Wrecking Ball Review

The subject is the financial crisis and the fury is genuine. We Take Care of Our Own is a decent single that repeats the misreadable irony of his biggest hit without the tune to carry it. Jack of All Trades is the strongest writing, a handyman listing the work he will do to survive, ending on a line about shooting the bastards on sight that lands harder for arriving so quietly.

Death to My Hometown is a fiddle stomp that works. Where it comes apart is the sound. Programmed loops sit under live drums, choirs and horns pile on top, and everything is mastered so loud that the dynamics that make this band worth hearing are flattened out. Several tracks are recycled from older sessions and the seams show. It reached number one in a lot of countries on the strength of its timing. A decade on, almost nothing on it has stuck, which is the fairest verdict available.