Convicts

From the Easybeats to AC/DC, Australian rock has held fast to a rowdy streak that ensures that musical mayhem is never far. You Am I is very much in this tradition, a band whose penchant for three-minutes-and-change bursts of catchy high energy has made the group bestsellers at home while relegating its overseas following to the small indie club circuit in the U.S. Convicts, its eighth album, finds You Am I making another stab at breaking America with barely updated ’70s-style kickers that recall early Who and Replacements. Tim Rogers’ sharply amusing, painful lyrics seal the deal, as he twists an old Cliff Richard hit into “It Ain’t Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore” and breathes a relieved sigh: “Thank God I’ve Hit the Bottom.” Finally, the change-of-pace ballads don’t outdo the hardest of the rockers, but they do demonstrate that You Am I command more than one trick.