Resonating bass notes open Contemplating the Engine Room, the second solo LP from Mike Watt. It's an appropriate herald for a bass legend like Watt, whose punk-funk escapades with '80s hardcore iconoclasts the Minutemen and their spinoff group, fIREHOSE, can be heard in the music of everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Primus. Watt's solo debut, 1995's Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, was an all-star affair featuring members of Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth, among others, jamming in homage to the bassist. Engine Room, however, finds Watt stripping down to the power-trio setup with which he began his career; in the process, he has created his most personal, affecting work yet.

Engine Room weds two unlikely ideas: the rock-opera concept album and punk irreverence. During the course of a loose, nautical-themed song cycle, Watt links various milestones of his history: his working-class hometown of San Pedro, Calif. ("Pedro Bound!"); his father's Navy career ("In the Bunk Room/Navy Wife"); and his old bands ("Fireman Hurley"). Engine Room presents a hodgepodge of styles, from the skewed thrash of "The Bluejackets' Manual" to the jazzbo tone poem of "Crossing the Equator," but it's all unified by Watt's sincere punk soul.

This is Watt's first time taking vocal chores for a whole album, and his warm rasp serves these abstract confessionals well. And in guitarist Nels Cline, Watt has found his most sympathetic sideman since Minutemen axman D. Boon died, in 1985. Cline upholds the Minutemen's tradition of twisted virtuosity, especially in the Television-style squiggles lining "Red Bluff." There – and throughout Engine Room – we find Watt exploring his roots with an engrossing vengeance while looking the future straight in the face. (RS 772)

MATT DIEHL