Additional personnel: Melanie Owens, Dan Rothchild (vocals); Lily Hayden (violin); Martin Tillman (cello); Walt Thompson (Hammond B-3 organ).

Recorded at Padded Cell Studio, Los Angeles, California from May to June 1993.

The vanquished vocals and semi-quirky guitar chords of "Good" gave Better Than Ezra their quick plunge into stardom, but it wasn't long before the band was towel dried and then forgotten. 1995's Deluxe failed to administer any musical congruity, helped along only by the gear-switching tempo of "In the Blood," the second best track on the album, as well as the tempting pull of "Southern Girl." Unfortunately, beyond these songs the album falls flat, suffering from a cliched garage band/alternative band dullness. Any hints of originality are drawn into the relentless vortex of banal guitar routines and run-of-the-mill college radio grit. The lyrics are passable, but cease to secrete any interest or the same amount of sharpness as the first two singles. Better Than Ezra are just another example of a band that suffered from the redundancy of a stereotypical rock formula. ~ Mike DeGagne

Despite the distorted guitars of "Good," Better Than Ezra is primarily a folk-rock band; after the first two songs, all the pseudo-Dinosaur Jr. growl leaves their amplifiers and the band concentrates on the jangling sensitive stuff, which is too bad, since they do the louder stuff better. "Good" gets by on the stop-start grunge guitars, which disguise the minimal melody. The remainder of Deluxe follows the same song structures as "Good," only without the loud guitars the faults become clearer -- namely, a lack of hooks. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

As surely as long-haired, mother-loving bands from Florida, Alabama and Georgia could put the smell of cotton on '70s arena-rock, the children of the South are now cottoning to modern rock. The boundaries have loosened up a bit--the paradigms of this new breed of Southern rock include Live, from Pennsylvania (just above the Mason-Dixon line), and Arizona's Gin Blossoms--and so has the form. The boogie and jangle of old now compete with distorted guitar crunching, and while the new Southern bands honor and respect the family, they're not afraid to recognize how dysfunctional one can be. Call it cotton alternative.

New Orleans, Louisiana's Better Than Ezra are deep in it--backwoods enough to yearn for the scent of pine and good iced tea (the winsome "Southern Girl"), yet urban enough to know the pain and fury of The Smiths and Nirvana. In "Teenager," they empathize with a misunderstood teen who listens to the Cure and shuffles between the homes of his divorced parents. In the meantime, they're playing a rewritten version of the Outlaws' "Green Grass And High Tides."

A Southern gothic aesthetic is also at work on DELUXE. In "Summerhouse," a man is murdered, apparently by an abused woman, and no one in town can hide a smile. In the gorgeous, unplugged "Porcelain," the singer faces a woman who has stopped loving him and fantasizes about killing her. But where an old-time Southern rocker might've gone through with it, Better Than Ezra just sublimate.