You don't listen to this Welsh boy-wonder's fourth LP so much as cheer it on. Because it never comes across as a dispassionate aural guide to rock history, Tracks on Wax 4 preserves early American rock & roll traditions with real tenderness and stunning craftsmanship. Backed by Nick Lowe and the Rockpile, multiinstrumentalist / singer / songwriter / producer Dave Edmunds bashes and shouts his way through Chuck Berry's "It's My Own Business" as irresistibly and effortlessly as he quotes the Everly Brothers' delicate, seamless harmonies on the Edmunds / Lowe ballad, "What Looks Best on You."

Edmunds' obsessive fascination with rockabilly, rock & roll and country music was perhaps better documented on last year's magnificent Get It, but Tracks on Wax 4 is just as valuable: it rocks harder and gathers increased strength from the startling clarity of its production. His voice both raspy and melodic, Dave Edmunds doesn't just sing the sexed-up "Readers Wives" and the violent "Trouble Boys," he wrestles them to the ground in much the same manner as Little Richard. Against a driving, restless piano that pays tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis, Edmunds has never sounded so tough and wild.

The album's tender moments reel you in with power and magic. Another Edmunds/Lowe collaboration, "Deborah," is hardly "Peggy Sue" (not with lines like "They crawl a mile over broken glass"), but the singer's innocent, lightheaded vocals lovingly echo those of Buddy Holly. As if to apologize for these satiric lyrics and for his sexual boisterousness on Lowe's "Heart of the City" (recorded live), Edmunds takes a room in Teen Heaven for "Never Been in Love," a chipper country-rock tune whose overdubbed harmonies amazingly recall the spirit of both the Everlys and the Gram Parsons-led Flying Burrito Brothers.

Despite its preoccupation with the past; Tracks on Wax 4 sounds neither hopelessly nostalgic nor gratuitous (exactly the problem with the Flamin' Groovies' Edmunds-produced Now). Because his rock & roll is so pure, passionate and unaffected, Dave Edmunds practically makes you believe he actually invented all the musical styles he so proudly upholds here. No small accomplishment, that. (RS 279)

MITCHELL SCHNEIDER