New Music Review

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
The Brutalist Bricks
Matador Records
CD

I've spent the last week and a half or so listening to the latest Ted Leo effort, The Brutalist Bricks, amazed at how consistent Ted Leo is. I spent roughly the first half of my life obsessed with sports, so I've been trying to recall an athlete to whom I can make a parallel with ol' Teddy. The real "lunch pail" kind of guys. These guys are not super-stars, but they're the reliable players who you know will deliver when you need them to, even if it's done with little fanfare. Joe Dumars was the first player who came to mind. I grew up watching him let guys like Isiah Thomas have the spotlight, even though he was just as instrumental as Zeke in the Pistons back-to-back championships '89 and '90. Alan Trammell is another one: the Tigers' silent leader who kept his mouth shut and just showed up for work every day, earning the '84 World Series MVP award in the process. These were the first guys I could think of, having grown up as a fan of the Detroit teams, but every small to mid-market city had these guys. The unsung local hero who doesn't get the press. While I was racking my brain trying to think of a better example of these critical role players, I realized that I just couldn't come up with one to make a proper analogy. And then it dawned on me: I realized that it was because Ted Leo has so much fucking style, that he really IS a superstar. He just happens to be one in a role player's clothing.

The Brutalist Bricks is another enjoyable effort from Leo. It leads off with the infectious opener "The Mighty Sparrow", it closes with the hook-heavy arena-style rocker "Last Days" and everything in between will keep your full attention. This is classic Ted Leo here; he sticks to the things he's good at (angry-but-somehow-extremely-melodic-punk-influenced-pop if I were forced to label it), but he he switches it up enough that it just doesn't get old. He actually covers a tons of bases on this record. His punk roots shines through on the whole album, particularly on tracks such as "The Stick", "Where Was My Brain?", and "Gimme the Wire", and his folk influences sparkle particularly well on a pair of songs: "Even Heroes Have to Die", and the fabulous "Bottled in Cork". Lyrically, he's the same smart-ass he's always been, but a little older, a little wiser, and a little more clever.

This album, like his previous effort Living with the Living, seems to have more of a political bent to it than his earlier work (which is to say that it has 5 or 6 politically charged tracks instead of 1 or 2), but it seems so natural coming from his angry-young-man-approaching-middle-age persona that I don't see how even the most politically conservative indie rock fans could find it irksome. No, Ted has really given us a gem here. I think this is his best effort since 2003's Hearts of Oak. That's the only possible explanation for the fact that I just cannot stop listening to this thing.

Sure, Ted Leo is doing the same thing he's always done. His songs are predominantly I-IV-IV chord progressions with catchy hooks. That's a pretty standard formula employed by nearly every rocker since the 50's. But when Ted Leo puts his own spin on that tried and true formula is when he differentiates himself from the pack. This is why we give a shit about him now, and will continue to do so. Ted Leo is not an everyman like I originally though. He is a superstar. The problem is that not everybody knows that yet. Shit, maybe he doesn't even know it, but that doesn't make it untrue. He's had the game of a first ballot hall-of-famer since he started playing; he just doesn't get the media attention because indie-labels, even the prominent ones with decent distribution like Matador, are a far cry from Rock n' Roll's version of playing for the Yankees.