Firewater's Psychopharmacology

Psychopharmacology follows a different course from Firewater's last album, the indie-hit The Ponzi Scheme. Where Ponzi at its best was propelled by the bass of Tod A and drums of Yuval Gabay (ex-Soul Coughing), featuring cacophonous bar songs and churning rock 'n' roll show-stoppers like "Dropping Like Flies," Psychopharmacology is a still more clinically sedated version of Ponzi Scheme's contemplative songs, such as "Caroline" and "I Still Love You, Judas."

Here on the new album we have a full range of prescription songcraft for the introspective listener. And for those who enjoy a more escapist reality, I can assure you that the album delivers some great highs. The title song, for one, is pleasantly rollicking and other tracks like "Woke Up Down," "Get Out of My Head" and "The Man with the Blurry Face" swing and bop along like mid-60s pop songs. Imagine the Chiffons' "One Fine Day" with the lyrics of "Get Out of My Head": "Baby, I could be a billionaire/If I wasn't always broke/And I could be a comedienne/If I wasn't such a joke/I guess I knew it all along/Being born is where I went wrong." The lyrics are buoyed by the pop and fizz of new drummer Tamir Muskat's sizzling snare and his prowess with finger bells, shakers and other instruments evocative of a Middle Eastern (Israeli) upbringing. There's a mellotron and lots of electric organ, too. But it is Muskat most of all who complements the album's unquestioned centerpiece: Tod A's addictive, compelling, raspy-voiced vocals.

Longtime New Yorker and former Cop Shoot Cop frontman Tod A sounds like a balladeer from the Lower East Side when drugs and death ruled the neighborhood. His are horror stories, told with style and substance, thick with experience. But there's always a slyly humorous touch in his gravelly delivery, as if these coarse tales of suicide, deathly deceit and murder are but a part of the fabric of life. "I'll take what the dumpsters are giving/And I'll pray every night to St. Giles/But I still think that life's for the living/At least for a while." All Tod A's songs on Psychopharmacology feature this sort of imagery?haunting, melodramatic and yet comical. There's a malicious insurance scam artist with a penchant for twisted metal in "Car Crash Colloborator": "As you crawl from the debris/Remember that it's just the way I feed my family/I'm just a cold cash negotiator/And I'm sipping on an oxygen cocktail/With an ambulance chaser."

Perhaps the best song on the CD is "Black Box Recording," an eyewitness account of an airplane explosion told with sickly sweet sincerity and black humor: "The No-Smoking sign is flashing/Your mask descends without a sound/Your stab at hope receding/Even the sky is bleeding/You sure could use a smoke right now." Psychopharmacology ranks with the best, like Nick Cave's Murder Ballads and Tom Waits' Bone Machine, though its sound is very different. After repeated listenings, you will be inclined to purchase copies for all your depressed hipster friends.