Love Songs for Patriots

After nearly a decade apart, American Music Club reunited once the members understood just how much they missed and needed each other. Though the absence of pedal steel player Bruce Kaphan is painful, keyboardist Marc Capelle does his best to cover the extra textures that make AMC a most celebrated and sonically unique group. Songwriter Mark Eitzel sings with his trademark empathy while reeling off tunes that are jammed with unusual lyrical insights. However, his deft wordplay would mean little if not for the epic battles waged by drummer Tim Mooney and guitarist Vudi. Together, they take what would be intriguing acoustic-based music and turn it into an electrified post-punk maelstrom. "Ladies and Gentlemen" announces the band is back at full dissonance, able to take angry tones and soothe them into harmony. "Another Morning" simmers. "Patriot's Heart" lurches with a frustration heavy with gallows humor: "After a few tequilas, I become something holy / and this crappy little bar with its sweating mirrors and its mildewed ceiling are more full of love." Theirs is an intensity matched by very few.