Here’s a look (and listen) to some records that have been cluttering up our desk and inboxes here at YuppiePunk World HQ. Though none of these titles inspired us to write 3000-word soliloquys, we figured we could at least muster 50 and an MP3.

Drive-By Truckers – “The Big To-Do”
Over and over again, these hard-rocking Georgians crank out album after album of literary Southern rock like an 18-wheeler with its brakes out. Their tenth LP, and first for Dave Matthews’ ATO, offers up thirteen hard luck tales of hard-living. As the album’s protagonists wrestle with the perils of a sagging economy, the band manage to find dignity among the detritus. And when the final chords of “The Big To-Do” have stopped ringing, you aren’t left feeling hopeless, but rather, hopeful.
Drive-By Truckers, “This Fucking Job”

Kasey Anderson – “Nowhere Nights”
It’s hard not to mention Steve Earle when reviewing Kasey Anderson, since well, the dude sounds just like the hardcore troubadour — but in all the best ways. Like Earle, he writes some damn fine Americana, delivering relatable tales of everyday folks, some as stripped-down ballads (“Home”) and others with a more rocking approach ala The Damnwells (“All Lit Up”). Anderson also has a knack for turning a nice lyrical phase. “Sky the color of a match been struck,” he sings as “I Was a Photograph” opens. “Sun just hangin’ like the noose got stuck.”
Kasey Anderson, “All Lit Up”

Rocky Votolato – “True Devotion”
Seattle singer-songwriter Rocky Votolato’s sixth solo outing is a minor key folk record that utilizes only a handful of instruments across it’s ten tracks. The set is a delicate and tuneful one, written during a depressing period in Votolato’s life. Though all of his material is a bit same-y, gray and gloomy like the Pacific Northwest skies, the merits of “True Devotion” begin to emerge after five or six listens when the deep-seeded emotions begin to bring light to what seemed mostly melancholy at first blush.
Rocky Votolato – “Lucky Clover Coin”

Against Me! – “White Crosses”
With Butch Vig again at the controls, the Florida folk-punks offer up their best album yet — and their most commercial. Toned down are the politics (just a bit), while the hooks are ratcheted up (kind of a lot), though the band doesn’t completely abandon their roots. The title track could be a rock radio anthem were it not for it’s anti-religious sentiment. “I’ll make my way back home to you, head north on San Marco Avenue,” singer-guitarist Tom Gabel belts. “White crosses on the church lawn, I want to smash them all!” But there are tender moments too, like the self-explanatory “We’re Breaking Up” and “Because of the Shame,” about the death of a former lover, which somehow ends up sounding more like Bruce Springsteen than Hot Water Music. The album is short — just 10 songs long — but there’s not a bad one in the bunch, and for a band with as much as ambition as Against Me!, this may just be the breakthrough they’re hoping for.
Against Me! – “I Was a Teenager Anarchist”

Weakerthans – “Live at the
Burton Cummings Theater”
Though the setlist lacks some of the Weakerthans’ charming early material, “Live at the Burton Cummings Theater” captures the Winnipeg band in a straightforward and not overly-produced fashion, which isn’t entirely different from how they come off in the studio. There’s no between song banter, no guitar tuning and no extended crowd roar, just John K. Sampson and co. ripping through a dozen and a half songs in just over an hour. If viewed as a de facto best-of mix, the album serves as a nice entry point for new fans hoping to buy a single disc of the band’s best material. But although the arrangements are nice and the harmonies sufficient, the live versions don’t end up revealing anything new in the songs, which makes it essential for completists or newbies only.
The Weakerthans, “Sun in an Empty Room”

The Bouncing Souls – “Ghosts
on the Boardwalk”
Celebrating 20 years together, the New Jersey quartet release their best album in a decade. Highlighting all the elements that have kept the Souls relevant in punk rock for two decades, “Ghosts” delivers melodic anthems (“Gasoline,” “Ghosts on the Boardwalk”) alongside goofier numbers like “Badass,” the lyrics of which are a laundry list of things the band thinks are groovy — like black eyes, muscle cars, Mr. T, beer — you get the idea.
Bouncing Souls – “Gasoline”

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists -
“The Brutalist Bricks”
Ted Leo does punk pop the old-fashioned way, which is to say he’s all Jam and no Green Day. He’s also keen to keep us guessing, particularly on “The Brutalist Bricks,” not his strongest album, but perhaps his most daring. He integrates new dynamics and more instrumentation than on records past. “Tuberculoids Arrive in Hop” is as close to a ballad as Leo has ever done, sounding a bit like Bob Mould’s early solo years — at least until the diminished chords take the chorus in another direction entirely. There are a few Leo staples as well. “Ativan Eyes” is a love song, which, in Ted Leo’s universe means it’s not overly-gushing or mushy. “I still want to be gazed upon by your Ativan eyes,” he sings. “Oh, cast an eye upon me.” Landing on his third label in as many releases, let’s hope his tenure on Matador doesn’t end the way the previous two did: by going out of business.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – “Ativan Eyes”

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