The rule of thumb is recently released Labour Of Lust ranks as Nick Lowe's second best album , after Jesus Of Cool.
It isn't.
Party Of One from 1990 (21 years later) is better. "All Men Are Liars" isfunnier and crueler than "Cruel to be Kind", "Shting Shtang" tis catcher than "American Squirm". And Edmunds and Keltner are on both.
Which is not to put Labour Of Lust down, but to keep a sense of the dynamic of Lowe's career.
An, as long as we're mentioning Edmunds, let's admit that Lust is part and parcel of a Rockpile double, with Edmunds, yes, I'm gonna say, superior to Lust, Repeat When Necessary.
So that being the case, why am I swooning. How about Edmunds superb solo bridge on "Cruel o be Kind"? How about the awesome blues rock of "Cracking Up" followed by "Big Kick, Plain Scrap" four on the floor drum extravaganza. or as I know and love it, the first three songs on the first side.
And next? The flat out brilliant "American Squirm" -with one of the great bridges from the first to the second verse.
And it never really waivers, a song like "Skin Deep" -with another great Edmund's solo (but short solo, like 30 seconds).
The subject is lust of sourse, which skin deep surely implies, but the music is real good rock and roll: it is prime Rockpile as well played as RWN (Edmuund had better songs),
From blues to country and shot through with what we laughingly called New Wave, sex and love converged and sex won.
So buy it, but buy Party of One first.