Living With The Living

Ted Leo's newest CD. It is excellent. It combines the poppiness of Shake The Sheets with the styling of Tyranny of Distance for a great combination. I think that overall it is closer to Tyranny than Sheets.

I'm not going to go song-by-song (I tried and it was looking ugly) but I will say that the only dragger is "The Unwanted Things" and the rest of the CD is very solid. "C.I.A." and "La Costa Brava" are my favorites, but "A Bottle of Buckie" and "Sons of Cain" are also standouts. And the outro to "The Lost Brigade" kept me humming it whenever I was walking (a safe distance from ears) for a few days.

The same cannot be said of the B-sides that came with the preorders. But, I don't think they're doing that anymore, so no worries. They weren't bad, but, well...not good.

So: Tyranny of Distance > Shake the Sheets > Living With The Living > Hearts of Oak

And I love Hearts of Oak. So use that as a reference point.