It's a Headcoats album -- anyone expecting anything different or unusual who already knows their work might as well go home. But, as with most everything Billy Childish has a hand in, what Conundrum lacks in surprise it more than makes up for with energy. "Every Bit of Me" alone has enough rough-voiced and snarling garage punk power to shame wannabes half the age of Childish, and that's just the first track of 14. His witty, blunt, and passionate views on life, love, and lust are as strong as ever, while the band sounds particularly great, still embracing the rough-and-ready Toerag Studio sound but cutting the musical crap and kicking out jams like nobody's business. If you need proof, throw on the drumming from "(Bitten Off) More Than You Can Chew" or the steady, malevolent punch of "Again and Again" to show how the guitar/bass/drums lineup can still kill when handled just right. Childish's long-running Native American song theme, sparked by his own personal worship of the guitar god par excellence Link Wray, gets a nod with the smoking "Crazy Horse," which actually sounds like a Bo Diddley cut more than anything. Then there's "Watch Me Fall," where Childish's guitar is so trebly and overmodulated it almost sounds like an electric sitar without even trying! Sometimes, however, all it really takes is Childish's own fierce contempt for the idiots of the world -- thus "He's So Popular With the Girls," which demolishes fame in musical and other spheres in a series of brilliantly intense verses that aim to rip heads off first and foremost. "We Ain't Gonna Be," meanwhile, makes romantic angst sound more wounded and raging than ever. ~ Ned Raggett