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Reviews

Exene Cervenka, ‘Somewhere Gone’ (Bloodshot)

In the 30-plus years since Exene Cervenka first lent her keen eye and wonderfully off-key warble to X’s punky rumble, she has been called many things, but rarely boring. So her first solo album since 1991 comes as a disappointment: The writing still can be vividly evocative (“Exotic free fall into a glass of wine / Precarious pit stop in the land of Nod”), but the uninspired, folky arrangements make her words too easy to ignore. Strings add welcome heft to “Honest Mistake” and the haunting “Pinpoints,” but elsewhere the tunes are so minimal they nearly disappear.