Texas-to-St. Paul transplant John Ewing’s second official release, Seen Yer Face, finds the six-string troubador continuing his classic, up-front rock approach, but delving deeper into matters of the heart. Weaned on authentic Tex-Mex boogie, punk-influenced bands like the True Believers and English rawkers The Small Faces, Ewing displays a genuine knack for tying his urgent chord progressions in with the emotional wiring of his lyrics, and creates a scarily real central character for his story/songs in the persona of a Broken Man left scarred by love lost/gone wrong, but still reveling in the bloody aftermath of its destruction.

The mood of the album is set immediately, kicking off with the driving break-up anthem “Turnstyle”: “Have you ever been broken, have you ever been clipped?” wonders The Broken Man, his sorrow-soaked voice revealing just a hint of sarcasm. Amidst alternately growling and crying guitars (courtesy of Ewing and ace axeman Steve Brantseg), pounding tribal drums (Tom Cook) and thumping bass (Johnny O’Halloran), JEB drives home a memorable anti-love song with all the force of a Texas flood, but manages to leave the listener with a scrap of hope: “Well, it just might take awhile, it just might take awhile...”

Ewing’s affinity for (and ability to articulate) the dark vibe of smoky bars and the mournful moods of lost souls has never been clearer than on track two, “Happy Hour”, where he paints a painful portrait of the Broken Man/heavy drinker’s destructive, repetitive cycle over positively scathing guitars: “Hold your head up don’t be late / Stare at the wall on another day...Shirt is pressed my shoes are tied / Goin’ where the nightlife never dies / Come along, won’t you come with me? / Dance hall stinks of aftershave / Stomach’s feelin’ like a big ashtray...No time for your tears, it’s happy hour.”

“From No One,” (a not-so-sly nod to The Beatles) is a classic ode to Dear John letters dripping with sublime harmonies and accusatory love lines like “An’ every August you rip the smile from my face / Now it’s gonna take more than a stamp to stick in place / Seal it you sent it / Tied an’ bound, one little thing that you left out/From no one....from no one.” As if taken aback by his own deep perception of the loneliness and pain of the human condition, Ewing eases out of the heartbreak mode with “Oh Naive”, then blasts out three fired-up rockers in a row, The Broken Man laughing at his own misery and foibles—”What’s Your Name?” (a silly, humorous ditty about a bank teller he momentarily fell in love with), “No Wine, No Women” (self-explanatory), and “Smokin’ Like a Raygun,” an all-out, knock-down, drag-out jukebox standard-in-waiting with a snotty punk vibe: “Ya left a corkscrew in my heart / Well you take! Take! Take! My breath away!”

“True” finds the band backing down and catching their collective breath, with comforting rain and thunder sounds rumbling faintly from behind tentative string plucks, then kicks in forcefully: “Come on down anger / Hard pressed to see / Pitchforks and pink carnations...” (Here The Broken Man points an accusatory finger again) “You, you were never true, it’s true...have you been in love before?” “Catch a Dime” is the album’s strongest cut (Ode to a Broken Woman?), with Ewing crooning sadly over gentle strumming: “You end up a stripper / No sweet sixteen / Catch a dime, catch a dime / Throw it in the air, it’s comin’ down this time.”

The record winds down with the heavy rocker “Drivin’ Me Lazy” and the gritty capper “Sunshine to Pay”, which conjures up images of The Broken Man in his pre-heartbreak heyday, fronting an all-star jam with Doug Sahm, Ronnie Lane, Hank Williams and a very young Elvis. Special guests Jim Kennedy, Rich Mattson and Michael Whitten add bright splashes of color to an already ear-filling palette of sounds, and in time, this album will prove to be a landmark release in Ewing’s still-developing songwriting career. The amalgam of odd characters populating this record are people you’d find on any given day in any tap room or liquor joint from Hennepin to University Avenues, but the real fun here is finding yourself in Ewing’s private, aural after-hours club. You’re The Broken Man/Woman, perched on a stool with one sip left in your glass, puking in a reeking urinal, writing an angry letter you’ll never send, dripping crocodile tears on a nicotine-stained jukebox, staring glassy-eyed down the interminable length of a packed but lonely bar. And that’s John and the boys up there onstage, swilling lukewarm keg beer and playing your life story. A must-have for fans of hook-filled, irony-free, classic American rock ’n’ roll.

Following the 1999 release of Big Load, a collection of countrified porch-stompers and trippy, wink-n-a-nod road tunes, Indiana’s Roach Brothers quickly cranked out a batch of new material and hooked up with two fellow Indianans and veteran session men. Bassist Rick Maxwell and guitarist Karl Corts (whose impressive credits include sessions with Bo Diddley, Betty Wright, John Lee Hooker, Harry Casey of The Sunshine Band and The Fabulous Thunderbirds) augment the siblings’ already lush grooves while adding deep blue(s) shadings, thumpin’ funk riddims and solid backing vocals. The most glaring difference between Take Flight and its predecessor, however, is in the songwriting itself. Guitarist/singer/songwriter Terry Rouch lets his pen (and voice) flow in a decidedly more romantic vein this time, with hair-raising cuts like “Laughin’ out Loud” (a shimmering, simultaneous ode to a young lover and a classic car) and “Crawl” (“Can’t believe I went this way / I was such a good boy / Never showed no signs of actin’ out...well, you really can make me crawl...”), proving that, John Mellencamp aside, the fertile farm fields of Indiana can produce heartfelt pop without the corn. Producer/drummer/singer James Rouch, the younger Roach, contributes his sharp, anti-social diatribes to several tracks, including the acerbic “Shit List” and the poignant “Like Me,” while Corts’ guitar lends wiry solos and intricate pickin’ to the elder Roach’s urgent riffing throughout the album. Maxwell, who throws his hat in the lyrical ring with his hilarious, superstanky funk number “Macho Babe”, is the penultimate anchor for the quartet, with an uncanny knack for foreseeing the tiniest rhythmic details and providing sharp, petulant licks. This is a real American record, full of fierce independence, honest longing and undying curiosity from four guys with their feet planted firmly in the dirt and their heads proudly boppin’ in the clouds.

With their 1977 single, “Don’t Push Me Around”, the Zeros established themselves firmly in the pantheon of classic American garage rock. Led by guitarists Robert Lopez (who also has a lucrative solo career as El Vez, the Mexican Elvis), and primary songwriter Javier Escovedo (who comes from a long line of rock talent, including Santana’s Coke Escovedo, funkstress Sheila E. and Alejandro Escovedo, who co-founded Rank and File and The True Believers), the band became known as “The Mexican Ramones” for their driving, punk-y vibes. Though they have been on extended hiatus since those heady days, the quartet has re-formed with as much or more energy and off-the-wall spunk as ever. Right Now! is a raunchy, trashy, free-for-all excursion into the guts of leather-n-grease ’70s rawk, and an honest tribute to the band’s inspirations. Covers of New York Dolls’ founder Johnny Thunders’ “Chatterbox”, The Seeds’ classic “Pushin’ Too Hard” and The Sonics’ “Strychnine” evoke the split lip/broken beer bottle ethics of the originals, while adding the Zeros’ own brash stylings. New material like “Handgrenade Heart”, “Tonight” and bassist Hector Penalosa’s anthemic “You, Me, Us” (“...get up, don’t know what I’m gonna do today / No school, no work, no play / It’s the same old way / You, me, us, we’re all going nowhere...”), ride the wave begun by Iggy and the Stooges, The Heartbreakers and The Suicide Commandos to its (il)logical, crashing conclusion with a proud and resounding echo…Made Loud to Play Loud! Cool shit.