Ted Leo: Shake The Sheets : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Ted Leo writes punk love songs: not about women but about civic-minded engagement. Sheets is far crisper and way less jagged than his last two albums with the Pharmacists, which were barely controlled bursts of high-minded dissatisfaction. His messages telegraph more clearly here, as on the cynical "Criminal Piece" and the fierce diatribe "Me and Mia" -- but some of the urgency and the political immediacy have dissipated. As always, Leo is an immediate vocal presence, with hints of Elvis Costello in his howls that turn into precise yodels. "I respect the process," Leo wails about democracy on the title track. "[But] when will we find a chord as resonant as to shake the sheets and make us move?" Perhaps in Sheets, a vivid soundtrack for four more years of agitating.