Battle Cry for Help

Grand Champeen does Clam Dip and Made to Be Broken-era Soul Asylum as well as Soul Asylum ever did...and on Battle Cry for Help, the local foursome's second full-length effort, Grand Champeen connects with Barry Bonds-like power and frequency...The album may be best described in terms of what it's not. It's not boring, not slow, not dimwitted, not clumsy, not always nice ("Miss Out"), not for expectant mothers or the weak at heart, song-to-song not much longer than Bob Pollard's attention span can handle, and not much for wasted motion. On just about each of the LP's 14 tracks, the formula is pretty simple: get in, tear it up, get out, do it again...grab the volume knob and crank it just a little further to the right.