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Album review: John Doe’s ‘Keeper’

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John Doe has long sung of ill-fated relationships and social dysfunction, yet he’s consistently managed to maintain an underlying attitude that life’s somehow always worth the trouble.

Still, it’s a bit of a shock to hear him say in regard to his latest solo effort: “As you grow up, you realize that a certain amount of satisfaction and happiness is a very good thing. Pieces of sadness exist in everything, but it doesn’t have to be the only thing.”

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It’s certainly not on this successor to 2007’s hauntingly dark “A Year in the Wilderness.” Just two tracks into this powerful but emotionally brighter work, he crafts an irresistibly rollicking, neo-’La Bamba” groove in “Never Enough,” a meditation on the wonders of insatiability. It’s a song you wish would go on forever, and in a live setting maybe it can.

“Handsome Devil” conjures a jagged, eerie mystique that harks back to the days of X, whose signature dissonant harmonies crop up here periodically. “Moonbeam” evokes a midnight walk in the desert with its spare electric guitar and bluesy drum work.

Doe gets journeyman support from producer Dave Way and a stable of roots-music veterans from L.A. and beyond, among them Don Was, Steve Berlin, Smokey Hormel, Greg Leisz, Patty Griffin and Cindy Wasserman. With “Keeper,” Doe beautifully balances a rocker’s heart and a poet’s soul.

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-- Randy Lewis


John Doe
“Keeper”

(Yep Roc)

Three and a half stars (Out of four)

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