After four years of licking wounds, Raging Slab have emerged from a Pennsylvania barn with a second major-label effort that testifies to their new label exec Rick Rubin's genius, elevates producer Brendan O'Brien and reaffirms American rock's ability to reinvent itself at the witching hour. With weird, wise, flag-waving riffs galore on Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert, Raging Slab's three-slide-guitar army may be the first band good and crazy enough to make you remember what ZZ Top was like before Billy Gibbons hooked himself to a computer for life support. If it works, it's because head Slab Greg Strzempka, who often sounds as if Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Bob Seger and Jim Dandy were all smushed and screaming for mercy together in his throat, is not shy, ashamed or even nostalgic about his references. "Pearly," his invocation of the divine spirit of Gibbons' legendary guitar, may be the most passionate and tender fan letter since Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go." But Strzempka's not merely using his 15 minutes to reach out and touch his idols; "Lynne," a ballad whose eerie strings were hauntingly arranged by John Paul Jones, is a final, emotionally stripped call to a lost younger sister.

Still, it's in climactic kick-out-the-jams like "Anywhere but Here," "Weatherman" and "Laughin' and Cryin'" that Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert lives up to the promise of its title. Tying to a brand-new whipping post the primal vibes of the classic alternative rock that once rumbled across the country – from ZZ Top's Texas, the Stooges' Detroit and Blue Oyster Cult's Long Island – Raging Slab makes you almost believe the good new days are here again. (RS 663)

DEBORAH FROST