Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe's ability for crafting diamond-cut pop melodies was established decades ago and yet The Impossible Bird is a brilliant departure. The song craft is still there in spades -- the gentle "The Beast In Me" or driving "I Live On A Battlefield" being particular highlights -- but the attitude is remade. Here, Lowe has weathered the storm of mid-career crisis and emerged impeccably -- legs crossed at the knee in tailored slacks, smelling delicately of polished leather and hand-rolled Cubans. The best advice for Lowe's second coming? Fathers, mind your daughters.

A founding member of the legendary early '70s pub rockers Brinsley Schwarz,
singer-bassist Nick Lowe later helped godfather punk by setting up the trailblazing British
indie label Stiff and by producing Elvis Costello, the Damned, the Pretenders, Ian Dury and
the Blockheads and a host of others. Then, with guitarist Dave Edmunds, a fellow rock & roll
true believer, and on scads of drolly titled solo albums ("Jesus of Cool," "Pinker a... More >