Washed up and dried out, the Mojo Wire goes acoustic and flirts with minimalism, which doesn't flirt back.

Let's face it- "trouble in paradise" is probably the oldest and most banally superficial cliche in the history of popular songwriting. It is initially, however, a real kick in the head when you happen to notice it. Exposing the nasty, poisonous underbelly of some idyllic Shangri-la is one of the first rebellious impulses that anyone learns, and if they're lucky, they won't forget to apply it to any subsequent promise of perfection. Righteous anger doesn't exactly have much of a half-life, of course, but it tends to go down easier with a nice slathering of sweetness on top. That was the eventual modus operandi of the Mojo Wire on their third album, but the mostly acoustic, folky surf-noir of Seaside Hamlet Skids doesn't easily place itself in the canon of pretentious bubble-bursting, despite some loosely-focused effort.

In the middle of 1998 the band was in rebuild and regroup mode after the frantic activity of the previous year. Their unfinished-sounding second disc stuck out like a sore thumb and already wasn't aging well, so Adam, Bryn, and Keir slowly collected a new set of tunes while spending a few months apart. Though begun in Isla Vista, "Key West Tapwater", "I Fly Free", "Baja Blues", "So Cold", "The Ratlands", and "Run Back To Me" were brought to life by Bryn and Adam during multiple treks to Baja California; refined around crowded campfires in the middle of nowhere, the new songs told tales of hapless characters seemingly marooned by good fortune and screwed by circumstances. Back in I.V., Keir created his own little corner of post-decadence after a roller-coaster series of personal relationship crises. Holed up in the Bedrock he churned out a few semi-sane screeds dressed up in bouncy melodies; "How Far Away" was followed quickly by "Sunset Down" and (in a marathon six-hour fit of inspiration) "The Shivering Sand".

Flush with new material but lacking a drummer after the departure of Brandon Klopp, the Mojo Wire decamped to Orange County in September '98 to record with Kevin Nerison behind the kit, charging through initial versions of many of the new songs, as well as a frenzied, tossed-off take of "Wipeout" that proved strong enough to eventually shove its way onto the finished album. Returning to the Bedrock, the trio struggled to polish off the raw tracks using their rudimentary, self-taught recording skills; combined with school, work, and the usual social hazards of Isla Vista, this effort lasted them the rest of the year and spilled over into 1999 as well. By then, Keir had added "Pisces Lullabye" to the running order, and finally the recording was completed with the instrumental "Rocked By The Magnum", which featured a thin layer of keg-party noise over a twitchy acoustic twelve-bar.

The songs comfortably hung together as a whole, but each writer was able to use their lyrics to pull the album back and forth between a few different moods. Adam indulged in a penchant for some sun-fried malaise, shamelessly blending traces of Jimmy Buffet with his own poppier sensibilities and a considerable gift for melody. One major result was "Key West Tapwater", a potent pill of casual, seemingly indifferent escapism (and probably his best Mojo Wire song) that condensed Seaside's themes into three snappy verses, a bridge, and a chorus, all in two and a half minutes. The song's narrator extols the idea that "a life on the coast is a life without cares" and admits that "I don't know what I'm doing here" before covering that with "but I know I can't go wrong". It comes off as bravado on paper, but Adam sings the lines as if they could be hollow real-estate taglines or tourism-office slogans. Similar sentiments pervade "Baja Blues" (itself a great piece of music) and "Run Back To Me" (with Adam's only recorded Johnny Cash impression to date), but "Key West Tapwater" effectively took the taco and won the album-opening slot.

Bryn pulled off his best song on the album while stuck in Los Angeles traffic one day. "I Fly Free" came quickly on paper, and ended up a shimmering piece of surf-folk about a dashed relationship with a few nods to "Paradise Lost". "So Cold" was actually written at the end of the sessions for Rocket Fuel, beginning a habit of starting new strong songs after recording has finished. Bryn actually took it upon himself to sing "The Ratlands", delivering a CB radio-sounding chunk of cynicism from south of the border, as well as commandeering the drum kit for much of the sessions as well, bashing out blunt backbeats for seven of the album's songs.

Keir's material gave a slight (very slight) lyrical nod to the Bob Dylan albums he'd been re-absorbing in summer '98. "How Far Away" and "Sunset Down" came hard on the heels of not one, but two breakups, though in weight and feel they also came closer to the flailing, holding-pattern Dylan of Another Side than to more mature observations like Blood on the Tracks. The propulsive pace and bright tune of "How Far Away" compensated a bit for that, as did the light touch of Adam's acoustic guitar on the slower "Sunset Down". Conversely, "The Shivering Sand" is an unapologetic lust jingle, driven by a slippery bass riff, a spiraling bridge, and some ice-cold surf guitar. "Pisces Lullabye", the album's penultimate track, is a mourning song, and sounds it, plodding along as atmospherically as a Cure b-side, but even Bryn's great slide riff couldn't save the song from (at least in this version) clumsy lyricism and Keir's vocal debut (his only recorded Elliott Smith impression to date).

The sequence of Seaside is probably the most perfect of any Mojo Wire (or Honey White) album, but also points to the record's emotional isolation. Starting off briskly with "Key West Tapwater", "How Far Away", and "I Fly Free" (all potential singles), the album detours into the jittery grooves of "Rocked By The Magnum" before returning uptempo to "Baja Blues". "Run Back To Me" closes the A side with calm, but is shortly overwhelmed by the Nerison-powered "Wipeout" and jumpy surf-funk of "The Ratlands", and then the disc plunges into the minor-key deep end with "The Shivering Sand", "So Cold" and "Pisces Lullabye" before coming up for air with "Sunset Down". The overall resulting mood is an almost nakedly tidal ebb and flow up to the rip current at the end, which ultimately disproves the final line of "Sunset Down", that "nothing so wrong will happen today", and mutates the general air of escapism throughout into some seriously poisonous denial. In later live shows, the Mojo Wire's new lineup (now with guitarist Joe Zulli) began presenting the new songs in the fall of 1998, and shoved aside almost all traces of the original tunes' softer, acoustic natures. Blunt, powerful, and slightly chaotic, the performances avoided sentimentalism and relegated the album itself to the status of a mere precursor. Seaside hinted and suggested at deeper meaning without actually delivering any, alluded to historical importance without actually learning anything from it, and permanently imprisoned itself in a state of mind that thrives on the slow creep of crippling nostalgia.

Next: Things Fall Apart: You're On Your Own