The mid-'90s proliferation of allegedly groovy jam bands, swarming locust- like over American summers on the windy trajectory of the now-defunct H.O.R.D.E. tour, has done more disservice to the legacy of the Grateful Dead than Art Alexakis' recording of "Kill Jerry Garcia" on worldwide broadcast could ever accomplish. By watering down the Dead's music into a thin gruel of bouncy groove- pop warmed over the most ridiculous kind of ecological rhetoric and christic humanitarianism, these bands have whipped up a version of Grateful Dead music that even the most toothless hippie can gum down. Slather liberally with hash oil, preface with veggie burrito, two tabs of yellow sunshine, throw in a ganja krispie treat for dessert and pretend you have a meal. Anyone who has any love or respect for the Grateful Dead would rather you hate them outright than misappropriate their legacy in order to secure a spot on a 14- year old girl's summer camp mix between "Uncle John's Band" and "American Pie."

Since the first crunchy salvo of "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" in the early 1990s, there has been a steady stream of illegitimate children parading around the Grateful deathbed, all sucking up for the claim of heir apparent. Even Phish, the clear victor in that record- time shuttle run from the hands- and- knees position to the granola throne, have cemented their derivative status by their steady streaming claims for originality. And what's worse, all this musical (to borrow a term from my associate, the Raven himself) "knob- slobbering" presents a particular set of problems for music criticism, namely: 1) a confusion of the natural course of artistic influence with the obvious calculus of derivation, and 2) the tendency to limit the influence of the Grateful Dead to only those bands who make a nominal claim to that influence. Citing the influence of the Dead is almost an insult, reserved for the likes of the Samples but withheld from bands like Jane's Addiction for fear of compromising their "edge."

Keeping this critical tendency in mind, one can clearly see the looming presence of the Dead in the music of the Havalina Rail Co. on their third album, America, both musically and thematically. Perhaps this is because Havalina proceeds from the matrix of American music that the Dead produced: electrified folk, turned on in the wake of Sgt. Pepper, borrowing liberally from the dueling improvisational traditions of black urban jazz and white country bluegrass, and skewered by the advent of European electronic composition a la Stockhausen and Varese. In Havalina, we see the influx of lo-fi and even Latin American rhythms. The vocals are strangely reminiscent of the Silver Jews' D.C. Berman, and the lyrics are like Berman's fractured modernism couched darkly in the American folk tradition that the Dead's Robert Hunter virtually mastered.

The opener, "American Skies" makes obvious nods to Simon and Garfunkel in narrative scope. And the line, "Some are busy being born while some are busy dying," is a near- perfect allusion to Dylan's "(Its Alright Ma) I'm Only Bleeding." Musically, however, "American Skies" is powered by the Bob Weir- like railroad rhythm guitar beneath plucked mandolin- like acoustics. But the album really takes off with "Puerto Chico," a furious instrumental based on serpetine guitar lines sliding smooth as snakeoil over mad congas. "Dark Skies" is an eerie ranch- hand revenge tragedy ("When they take a man's family, it's time to get the gun") about a simple man being pushed by circumstances into homicidal psychosis. The interpolation of radio tuning between some of the tracks (perhaps a little heavy- handedly) cements the theme of the roadtrip through the American musical landscape. Some numbers, like the harmonica hoedowns "Miss. River" and "Flower of the Desert" make for an unfortunate squaredance, but they're somewhat forgivable and easily forgettable. The dirty strum and fiddle of "Borris the Milkman" and the rockabilly-ish "Devil in the Cornfield" apologizes for all that chaw.

The Havalina Rail Co. would probably shrug off the question of the Dead's influence, not out of fear of lacking uniqueness but rather at the obviousness of the answer. Sure the Dead is in there, along with the many tributary highways of American music. In any case, America is solid and, on the whole, a winning album-- one that I imagine to be supplemented by a fairly savage stage act. Either way, I'll let you know: I've got tank of nitrous in the backseat and a QP in the dash; I am off to follow the Havalina Rail Co. across the country for a while.

-Brent S. Sirota