Hard Wired in Ljubljana

Dead Moon is an exception to the rule. For most bands, a live album is a toss-off, either a hastily assembled package released as a stopgap until the next studio project or something shoveled under management's door as a half-spirited contract fulfillment. For Dead Moon, a live album is like church on Christmas: an occasion for reverence and genuflection. Recorded somewhere in the Slovenia--in Europe Dead Moon are treated like living treasures--Hard Wired gives 20 songs that detonate with everything that is rock--a grizzled passion that can't be explained or faked. Check out the riffs spat through clenched teeth on "Goin' South," or Toody's gruff, sentimental vocal on "Cast Will Change." Elder statesman singer-guitarist Fred Cole switches back and forth from a Steve Marriott-like growl to some totally crazed yelping, all while Toody and Andrew flail away frantically in support. Sloppy? Yes, it certainly is. Pretty? Only in a bruised-heart sort of way, like on the surprisingly poignant "Somewhere Far Away" and "Running Out of Time," where Fred and Toody harmonize like an older, more weather-beaten John Doe and Exene. Dead Moon is like a classic muscle car that positively shreds the competition on a homogenous rock highway full of sissy, bland four-door sedans that were never built to last. --John Chandler