The 24-bit, digitally remastered CD of Warren Zevon's "Transverse City" sounds better than ever. The album's commercial failure upon its release may be attributed to the fact that the subject matter truly was ahead of its time.

"TRANSVERSE CITY" - Warren sings the lyrics at a breakneck pace, echoing the sensory overload pictured on the cover of the album. "Show us endless neon vistas, castles made of laser lights. Take us to the shopping sector in the vortex of the night...Down among the dancing quanta, everything exists at once. Up above in Transverse City, every weekend lasts for months." This could easily be the theme song for any number of sci-fi movies.

"RUN STRAIGHT DOWN" - Outside of Transverse City is a virtual wasteland. "Fluorocarbons in the ozone layer; first the water and the wildlife go. Pretty soon there's not a creature stirring, except the robots at the dynamo." The apocalyptic mood of the song is greatly enhanced by David Gilmour's superb guitar playing.

"THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW" - Paranoia runs deep when you're living in a police state.

"TURBULENCE" - The then current turmoil in Moscow not only brought turbulence, it would eventually lead to the fall of communism. Even though Warren is writing about current events, the song does not sound dated.

"THEY MOVED THE MOON" - This could be Warren's answer song to Ben E. King's "Stand By Me." "When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we'll see. No, I won't be afraid, just as long as you stand, stand by me." Unfortunately, Warren's lover deserted him. "I was counting on you to stand by me, to see me through. I was counting on you. They moved the moon while I looked down."

"SPLENDID ISOLATION" - Warren at his misanthropic best. Splendid isolation is easily achieved in the computer age. Thanks to the internet, anyone can survive without direct human contact.

"NETWORKING" - Not having a computer at work when this album was released, I had no idea what Warren was singing about at that time. Now I can understand the lyrics! "Networking, I'm user friendly. Networking, I install with ease. Data processed, truly basic. I will upload you, you can download me." With organs and brass, this song is somewhat overproduced. The acoustic demo version makes for a nice contrast.

"GRIDLOCK" - Anyone who works in a major city can understand the irony of calling the time when everyone is stuck in a traffic jam "rush hour."

"DOWN IN THE MALL" - Warren's satirical jab at consumerism hits the mark. Then again, overcommercialization is an easy target.

"NOBODY'S IN LOVE THIS YEAR" - Leave it to Warren Zevon to close out his futuristic concept album, featuring synthesizers and electric guitars, with a tender ballad about lost love, featuring brass and strings. Putting a unique spin on the subject, Warren equates love to financial management. "No one's invested enough of themselves to yield to maturity. And the rate of attrition for lovers like us is steadily on the rise. Nobody's in love this year, not even you and I."

This overlooked album definitely deserves a second listen, especially considering the superb remastering job they did on it.

Ok, so this is only Zevon's second best album of the 80s! It's probably more like 4 and a half stars, but this is one great album. And, surprisingly, it has held up very well. It probably helps that it doesn't sound like anything else released the same year.

Originally started as a cyber-concept album, Warren and his producers used up the money Virgin fronted them for this album, and abandoned the cyber-theme for straight forward versions of the remaining songs.

There are many strong cuts on here, "Splendid Isolation," "Networking," and "Turbulence," but the high-point is the closing ballad, "Nobody's In Love This Year." Possibly the best ballad of 1989 -- a year that also includes Tom Petty's "Free Falling" and Don Henley's "The Heart Of The Matter."

Virgin has remastered this set and thrown in a bonus, acoustic version of "Networking" (just Warren on guitar and harmonica). Well worth the cost, especially since it's been years since this title has even been available in this country. Now, if only Elektra would get on the stick and (re)release his late 70's/early 80's material!

Since Amazon.com has not listed the tracks, here they are: 1. Tranverse City, 2. Run Straight Down, 3. The Long Arm Of The Law, 4. Turbulence, 5. They Moved The Moon, 6. Splendid Isolation, 7. Networking, 8. Gridlock, 9. Down In The Mall, 10. Nobody's In Love This Year, 11. (BONUS) Networking (Acoustic).

Home computers were so far ahead of the basic consumer in 1989 that "Transverse City" pretty much blipped right over the heads of most WZ fans who first heard it back then. Now that it's been reissued, it shows itself as being way ahead of the curve. Let's face it, aside from Kraftwerk, few other artists would have thought up a couplet like "I will upload you, you can download me." And like Warren's wild hair on the jacket cover, "Transverse City" echoed the modern disarray of the times and Warren's vision of the future. After the straightforward rock of his comeback "Sentimental Hygiene," it was more than most of us could take.

Now remastered and back in print, that sprawling density makes more sense than ever and makes "Transverse City" essential. The timeliness of "Networking" in the pre-Windows Era spoke to Internet addiction while Al Gore was probably inventing it, and the mall addicts of the claustrophobic, rushed title track (where "everything exists at once") are now just as likely to be picking this CD up via Amazon as at their local record store - "Splendid Isolation" indeed.

"Isolation," along with "Nobody's In Love This Year" revisit one Warren's strongest topics; the futility of love in the modern world. Even in the "concept" format, these are Warren at his best. With guests like Chick Corea, David Gilmour and Jerry Garcia, the musicians are Zevon's usual array of top drawer players. You may have bypassed "Transverse City" two decades ago, there's no reason to miss out on it now.

Death--for the music biz it's a living. Why else would the biz reissue albums by dead and dying artist's ad nauseum? Luckily, the talented but terminally ill Warren Zevon has managed to live long enough to see the new Bond film, see a new best of collection issued and three important albums reissued. Transverse City is probably the most "produced" album Zevon has made. It suffers from an excess of sounds--which was entirely as its maker intended.

