You can hardly blame Paul Westerberg for being bummed.

After all, he hasn't exactly had the greatest of luck career-wise. Back in the '80s, he practically invented grunge and alt-rock as the leader of hard-drinking punks The Replacements. But did it make him a household name? No; he got to sit and watch as his band dissolved in acrimony while impostors like The Goo Goo Dolls hijacked their sound and rode it to the top of the charts. Things haven't improved much since then. Over the past decade, Westerberg has put out three superb, endlessly acclaimed solo albums full of grimy garage-rock and wry confessional balladry -- each of which has sunk with nary a commercial ripple. Even 1998's Suicaine Gratifaction, recorded with hitmaker producer Don Was, couldn't attract the wider audience his material deserves.

After all that kicking, even a dog would give up. And that's what Westerberg has done on Stereo / Mono, his new double album. Not given up on music; some of these songs are among his finest work. No, what Westerberg has done is stop trying to please anybody but himself. Big-name producers? Expensive studios? Session musicians? Forget it, pal. Much of this material was (or at least sounds like it was) recorded in Westerberg's basement, on the fly, whenever the mood struck him and with whatever and whoever was handy. (Even the cover picture looks like he took it himself with a disposable camera in the middle of the night.)

Basically, Stereo and Mono reflect both sides of Westerberg's musical personality. Stereo, ironically, is the darker, more subdued and introspective half. Most of its dozen tracks are downbeat country waltzes, built around Westerberg's lazy strumming and world-weary vocals and backed by bare-bones instrumentation. Drums don't appear at all until nearly halfway through the disc and only a few songs -- like the slow-burning No Place For You and the kid-friendly Mr. Rabbit -- could be termed "rockers." And with titles like Got You Down, Nothing to No One, Don't Want Never, Call That Gone? and Let the Bad Times Roll, you don't need to page Dr. Freud to know this disc is dominated by depression, desperation, divorce and drugs. But just because Paul is down doesn't mean he's out. These tracks have more than enough musical power to match their emotional impact. Westerberg's usual ramshackle beauty is evident in every melody, while the lyrics are brimming with twisted, misanthropic couplets like, "Baby learns to crawl by watching Daddy's skin," and "The only lie worth telling is, 'I'm in love with you.' " Guess Paul hasn't had the greatest luck on the home front, either.

Thankfully, the set's other CD, Mono, rescues the mood. Originally released in the U.S. a few months ago under Westerberg's musical alter-ego Grandpaboy, its 11 cuts are a joyous set of loose-limbed guitar-rock spit 'n' grit. Tracks like I'll Do Anything, Eyes Like Sparks and Knock it Right Out shuck and jive to choppy riffs and swaggering Stones rhythms. Others like High Time, Silent Film Star, Kickin' the Stall and AAA gently rock to the strummy grooves and ringing chords that have defined much of his solo work. Taken together, they're the closest Westerberg has come yet to recreating the tipsy abandon of The Replacements. Probably, they're as close as he'll ever get.

Some might say that's another good reason why he should be bummed. Maybe they're right. All we know is that the worse Paul Westerberg feels, the better he sounds to us.

Track Listing
Disc 1:
1. Baby Learns To Crawl
2. Dirt To Mud
3. Only Lie Worth Telling
4. Got You Down
5. No Place For You
6. Boring Enormous
7. Nothing To No One
8. We May Be The Ones
9. Don't Want Never
10. Mr. Rabbit
11. Let The Bad Times Roll
12. Call That Gone?

Disc 2:
1. High Time
2. Anything But That
3. Let's Not Belong Together
4. Silent Film Star
5. Knock It Right Out
6. 2 Days Til Tomorrow
7. Eyes Like Sparks
8. Footsteps
9. Kickin The Stall
10. Between Love & Like
11. AAA