What's to be done about Jesse Malin? The former D Generation singer-songwriter clearly has talent and heart, and the songs on his second solo album, The Heat, wield a boozy romanticism and production slickness that suggests what might have happened had Paul Westerberg moved to L.A. in the early '80s and become the new Rick Springfield instead of forming The Replacements. But there's no use pussyfooting around the fact that Malin sounds too much like Ryan Adams. It's not like this is an accident: Malin and Adams played together in the anonymous punk band The Finger, and Adams produced Malin's first solo album, the Whiskeytown-esque The Fine Art Of Self Destruction. The Heat is self-produced, but it's got the glossy sheen of Adams' self-consciously retro 2003 effort Rock N Roll. What the hell?
None of this would matter, except that Adams himself is sort of terminally vague—a top-flight roots-rock troubadour who'd rather be a rock star, and probably wishes he'd spent the '90s like Malin did, fronting a glam band and filling out the lower end of major-label arena shows. (In fact, maybe Adams is swiping from Malin, and just beating him to the punch.) Still, being a pale copy of a pale man, even one with a gift for easy melodies and punk attitude, doesn't leave much of substance.
The Heat possesses some surface appeal. The record's got sweetly ringing guitars, big beats, and atmospheric organ fills, all in the mold of how Top 40 power-pop acts sounded before rock got fussier and more synthetic, in the post-Trevor Horn era. But Malin's strained whine makes his earnest lyrics sound more pretentious than they probably are. He aims for a Springsteen-esque populist reach, but it comes off shrill and wan, like one of those bar-band also-rans who haunt the pool rooms of nightclubs, clad in black leather and failure.