The sound is terrific--Transverse has been remastered in the 24 bit format. There's a bonus track here as well although it isn't essential. I'd go with one of Warren's other classic albums first, Transverse has been maligned over the years because of its over the top production. Style is as important as content here as it provides a context for Zevon's acidic observations. TIme has caught up with Transverse. Many of Zevon's witty observations about our world have come true to an extent. When it was released it was seen as influenced by the cyperpunk science fiction movement. It was criticized for the cluttered production and busy arrangements. That was, again, the point really. That really does a disserve to this under rated album. It took me quite some time to appreciate the album for the innovative touches and songwriting that Zevon uses throughout. While it isn't Zevon's richest treasure, it sparkles nonetheless.

Oh, and the acoustic version of Networking is a nice added treat.

While I am an admirer of Warren Zevon, I am not a committed fan simply because Rock Music is too much of the same thing over and over again to hold my interest. Rage, lust, and rampant irresponsibility can only go so far in life. Say, 25 years. Then you have got to find a way to pay the bills and raise the kids. Or pretend you are still a child forever, which seems to be the current ideal.

Anyway, a friend gave me a copy of this album and I listened to it and was intrigued enough by it to listen several times. As I listened I learned something new about Warren Zevon as an artist. I knew he was capable of the catchy, the odd, and the quite poignant, but this album shows him with a strong range as a songwriter. These aren't "hits". They go after a certain point, however Zevon dresses them up, and then uses the elements of Rock and Roll in often unexpected ways to pull them off. For me, that is an artist. Rather than being a user or even a prisoner of the form, the artist turns things on their head and makes the form and the elements of that form work to do what he wants done.

Some have described this as a concept album of a nightmarish future. Kinda. It is dressed up in the silly suits of some futuristic doom, but like all these fantasies it is more about getting enough remove to make its commentary on contemporary things more hearable. It isn't so much a prophesy as parable.

The opening (title) song is indeed about an awful place where life is cheap and death is free. But its best moments come in the droning and relentless chorus:

Here's the hum of desperation
Heres the test tube mating call
Here's the latest carbon cycle
Here's the clergy of the mall
Here's the song of shear and torsion
Here's the bloodbath magazine
Here's the harvest of contusions
Here's the narcoleptic dream

The music has kind of an oriental noise all around a rather basic and repetitive vocal line. The effect is to reinforce the feeling of being trapped and desperate.

The second number is "Run Straight Down" and is a terrific song of bleakness. It opens with this undervocal of a list of chemicals that provide an almost inaudible ostinato to the work. The lyrics describe a desolate place and the singer's only response is to go home and watch TV. He would rather watch the world run straight down into ruin than live in it.

"The Long Arm of the Law" is about a police state paranoia in a world where someone is out to get you. It opens: "When I was young, times were hard /When I got older it was worse" and later: "Now, don't protest your innocence / Only the dead get off scot free". The music is a driving and simple pop format, but is still hard enough to support the words. "Turbulence" is a strange number about the Russian Afghan war from the Russian grunt's point of view. He is complaining that the turbulence in Moscow has brought turmoil to him. There are even some Russian lyrics. While not a great song, this is the kind of song only Zevon can do.

"They Moved the Moon" is a beautiful if depressingly heavy song. The singer has lost his love, but we don't know why. He is still trying to win her back, but from death? The haunting refrain is a wonderful lyric: "They moved the moon / While I looked down / When I looked away / They changed the stars around" to describe how lost one can feel when the center of one's life is suddenly lost.

"Splendid Isolation" is probably the most upbeat paean to misanthropy ever written. He wants to live on the upper East Side and never go down in the street. He doesn't need no one in his splendid isolation. Here is his ideal: "Michael Jackson in Disneyland / Don't have to share it with nobody else / Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand /And lead me through the World of Self". He ends the song putting tinfoil up on his windows and lying down to dream so he doesn't have to see their faces or hear their screams. Of course, this is really running from his own face and his own screaming, but he hasn't figured that out yet. I imagine that this fellow is reacting (poorly) to what happened to him in "They Moved the Moon". It is quite an upbeat and catchy tune.

"Networking" is another example of Zevon's ability with words and depicting pop culture. He uses the language of the Yuppie and his computers to describe modern love. "There's a way to live that's right for us / Like Mayans in Manhattan and Los Angeles / I'm scaling up, I'm breaking down / And I'm doing lunch all over town / Networking, I'm user friendly / Networking, I install with ease / Data processed, truly Basic / I will upload you, you can download me"

For me, "Gridlock" and "Down in the Mall" are just ok. There is understandable rage at the congested city in what was a new term in 1989 and the phenomenon of the huge mall and its banality. What is actually interesting is the banality of the lyric and music that Zevon has created for the song about the hypnotic drug of shopping at the mall instead of living.

The album ends with "Nobody's In Love This Year" and is the most beautiful song on the album. It is actually kind of a shock when it opens with the Percy Faith sounding pizzicato strings and Zevon actually singing a lyrical melody (in his own way). The entire lyric is worth reading, but here is the central point of the song:

"Due to lack of commitment on both of our parts
We're going our separate ways
This show of indifference is breaking our hearts
It's making us crazy, yeah
You sit back and wait for your love to accrue
You'll be waiting a long, long time
Nobody's in love this year
Not even you and I"

He admits that he doesn't want to be Mr. Vulnerable and open himself to hurt or left behind. So, in reality it is a song about someone who desperately wants to act on the love he actually feels, probably both of them feel that way, but neither can act because of fear. Are we back to the man who lost his moon and stars and then reacted with isolation followed by the promiscuity of Networking only to end in paralysis?

Interesting album, and worth the several hearings it takes to appreciate what Zevon and his friends bring to us.

Recommended for those with a taste for Zevon or hope they do. For others, it will just be something they wont' get.