more ruminations on love and life that manipulate classic Fifties and Sixties rock and country forms as if they were good-luck charms. T-Bone Burnett is an ideal choice to produce the BoDeans (and Llanas's voice is strikingly similar to Burnett's nasal snarl): the strippeddown sound is a slightly more cluttered extension of the clear, direct sound Burnett helped Declan MacManus, a.k.a. Elvis Costello, achieve on King of America, and Burnett's unobtrusive approach to Llanas and Newmann's songs lets the compositions breathe.

The BoDeans' impressive debut may nonetheless be a shout into the void. Despite the reams written about getting back to basics, most radio music is constructed around a synthesizer and a drum machine, but this album's strongest tracks – the gorgeous, Tex-Mex-flavored "Still the Night" and its single, the hard, chunking "Fadeaway" – are so stark and unfussy that they'd seem out of place between synth moaners in vapid radio formats. Though there are minor problems with Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams – many of the best songs are crammed onto the first side, for instance – the joys of this tough music makes such criticisms seem petty. (RS 482)

JIMMY GUTERMAN