Jesse Malin: Glitter in the Gutter (Shock)

With Malin sometimes sounding like a young Mick Jagger, mostly like a slurry and coked up Tom Petty (before he went soft-rock), and with the urgency of Springsteen's Born to Run period mixed with the Stones' It's Only Rock'n'Roll, this album fairly leaps out at you as Malin hauls in supporters such as Ryan Adams, Jakob Dylan, the Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and the Boss himself.

With friends like these, who needs an audience, huh?

The duet with Springsteen on Broken Radio doesn't entirely work for me (it's Bruce in blue collar mode) and the track about Lucinda Williams, while it has an edgy LA feel, doesn't sound especially convincing either.

But elsewhere this thing fires on all cylinders and is an invigorating rock'n'roll album of the old style. It has taken two albums of shaking out influences and wayward ambition for this one to come through, but Malin's time spent in LA recording -- where it doesn't sound like he was particularly comfortable -- has done the trick.

There are a couple of slower-paced tracks here but mostly this one sounds like it was thought up as Malin was listening to the Stones circa '73 while on a highway full of broken heroes on a last chance power drive.

Party music for sure, and burn off a copy for the car too.