Since his split from Seattle- by- way of Missoula, MT indie rock gods Silkworm, Joel R.L. Phelps has put out some of the most compelling 3:00am- and- a- bottle- o'- booze music around. However, none of this output (with the exception of one track off his first solo record) can be accurately said to "rock." I mean, this is a guy who covered the Clash's "Guns of Brixton"-- a rabble- rouser of a song if there ever was one-- with grace and dignity. Admittedly, those are not very Clash- like attributes, but I'll be damned if it didn't sound great.

See, back in his Silkworm days, Joel could muster up the shriek of the devil on any given night. Check out such early benchmarks as "Little Sister" from the impossible- to- find album L'ajre (now handily reissued on a 2xCD set called Even a Blind Chicken Finds a Kernel of Corn Now and Then) or "Dremate" from In the West for sublime examples of this. Now, it's not as if Joel's solo stuff has been any less intense since those days. It's just been, well... quieter. Until now, that is.

Phelps' latest offering, Blackbird, is a stark affair design- wise: the back of the disc features the song titles scrawled in a lanky hand, scribbled out, then rewritten in the wrong order, the front cover is a pastel-ish piece of "modern art," the CD and tray liner are barest white. So, given the combination of Phelps' propensity for Low- like minimalism and the packaging of the record, imagine my complete and utter shock when I popped in the CD and encountered a fearsome blast of ragged, distorted, Crazy Horse- esque rock.

"Then Slowly Turn" whaps you across the face with Phelps' almighty, reedy holler, jagged guitar lines and an anthemic melody to sink your teeth into. So, I figured, okay, he's teasing us. Surely the whole album can't be like this. And it's not. However, you're suddenly deafened by "I Got a Live One," an even thicker slab o' rock which rages for barely two minutes before expiring seamlessly into "Until You're Tired of Living," a guitar epic which would make Neil Young and Tom Verlaine (and Phelps' ex-bandmates in Silkworm, for that matter) quite proud.

After this initial three- song explosion, things quiet down quiet a bit. There's an air of energy running through Blackbird that was sorely missing from Phelps' last disc, the tomb-like 3. As for covers, Phelps throws in a languid, tearjerking rendition of the Comsat Angels' "Lost Continent" (Silkworm also covered tha Angels' "Our Secret" to great effect on Blind Chicken), which ranks as one of the album's finest. There's plenty of other highlights, like the achingly beautiful "Wading in the Water," "Get the Chills," and the stately "Blessed Salt Lake." All of these tunes have been highlights of recent live sets, and the studio treatment that they're given here ranks among Phelps' finest work.

One caveat: your ability to love Joel R.L. Phelps hinges entirely on your love for other screechy whiners (e.g. the aformentioned Young and Verlaine.) If this sort of emoting makes your skin crawl, then there's really nothing I'll be able to say to get you to like Joel Phelps. On the other hand, if the occasional (or not- so- occasional) off- key yelp endears you to a singer rather than inducing cringes, Phelps is your man. And if you like this stuff but haven't checked out Silkworm yet, welcome to your new favorite band.

-Jeremy Schneyer