Willie Nile – Streets Of New York

Niles first disc in a decade is stuffed with sentiments, awash with hooks and bursting with exemplary instrumentation. Its as if ten years of music was instantly downloaded from his head in a sudden burst of urgent inspiration illustrated in the first cut, Welcome To My Head, wherein Nile describes the lively chaos residing there. The urgency is captured in a fiery cover of Eddy Grants Police On My Back, which sounds more like Cheap Trick than the Clash. Cell Phones Ringing (In The Pockets Of The Dead), his response to the Madrid bombings, is a terrific jam over an eerie lyrical image; Whole World With You accelerates to an old-fashioned big finish. Assisted by moonlighting sidemen (Jakob Dylan among them), Nile layers smart lyrics atop guitars, keyboards and backing harmonies that require repetition to fully take it all in.