Strays
Jane's Addiction helped put the word "alternative" on the middle-American map with a scarlet A, but their straight-uprockwas always front and center. OnStrays, the first Jane's Addiction studio album in 13 years, there's no mistakingPerry Farrell's trademark vocal sound (a nasal goose? a banshee in flight?) andDave Navarro's ever-adaptable guitar style. But the band--only bassist Eric Avery is absent from their classic lineup, replaced by Chris Chaney--hasn't come to party like it's 1991. Sure, the balance of hedonism and earnestness, environmentalism and decadence, remains, but the quartet's approach is that of a unit ready to flex a few new muscles. Listeners will notice roof-raisers like "True Nature" and "Hypersonic" first, but some of the quieter tracks ("Price I Pay," with the classic Farrell rationalization "I always do the wrong thing, but I got a good reason," "To Match the Sun") are among the most effective Jane's mood pieces ever.Straysis certainly a much more apt return than 1997’s odds-and-sods compilationKettle Whistle.--Rickey Wright