Since Live Aid, Bob Geldof has been known more as a saint than a singer, but with The Happy Club, things might change. Club uses traditional instruments (penny whistles, accordions and fiddles) in a rough-and-tumble brew that feels as much like vintage Bob Dylan as it does like Van Morrison's brand of Celtic soul.

On the opener, "Room 19," Geldof leads the band in a hand-clapping, a cappella chorus that pays homage to Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" before launching into a wonderfully cynical reel about the brains of Lenin, Tchaikovsky and Pasternak being stored in a Russian laboratory. "A Hole to Fill" is the closest thing alienated liberals have to truth at the end of the 20th century. The guitars and accordions play a nostalgic-sounding melody as Geldof relates his hilarious confession: "I left the pub last night/And I was just in time/To see them break my windows and slash my tires/I'm a liberal I thought/As I felt my anger rise/I was desperately searching for my feminine side/But my feminine side was on her morning coffee break/I beat the shit out of one/And boy, I felt great."

The Happy Club is not all humor and sarcasm, however. There are moments that are poignant to the point of profundity, such as "The Song of the Emergent Nationalist," "Attitude Chicken" and "Roads of Germany," which served as an anthem for anti-fascist marchers in Germany this past fall.

Musically, The Happy Club is consistently strong; the balance achieved between electric and acoustic instruments by a crack band (that selectively features World Party's Karl Wallinger) serves to highlight, not detract from, Geldof's razor-sharp irony. Traditional folk melodies are juxtaposed against raw, rootsy rock & roll in a mix that leans toward the shambolic rather than the pristine. In all, The Happy Club is Geldof's finest effort to date, offering a worldview that is wary, wise and optimistic. (RS 663)

THOM JUREK