After ending a seven-album association with CBS that was artistically if not commercially fruitful, Nick Lowe is revving his engines for a new start on Reprise. Party of One falls more on the blues-rock than the power-pop side of the ledger, and for good reason: Lowe has reunited with Dave Edmunds, his erstwhile partner in Rockpile, who has always been a roots champion. While the album isn't all serious business, the commitment of Lowe and company to digging in and rocking out isn't frivolous at all.

The album opens with "You Got the Look I Like," a slow burner in the mold of Rockpile's "Knife and Fork." Guitars bump and grind around some sturdy blues changes, drummer Jim Keltner marshals a big, fat beat, and Jordanaires-style backup vocals answer Lowe's panting lead. Lowe appears to be settling comfortably into middle age, relating his contentment with nonsense syllables: "I'm moving up from a great big down/And the way I feel feels like this sound – shting-shtang, shting-shtang," he sings in the exuberant Fifties-ish rocker "Shting-Shtang." Dave Edmunds seconds that emotion with some playful, twangy lead guitar, and the song takes on a celebratory glow.

Lowe muses more soberly about excess and recovery in "Rocky Road," a limber shuffle co-written with Simon Kirke, drummer for Free and Bad Company. "The rut I was in had once been a groove," he sings in a telling turn of phrase. Turning his eye outward in "Who Was That Man?" Lowe wonders about an unidentified victim of the catastrophic 1988 subway fire at King's Cross station, in London. The song is played and sung as Woody Guthrie might have documented the event – i.e., the folk song as journalism, with the passing of an unknown drifter viewed as a sad but illuminating footnote in the tragicomic parade of humanity.

The talented interplay of Lowe's ensemble, which includes guitarist Ry Cooder and keyboardist Paul Carrack, shines brightly on "What's Shakin' on the Hill," a model of tasteful restraint and team playing. This same group of veterans rocks out with abandon in the salty, Rockpile-style blowout "I Ioneygun." All in all, Party of One puts Nick Lowe, the pub rocker with a pure pop heart, back on track. (RS 579)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH