale by comparison. "Average Guy" also has the Warren Zevon aesthetic, though the only thing that isn't half-assed about it are Robert Quine's guitar accents; though ranging from screaming to subdued, his guitar work on The Blue Mask is sloppy and graceful at the same time, both traits heightened by the album's clean and dry production. Closer "Heavenly Arms" is bold and sincere, "The Day John Kennedy Died" approximates the "Satellite of Love" sound, but the only great moment on side 2 is "Waves Of Fear"****; it's appropriately jarring and distorted, and almost equal in intensity to the title track.
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