This veteran Brit rocker knows exactly where to put notes, chords and words for maximum satiric effect — while paying tribute to every kind of classic pop. When he hit his commercial prime in the late Seventies on his solo albums Jesus of Cool and Labour of Lust, he proved himself a New Wave master at playing, arranging and producing songs that sounded completely contemporary even as they...

On his first record in six years, this proto-punk icon keeps it terrifically mellow without getting mushy in the head. Lowe sticks mostly to roughly crooned ballads and vaguely Sixties-sounding rock, the best of which reveal a fighting spirit under their catchy exterior: Witness "I Trained Her to Love Me," a funny, nasty jab at an ex in which Lowe plays an aging ass man in the tradition of Frank...