American Music Club

Believe it or not, San Francisco rock legends American Music Club have been around as long as R.E.M. But AMC, even at its early 1990s peak, always drifted under the radar, perhaps a little too moody and lyrically sophisticated amid the latchkey-kid rage of the grunge era. That, and lead singer Mark Eitzel’s not-so-coded expressions of gay loss and desire, made the band’s exquisite albums an acquired taste for many.

They called it quits in 1994, Eitzel went on to a solo career—which included cowriting his 1997 album West with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck—only to regroup in 2004. Certainly, no one suffers as majestically as Eitzel, and The Golden Age often feels more like an elegy than a celebration, everything set to a contemplative tempo, underscored by atmospheric wisps of pedal-steel guitar and jazzily-brushed drums. It strikes us as gorgeous, but we’ve always loved Eitzel, even at his most melodramatic. Hell, his solo cover of “On a Clear Day” once had us thinking pleasant thoughts about Barbra Streisand. (Shudder).

Each song here unspools like a cinematic vignette, usually an occasion for the singer to dispense some sanguine wisdom: “No one here is gonna save you,” the chorus from “The Decibels and the Little Pills,” could serve as his motto. But the bon mots are bountiful. Peering out from “The Windows of the World,” a woman turns to him and says, “Here’s your fuckin’ beer / I love that look / It’s so Unabomber.” But it’s when Eitzel turns his gaze inward that the songs cut to the bone: “All I can give you is one of my stupid songs,” he tells a lover in “Who You Are,” each word given its own deliberate space in his phrasing. “And I know it’s not the real thing / Wish I could give you the real thing.” It’s real enough, baby.

American Music Club plays Schubas Saturday 12.