Search - Rock-A-Teens :: Baby Little Rain Must Fall

Still plenty of stories...

11/25/1998

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Although it contains a few striking examples of how good the Rock*A*Teens reverb-drunk proto-punk can be, "Baby, A Little Rain Must Fall" suffers when compared to 1997's Southern gothic masterpiece "Cry" and 1996's frantic "Rock*A*Teens," both of which qualify as indie-rock classics. There's at least one good reason: Guitarist Kelly Hogan moved to Chicago, reducing the R*A*Ts to a trio and taking the band's lone girlish edge with her. But achey-voiced vocalist/guitarist Chris Lopez forges on with some of his most gut-wrenching tales yet, except he's not singing about murder, mayhem and "The Rockabilly Ghetto" this time around. If he's not begging a new lover to scrap her flight out ("Don't Destroy This Night"), he's assuming the psyche of a knockout drop addict ("Ether Sunday") or recollecting old flames with a careful bitterness usually reserved for songwriters with many more wrinkles. Most importantly, the guy still knows how to write unsettled melodies that inevitably crash into eloquent and grand choruses. Scrap some of its blander mid-tempo pop songs, and "Baby, A Little Rain Must Fall" would make for a thoroughly quenching EP. At a minimum, the disc proves it will take a long time for Lopez to dry out."