Cracker: Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey

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More About

• David Lowery
• Camper Van Beethoven
• Pakistani Cricket Team

People either love Cracker or find David Lowery's post-Camper Van Beethoven outfit wearily obtuse and trying-too-hard ironic. Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey does have its share of obtuseness — not everyone writes linear love ditties, although just in case you thought they couldn't do it, "Darling One" is exactly that. The hilarious "Friends" isn't just alt-country, it's mentally altered, dead-drunk country. Everywhere else, Sunrise is as straight-ahead a rocker as Cracker can lay on us, much of it catchy as hell. "Yalla Yalla" is a wicked, unapologetic run through the war, while "We All Shine a Light" hangs by the unlikely thread of Pakistani cricket (the game, not the insect). Oddballs like "Show Me How This Thing Works," about an object that drops from outer space, have the usual caustic Cracker sense, and mid-tempo rocker "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me" contains the album's most unlikely line: "I'm shopping in town for our homemade agrarian forest, you're texting Corian, granite or tile kitchenette in the gun nest?" Huh? If you don't pay too close attention to the lyrics — the lyric sheet is mandatory otherwise — Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey is simply an extremely listenable rock album.