Dave Edmunds

This sounds like a Rockpile album while Nick Lowe's doesn't because Lowe loves rock and roll for everything it implies as culture while Edmunds loves it for everything it is as music. There is a richness of reference here that leaves Edmunds's rockabilly phase far behind--five of the songs are imaginative genre pieces from two pubberies that appear to specialize in pub-rock revivalism, new ones by Parker and Costello add that contemporary touch, and the zesty remake of "Home in My Hand" cuts Brinsley Schwarz's. But what defines the music is Edmunds's willingness to defer to the overdrive of the two other guys in the band, unsung guitarist Billy Bremner and pitiless drummer Terry Williams. In unity there is power. (Grade: A-)