As history boils things down to the bullet points, it’s easy to forget that there was always more going on. Neither from Seattle nor particularly “grungy,” Cracker tends to get overlooked despite the fact that they had actually hits in the early ’90s. Still, right now, somewhere in this great land of ours, “Low” is coming over some car speakers and there’s a slow dawning of remembrance. While Cracker never had as big of a moment (Kerosene Hat, the album that spawned the song, went platinum) as that again, they’ve never called it a day and have had a fairly steady touring and release schedule. So it’s of no surprise to anyone paying attention that they’re on their 10th studio album, the double-disc Berkeley to Bakersfield (429 Records).

But for those who need a quick refresher, Cracker was formed in 1991 after the break-up of singer/guitarist David Lowery’s previous band, the much beloved Camper Van Beethoven. And while Cracker wasn’t as stylistically adventurous as Camper, it certainly had the same lyrical bones and musical underpinnings. Berkeley to Bakersfield is an explicit attempt to showcase both the rock and country sides of Cracker. While there have been country-leaning songs on most of the records and even a pair of bluegrass and countrified albums, their latest splits in up evenly while also marking the return of the <i>Kerosene Hat</i>–era line-up.

Notably, Berkeley to Bakersfield is not only split into two separate halves sonically, but the songs on each disc are tailored lyrically to the corresponding location. On the Berkeley portion, Lowery rages against the pushing out of the working class and creatives for “new money,” writes nostalgic love letters to the punks and the freaks who occupied the area’s coffee shops and bars, and generally longs for the Bay locale’s lost bohemian era. Fittingly, the Bakersfield side is a sepia-toned celebration of a simpler existence. In a sense, Berkeley is about what was, while Bakersfield is about what is. When Lowery sings about the dying town on “Tonight I Cross The Border,” there’s not the undercurrent of anger that peppers the Berkeley cuts, just sadness. The trick is that even though both halves mine the same territory, Lowery is adept at creating distinctive characters and slight variations of similar circumstances.

But Berkeley to Bakersfield wouldn’t work if Cracker wasn’t equally adept in tapping into distinct musical personalities. While the Berkeley side isn’t pure rock, as some small country accents pop up here and there, Bakersfield is as straightahead as you can get, without a wink of irony, though there are moments where the band plays it weird. It’s rare to have a double album that couldn’t be distilled into a single disc, but Cracker have avoided that pitfall by making two albums that could stand on their own as well as in a linked set. Berkeley to Bakersfield is a delightful case of the parts being equal to the sum.