Since his mid-'80s days as one-half of the creative core of the late and lamented
Windbreakers,
Tim Lee has done one thing and done it well: guitar pop with equal amounts of rootsy bite and jangly sweetness, as devoted to
Big Star and
the dB's as it is to traditional country and blues sources. Well,
Concrete Dog is -- in the best possible sense -- more of the same.
Lee's increasingly weathered vocals are still capable of shifting from the rough-edged hoarseness of "Live Through Me" and the bluesy "Greyhound from Jackson" to an equally grizzled but somehow sweeter tone on the almost winsome "Ever Before." (More than anyone else,
Lee is unexpectedly starting to sound very much like
Tom Verlaine vocally.) His band, rooted by his wife, bassist Susan Bauer and former
Superdrag drummer Don Coffey, Jr., is entirely within the
Rockpile tradition of the delicate balance between stomp and shimmer, and the songs are uniformly fine. May
Tim Lee never feel the need to "branch out" unnecessarily. ~ Stewart Mason