The music industry is a fickle, dangerous mistress; she is a gorgeous siren who will seduce you with her many promises of untold riches, erotic adventures, and endless deli platters. She is also a sinister temptress of the deep, who will stop at nothing to latch onto your jugular and suck you dry, leaving you ravaged, and naked as the day you were born.

-Jonny Polonsky, from a promotional letter for There is Something Wrong with You

So I guess there were label troubles. Jonny Polonsky's debut, Hello, My Name is Jonny, delighted many an ear in 1996 with its rockin' riffs and good cheer. Polonsky pumped the Pixies sound through a classic rock filter that never took itself too seriously, but still believed in the music. After that, we got zip for five years. Evidently, an aborted jump from American Recordings to Epic left our hero stranded without a home. You'd think his mentor, Frank Black, would have imparted some of the savvy he has for working the record industry and keeping himself on the top of the CMJ charts. Now, Jonny (one of the few musicians I feel comfortable calling by his first name, thanks to his first record's titular introduction) is back with an EP of chord-ripping, solo-squealing, straight-up rock.

Oh, Rock. You dying dinosaur that delights with each croaking gasp. You muscular reptile of song. You plow through the same vegetation your would-be replacements hide in. They chirp their ratlike tones to each other while you roar at the sky. Why am I so fascinated with your prehistoric growl? Who needs monkeys-- even electronic monkeys-- chirping away when you assault the heavens with the doomed rage of the Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Jonny puts on his reptile skin and shakes his rattle to that 4/4 beat, delivering fine songs. It should be long dead, but there are still whole radio stations devoted to this stuff, and Jonny does it better than the insane posse of clowns on KROQ. Like the frontmen for such radio-friendly acts as Blink 182 and Smashmouth, Polonsky has a nasal voice. But where those dreg punkers on the airwaves twist their notes in snotty sarcasm, Jonny opens his throat and fills it with lusty tone.

There is Something Wrong with You differs little from Hi, My Name is Jonny. There are lots of chugging guitars, furious rolling drums, and passionate singing. Polonsky sneaks in hot little guitar lines all over the place. He's going through a bit of Weezer syndrome here, as, after a long hiatus, there's less cleverness to the lyrics. Still, Jonny's heart-on-sleeve intensity comes through. While Weezer seem cynical, Jonny still believes.

Rather than playing all the instruments himself, as he did on the first disc, Polonsky is joined here by bassist Solomon Snyder (CupCakes, Dovetail Joint) and drummer Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, Guns N' Roses, Paul Westerberg). The sound is live, fast, thunderous, and American. I detect a little Bruce Springsteen in that high, single piano note in the chorus on "Freezed," as well as in the rumbling drums. There's an unabashed exuberance on this track; it starts with a "Hey, baby," and the chorus includes a lot of "Yeah yeah ahaa ayeah!" He means it.

"Long Gone" features lots of "Hey, yeah," too. The souped-up sound keeps pounding melodically through the title track, with Polonsky straining his upper register and firing off some quick guitar flourishes as he tries to shake some dysfunctional friend or lover (himself?) from a state of denial. (Take it from me, Jonny, no one ever changes.) The pressure doesn't let up until track four, "Gone Too Far," which brings things down with a slinky Pixies-inspired bassline, then rockets back up at the chorus. Jonny whispers on this track, and while his lessers on the radio whisper in Reznoric menace, he groans with vulnerability. Pop stars are unscary; Jonny guides you through his small fears.

The record closes with a ballad, "You Are My Star," which makes me think of Rocket from the Crypt. Both Polonsky and Rocket play punk-driven rock infused with classic rock muscle. Both play only two types of songs-- fast or slow-- and they should stick to the fast ones.

But the disc's penultimate track, "Roll On," is where Polonsky really earns that dinosaur skin. It's fitting, since he successfully raids the sound of T-Rex (the musical act, not the cretaceous meat-eater), with a fast "Bang a Gong" shuffle and a constant two-word chorus replete with handclaps. Jonny even affects some Marc Bolan singing when he hisses, "This is the season of the Warthog." The glam stays in the states, though, as he rips into a hot, gurgling guitar solo reminiscent of ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons.

Long live America. And if guys like Jonny can keep making it sound so good, then long live Rock.

-Dan Kilian