Album Review: Cracker - Berkeley To Bakersfield

Cult Californian rockers Cracker essentially offer an overview of their 20-year-plus career using a double album of new music. Key members David Lowery (Camper Van Beethoven) and Johnny Hickman get creative, reuniting their “classic line-up” for the Berkeley disc – a nod to the punk and garage roots of East Bay, complete with politically inclined lyrics – while the band’s country incarnation is used for the Bakersfield excursion, a homage to the ‘California country’ of the state’s inland valleys. It’s all linked by Lowery’s burly lyrics and sardonic world view, but Cracker’s wonderful duality remains the core appeal.