Come Feel Me Tremble

About

The companion disc to a documentary film released under the same title, <i>Come Feel Me Tremble</i> captures ex-Replacements Paul Westerberg a few years after his return to the basement for 2002’s <i>Stereo/ Mono</i> collection. For <i>Tremble</i>, Westerberg continued his unrefined foray into bargain basement sonics and rough-hewn charm. An unexpected cover of southern California mellow man Jackson Browne’s “These Days” fits perfectly, as it’s one of that once young prodigy’s finest early compositions, and yearns with the same emotional questions as Westerberg’s strongest works. Elsewhere, Westerberg makes his own sometimes playful, sometimes dire observations. “Crackle and Drag,” a sympathetic look at Sylvia Plath’s suicide, is dispatched in two versions that overwhelm in their own idiosyncratic ways, while “Dirty Diesel” recalls Westerberg’s own hard rock roots. “Knockin’ ‘Em Back” recounts Westerberg’s own battle with the bottle. Westerberg isn’t really capable of making a thoroughly consistent album. It’s his quirks that lead to unpredictable highs and engrossing lows and one ends up taking a wild ride trying to keep up with him.

via Apple Music