July 22-28, 2004

musicpicks

Concrete Blonde

ROCK/POP

Los Angeles has mellowed considerably since the late '80s, and so have Johnette Napolitano and Jim Mankey. Group Therapy, their 2002 reunion with drummer Harry Rushakoff, caught fire only half the time. Maybe Rushakoff took the embers with him a few months later when he traded the road for jail, because the new Mojave (Eleven Thirty) doesn't even pretend to fan the flames. Concrete Blonde songs once were dark like L.A.'s seedy side, then dark like a mansion haunted by a murdered starlet. Now they're dark like the night sky above Napolitano's high desert home. The wordy "Hey Coyote" and "Mojave" sprawl, while "Jim Needs an Animal" goes nowhere by giving its silly lyrics too serious a treatment. Wide open spaces can be liberating, but Mojave's mostly desolate. It's reassuring to listen to last year's two-disc Live in Brazil — recorded after Gabriel Ramirez-Quezada assumed drum duties — and hear a band that still knows how to thrill a "Joey"-jonesing crowd.

Sat., July 24, 8 p.m., $22.50, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE.

—M.J. Fine