Gold Brick

Devilishly crafted and scarily melodic, Gold Brick is Jon Langford's (Mekons, Waco Bros.) third solo album and the proper follow-up to 1998's Skull Orchard. Collaborating with a band that includes Pine Valley Cosmonauts John Price and Pat Brennan, Waco Brother Alan Doughty, Jean Cooke, and Dan Massey, this is probably Langford's most consistent and coherent recording to date. A lush and expansive project that draws parallels between the bloody birth of America and the seismic shifts of today's globalization with universal themes of exile, exploitation and extremism obtained by observing and participating in quintessentially American activities as a Welsh expatriate--from the strip joint to the strip mall and every bar in between. He even has balls enough to cover Procol Harum's classic "A Salty Dog."