What We Didn't Know We Were Missing: Buffalo Tom's Three Easy Pieces

I had no idea how much I'd been missing the Boston-based indie-rock trio of old college pals singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Bill Janowitz, bassist-vocalist Chris Colbourn, and drummer Tom Maginnis, collectively known as Buffalo Tom - had no idea that I'd missed them at all - until a couple of months ago when a friend of mine sent me a four-song sampler of their new album called Three Easy Pieces, their first new studio album after a near-decade long hiatus which found Janowitz engaging in a fruitful solo career. I confess: even as a college radio dj during the band's early-to-mid-90s (I hesitate to use the word) heyday, when, with their noisily heartfelt, semi-countrified semi-grunge sound they were a reliable but all too easily overlooked presence on 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation playlists, I was always vaguely aware of them, generally tolerant of them, but unfortunately never so interested in them that I ever bought, or even really listened to, any of their records at the time.

But now, we seem to be in the midst of a virtual Jurassic Park of unexpected, but totally worthwhile reconstitutions of Boston's 80s era indie rock institutions - what with Mission of Burma's surprisingly long-lived second act (they've released more music this decade than they did in their original incarnation), Frank Black changing his name back to Black Francis, and a fantastic new album by Dinosaur Jr (whose lead singer J Mascis produced Buffalo Tom's first album) - and Three Easy Pieces is yet another strong addition to the venerable scene's venerable revival: a collection of tunes delivered with so much soul and urgency - maybe I could be someone this time!, Janowitz sings with furious optimism on the two-and-a-half-minute rocker "Good Girl" - that I'm not just feeling grateful to have a second chance to hear them new, but kicking myself my not paying attention the first time around. (How about some reissues? Please?) I don't know how Three Easy Pieces ranks against, say, Birdbrain, Big Red Letter Day, or Sleepy-Eyed, but its one of the best, most solid, most consistent American rock albums I've heard in ages - or at least a couple years.

And if the strangely appropriate Celtic pennywhistle breaks in the waltz-time stomper "Gravity", the power-pop immediacy of "September Shirt" and the light hearted folk-rock call-and-response verses of "Renovating" (a song that reminds me a little of that untitled track at the end of R.E.M.'s Green, featuring guest vocals by Mission of Burma's Clint Conley) are any indication, it sounds like it was a blast to make. It's certainly a heck of a lot of fun to listen to. In the first couple of lines of the gorgeous opener, "Bad Phone Call" (one of those four songs on the sampler), Janowitz promises (with a slyly sinister simile) that he's going to "draw you right in", and for nearly an hour Buffalo Tom do exactly that with a steady stream of drunk-on-a-Friday night singalong melodies delivered with deep-fried grit and just a hint of twang (witness the weepy pedal steel on the album's prayer of benediction "Thrown"), bright-eyed harmonies, tag-team vocal interplays between the bruised howl of Janowitz and Colbourn's collegiate boyishness, especially on "CC and Callas", a self-effacing ode to opera-philia and its attendant disappointments.

Songs like the Colbourn-sung title track and "Bottom of the Rain" immediately and favorably recall the jangly recklessness, emotional vulnerability, and almost inadvertent beauty of Twin/Tone-era Soul Asylum (the latter song bares a specific but not overbearing resemblance to Soul Asylum's 1988 single "Cartoon"); while the urban, working-class escapist fantasy of "Lost Downtown" could've made it onto the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack. "Pendleton", meanwhile, is a weepy piano ballad on how the places where we grew up get steadily more depressing as we get older, building (with strings and trumpet) to a furiously heart-tugging crescendo. But the best song here is the similarly climactic "Heart of Palm", a slow-building guitar epic - a song full of painfully evocative, three-dimensional imagery ("Catholic morning aftershave"), and meditations on love, family, and generations in the shadow of illness and loss.

Reunion-type albums are often the easiest to dismiss out of hand, because they so often reek of so much desperation, both artistic and commercial. But there's nothing of the sort on offer with Buffalo Tom's Three Easy Pieces. It's an album that feels immediately vital, and which reveals new layers of wonder, both musical and lyrical, with each new listen. All of which is to say that if you're like me and were far too pre-occupied with the comings and goings of the Breeders and Smashing Pumpkins in 1993 to sample the wares of Buffalo Tom, their new record will provide you ample assistance in kicking your own ass. Thank you, Buffalo Tom. May we have another? (Or even just some reissues would be nice.)

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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:

"Three Easy Pieces" by Buffalo Tom
Ammal / New West Records
Released 7/10/07

Produced by Buffalo Tom
51 min.

SONGS: Bad Phone Call - Three Easy Pieces - You'll Never Catch Him - Bottom of the Rain - Lost Downtown - Renovating - Good Girl - Pendleton - Gravity - Hearts of Palm - September Shirt - CC and Callas - Thrown