reax music magazine :: music + culture » Reviews » Eric Avery - Help Wanted

Former Jane's Addiction founding member and bassist Eric Avery has worked with quite an impressive roster of musicians over the years, including Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage. He has also participated in the collaborative music project, Deconstruction, with Dave Navarro and his own side-project, Polar Bear. Perhaps most forgettably, he worked alongside of and dated Alanis Morissette. 2008, however, sees the release of his very first wholly solo effort, Help Wanted. Amazingly lush with colorful plumes of reverberating sound, Help Wanted, is artfully well-developed, arranged, and orchestrated. Drawing on his rich musical background, Avery concocts a delicious mixture of intergalactic melodies and technological undercurrents that is best digested in full and without skipping or cutting short a single track. With added guest appearances by Shirley Manson, Taylor Hawkins, and Flea, Help Wanted is a beautiful masterpiece equal parts subtle and angle-shifting in its alchemical delivery. - Aubrey Bramble