Album Review: We Have You Surrounded by The Dirtbombs

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome America's newest protest singer -- Mick Collins! OK, that's going a bit far to make a point, but Collins does seem to have more serious matters on his mind than usual on the fourth album from the Dirtbombs, We Have You Surrounded. Fans looking for more of the Dirtbombs' patented R&B-seasoned garage punk assault still get what they came for with tunes like "Ever Lovin' Man" and "I Hear the Sirens," and those fascinated by the band's way with a cover will want to cue up their re-imaginings of Sparks' "Sherlock Holmes" and Dead Moon's "Fire in the Western World. " But there's a decidedly apocalyptic undercurrent to this collection of songs -- technology turns its back on us all in "Wreck My Flow," the environment is at the point of collapse on "Fire in the Western World," greed and vanity turn dangerous in "Pretty Princess Day," survivors struggle through the wreckage of our society in "Leopardman at C&A" (written by Collins and famed comics scribe Alan Moore) and the whole saga reaches its logical conclusion en français on the closing number, "La Fin du Monde.

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A couple of years ago, when I talked to Mick Collins, he said that the Dirtbombs were probably more than halfway through their arc as a band and that after one more album, their bubblegum record, they would most likely call it quits. Collins observed that he would ordinarily have had three or four bands during the lifespan of the Dirtbombs. No one was more surprised than he that it had lasted so long.

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