Modern America; Band Makes a Stand for Credibility with 'Here and Now'

America has always had something of an image problem, both the country and the band. We're taking on the latter here. The pop group exploded onto the charts in both the United States and Britain in 1972 with "A Horse With No Name," a vaguely trippy acoustic tour de force that had many accusing the group of being a cheap Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young knockoff.

To the hippies, they were seen as posers: All three of the original members were sons of Air Force officers stationed in England. They didn't drop acid, jam for a half-hour at a time or sing protest songs. But criticism didn't stop America from producing a string of hits over the next four years, including "Tin Man," "Ventura Highway," "Sister Golden Hair," "I Need You," "Don't Cross The River," "Lonely People" and others.

Before anyone noticed, the group had a handful of gold albums but very little in the way of cool points. For as much as the band members were experts at crafting acoustic folk pop and charming, memorable melodies, they could scuttle it all with an irksome detour like "Muskrat Love" or an unwise choice of touring partners, such as a downward spiraling Beach Boys. If anything, America had become the anti-CSN&Y.

By the 1980s, save for a last-ditch hit with the synth-pop- leaning but still-smart "You Can Do Magic," the band's mojo was dried up. Co-founder Dan Peek had left the group. Singer-guitarists Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley didn't really know how to navigate the era of new wave, hair bands and music videos. Over the next two decades, they recorded sporadically, never with great results. But they were a bankable concert draw, even if their gigs were often second-tier arts festivals, state fairs and smaller theaters.

A three-disc box set in 2001 might have seemed to some the tombstone on the group's creative career, but it had the opposite effect, solidifying the band's legacy of tuneful pop craftsmanship and making its best work available in a reliable compilation for the first time.

Last year, Bunnell and Beckley hooked up with Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha at a studio in Chicago. The result is "Here and Now," the group's most consistent work in 25 years. (Yes, it's been that long.) Iha and Schlesinger knew that for America to sound its best, it would be wise to just let the guys be themselves and not spend too much time trying to make them sound hip with production tricks and endless overdubs.

They were confident enough to let Bunnell and Beckley speak for themselves. The cost of that gamble? Beckley begins the album with the innocently cerebral "Chasing the Rainbow," complete with chimes and glockenspiel. It's a pretty song, even if his vocal range has shrunk considerably (even more evident on "All I Think About," sung well above his comfortable range).

Beckley recovers with the poppy "Work To Do." Bunnell scores better with the echo-laden "Ride On" and a cover of "Golden," a very America-sounding tune originally sung by My Morning Jacket. But even he turns in a groaner of a line from time to time. Reference "I know the sun's gonna shine on me this time."

The album plies a formula that's been played out repeatedly in the last decade or so: Young musicians who've earned some cred use it to turn their fans on to stuff molding away in their parents' record collections by helping sidelined veterans make high-profile comebacks. These projects only hold water if the act doesn't end up making the same mistakes that made them has-beens in the first place.

The same group that did a driving rocker like "Sandman," from America's underrated debut album - complete with what was probably the first acoustic guitar solo played through a fuzzbox - also gave us "Hourglass," the 1994 album of tunes played against programmed percussion tracks (or the worst drummer in the world).

If Bunnell and Beckley want to wrest their legacy from the dominion of cornball oldies stations, "Here and Now" is the record to do it, despite its shortcomings.