Sean Tillman is the main entity behind Sean Na Na and, with Dance Til Your Baby is a Man, he proves himself to be among today's best songwriters. While Joe Pernice and others thank great writers like Charles Simic in their credits, Sean Tillman simply writes like them ("your tongue is so sharp that it cut my cheek"). Impressively, he even weaves homonyms ("catalyst" and "cattle-less" in his song "Mezcal") through his songs -- and they're there for a reason, not merely as a prop. Along with great couplets ("I sipped my coke and watched her writhe/Try not to fuck without me next time") and Yeats rewrites ("If a little leaning tower is what you're after...don't bother"), you really can't listen through the whole record without wishing Sean Tillman wrote stories for a living too.

Happily, though, Sean has more than just a way with words. Along with keyboardist Lucky Jeremy and drummer Ben Webster (who's also in Society of Friends), Sean Na Na can spin their words through some wonderful melodies. While it's hard for any on Dance Til Your Baby is a Man to match the exuberance and joyful intensity of "Princess and the Pony" (his instant classic on the recent split CD with Mary Lou Lord), you'll still be grave-dancing to these tunes. My personal favorite has to be "The Bottom", with its beautiful lyrics ("A chill shimmies up your spine/The wind isn't the coldest thing in the city this time") that avoid self-pity but not undesirable truths ("Everybody is as sad as you"). Recalling timeless tracks by Mould, Newman and Westerberg ("Too Far Down", "I Want You to Hurt Like I Do", "Androgynous"), "The Bottom" is one song you can almost imagine crying to. Nonetheless, play it a few times, and your typical reaction will simply be to dance.

As for faults, I guess it would have been nice if some of the songs had more variety, or rocked as hard as they do live. Still, the songs are varied enough to always stand apart from the rest, and none of them are dull. "Rimshot Na Na" plays wonderfully off the group's name (and Sean's nickname), and "Gray Clouds" works its metaphors so deftly that I mistook Little Gray Cloud for a Native American that done these fellas wrong. While probably not as fun or funky as their amazing live performances, you will like this full-length enough to heed its demand and "dance 'til your baby is a man, a depressed man".