‘Street Sweeper Social Club’

Street Sweeper Social Club

“Street Sweeper Social Club”

(Independent Label Group/ Warner Music)

* * * 1/2

Just last month, some critics questioned the continued relevancy of the fairly mild political discontent expressed on Green Day’s latest album, “21st Century Breakdown.” Well, Billie Joe Armstrong can breathe easy now. There’s a new explosives unit in town, and this one is radical enough to really reap the scorn of those who think there’s no more room for protest in rock.

Guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and rapper Boots Riley of the Oakland crew the Coup are longtime comrades in pop’s committed left wing. Now, along with Stanton Moore, the scrappy drummer from jazz-funk outfit Galactic, they’ve excavated the sunken ship of rap-rock as a vehicle for revolutionary jams. For Morello, who helped create this bomb-dropping approach, the sound of Street Sweeper Social Club is well-loved home ground. For Riley, it’s a step toward a different audience, beyond the loyal cult that’s long appreciated the Coup’s highly explicit polemics.

Marrying firebrand lyrics with massive guitar riffs, SSSC (it sounds like a union acronym) revels in the kinds of big, earnest gestures that emblematized 1990s alternative rock. It’s hardly a new approach to rabble-rousing. But hidden within the band’s empire-toppling football chants, Riley wields a sharp little knife.

That weapon is the sense of lived politics that’s permeated Riley’s work for nearly 20 years. On this album, he’s as prone to sloganeering as is Armstrong (or, for that matter, Rage’s more oracular Zack de la Rocha). But he never crafts a rally cry without countering it with a sly joke and a poignant detail.

The downtrodden workers Riley evokes in songs such as “Somewhere in the World It’s Midnight” and “The Oath” aren’t abstractions. They sweat through the night shift and dream of an uprising partly because if that happens, they might get a day off.

With Riley in front, cracking jokes and getting sweaty, Morello relaxes. His playing is what-the-heck spontaneous, complementing Moore’s loose-elbowed drumming. (Morello also played bass on the album; Hollywood mainstay Carl Restivo does so on tour.)

SSSC can get very explicit about overthrowing the state. The disdain expressed toward police, corporate shills and even wealthy rock-rap fans (in the highly amusing “100 Little Curses”) often has a violent edge. “Clap for the Killers” suggests that hip-hop’s gangstas are nothing compared with murdering bankers and heads of state, while “Shock You Again” portrays a soldier as an unrepentant torturer.

Such stubbornly oppositional sentiments, bolstered by the music’s none-too-subtle metallic attack, will put off those more interested in sleeker pop -- or more conciliatory forms of activism. But as Leon Trotsky once wrote, “Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.” Riley and Morello aren’t done with it yet.

-- Ann Powers

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Easygoing and a bit of everything

Jonas Brothers

“Lines, Vines and Trying Times”

(Hollywood Records)

* * 1/2

Plenty of young stars have grown darker on records after a fast career ascent. Though “Lines, Vines and Trying Times” has a touch of late-teen angst about it lyrically, the Jonas Brothers’ third album of eclectic pop is unexpectedly their most enjoyable yet.

The refreshing thing about “Lines” is the sense that the brothers have zero hang-ups about finding authenticity through traditional rock gestures. The Jonas’ have the advantage of a young fan base for whom Neil Diamond was never hokey and for whom soul has no political ramifications. So it feels natural when the trio skips from falsetto-stretching funk on “World War III” to rhinestone-cowboy country on “What Did I Do to Your Heart.”

Although the tunes are accomplished, “Lines” has a patina of smarm that’s less smart than the music. Every lyric is populated with some strain of stock crazy chick character who’s always starting fights out of nowhere (“World War III”), refusing to get over a breakup (“Paranoid”) or giving the brothers unexplainable rashes (“Poison Ivy”).

The Jonas Brothers have discovered intriguing angles for realizing their songcraft talents, but they don’t yet have perspective on the wider world. That’s nothing a few years and a serious heartbreak won’t fix.

-- August Brown

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Her family roots are showing

Holly Williams

“Here With Me”

(Mercury Nashville)

* * *

On her second album, “Here With Me,” 28-year-old singer-songwriter Holly Williams (and daughter of Hank Jr.) extends the tradition of honest self-revelation she put forth in her excellent 2004 debut “The Ones We Never Knew.” This time she more openly explores the country music genes that are part of her estimable DNA.

Williams shares her granddaddy’s penchant for disarming vulnerability. “Let Her Go,” which she wrote with Marcus Hummon, could be about any father-daughter relationship, but given the family she comes from, there’s no mistaking exactly who is the target of this one. In “Mama,” she’s crafted a thank-you note to a matriarch who resisted the post-divorce temptation to demonize her ex.

She name-checks her grandfather in “Without Jesus Here With Me,” which details a 2006 car accident she was in with her sister, Hilary.

The preacher tried to make me learn

So I memorized his favorite verse

But Hank’s words they taught me everything

Thank God I saw the light for me

The light Williams saw refers to a spiritual awakening, but it could easily apply to the self-illumination that shines through in her music -- another Williams family tradition.

-- Randy Lewis