POP MUSIC REVIEW : Llanas Offers Dry Solo Odes to the Heartland

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — If Sammy Llanas’ solo acoustic show Saturday at the Coach House were an album, there’s only one thing you could call it: “Wisconsin.”

Stepping temporarily out of his role as half the creative team of the Milwaukee-based BoDeans, singer-songwriter Llanas sang ode after ode to the average Joes and Marys who struggle to hold onto love, life and self-respect in a dream-thwarting world.

Stripped of the BoDeans’ colorful, rootsy arrangements, Llanas’ heartland-rock tunes gained a degree of spontaneity, but suffered from the monochromatic tone.

Just as Bruce Springsteen has gone back time and again to cars and factories, Llanas has a habit of turning to rain and drought as metaphors for the human condition. But he hasn’t always found new hues to brighten these overworked fields.

In that respect, “Beep, Beep,” one of a handful of new songs he unveiled during the 90-minute set, was a welcome change of pace in that it attempted to be nothing more than a hummable rock ditty.

His signature vocals--compressed and nasal as ever, with that buzzsaw growl let loose sporadically--were wondrously emotive. But his impassioned, neck veins a-poppin’ delivery on nearly every tune muted the impact the songs would have if he eased back a little more often.