Tommy Williams, who used to be in both Sleepasaurus and Long Distance Runner, has a great voice that might occasionally remind you of Richard Hell. On "Stars Got Crossed", it immediately reminded me of "Blank Generation" due to the cool, swaggering way it was delivered. Mostly, though, Tommy and his band, Radio 4, sound more like a revved-up Joe Jackson screaming "I'm the man". You may not see Joe do that often anymore, but he did it damn well -- and so do Radio 4.

Like the mod-crazy Chisel before them, Radio 4 is a Gern Blandsten group that revives a past "sound" that deserves far more exploration and respect than the acid bands of yesteryear. To some extent, they deserve applause just for this -- it's retro, yes, but unlike any other retro stuff you're now hearing -- but they earn more cheers by blending their Mercury-poisoned new-wave treatments with the aggressive guitars of groups like Wire and Mission of Burma. It gives material like their own "Election Day" a harder, rougher edge than their new wave counterparts offered; "Election Day", for example, is very similar to Joe Jackson's "Sunday Papers", except that it's like a Sunday paper with blood all over it. This makes up for the slightly less crafty lyrics, and helps the music get more in sync with the tense emotions behind the vocals.

I would love for The New Song and Dance to get exposure, and I think that the band fully deserves as much of your attention as the music that inspires them. It doesn't seem like too many of their musical peers are remembering the brilliant fits of anger that flew out of the the English pub rock scene in the seventies, and maybe that's why most of today's "angry stuff" doesn't seem as urgent or winning as this. Stuff like "Don't wanna be like that" is as good a source of punk band inspiration as any. If you don't believe me, buy The New Song and Dance and witness the sublime results.