Additional personnel: Marc Capelle (trumpet, piano, Hammond b-3 organ); Jason Borger (piano).

While San Francisco's American Music Club was one of the finest, most idiosyncratic alt-rock bands of the 1990s (not to mention '80s), their permanent cult status and interpersonal volatility brought about the group's end in the mid-'90s. Singer/songwriter Mark Eitzel and other members pursued various solo projects, but could never equal the tragic majesty of AMC's sad-and-beautiful oeuvre. The band's eventual reunion resulted in 2004's LOVE SONGS FOR PATRIOTS, a comeback album stronger than fans might have dared to hope.

Vudi's twisted, barbed-wire guitarscapes twirl with brutal elegance around Eitzel's tortured croon and sarcastic-but-poetic lyrics. While the former kings of misery (once termed the American Smiths) are still not exactly gleeful-sounding here, the self-loathing and romantic desolation of old has been partially supplanted by a new degree of sociopolitically motivated invective, presumably in reaction to post-9/11 life in the US. Former AMC keyboardist/pedal steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan's lush textures are missed, but new member Marc Capelle does an admirable job in his stead, and the rest of the band locks in together in the agreeably spiky, subtly disconsolate manner that was always a huge part of their appeal.