Verbena: Into The Pink : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"You just love your perfect things," singer Scott Bondy accuses somebody in "Lovely Isn't Love," the drawn-out ballad that opens this heavily mannered debut by a Birmingham, Alabama, trio. Verbena's dislike of perfection definitely extends to notions of ordinary listening pleasure: The music Bondy makes with guitarist-bassist-singer Anne Marie Griffin and drummer Les Nuby is skeletal rock with gravely roughed-up guitars. Produced by ex-Nirvana member Dave Grohl, it worships that literate, unhinged side of Nirvana that attempted impromptu amateur rock surgery, the side that didn't entertain Nevermind 's rhythms and orchestrations. Occasionally, faint traces of X surface. On some level, the album completely works: When, on "John Beverly," Bondy observes in his sinister drawl, "You're so pretty when you sleep," he and his serrated guitars and laughably absent percussion can raise an actual chill or two. But it's all a bit much. (RS 818)

JAMES HUNTER