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*** 1/2 The Upper Crust

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREECHES

(Emperor Norton)

High-concept satirical projects tend to run out of steam quickly, if only because it’s hard to keep the joke going for more than an album or two. But four releases (including one double CD) into their illustrious run as the best (and possibly only) rock band since Paul Revere and the Raiders to sport knickers, the powder-wigged Boston-based boys sound, well, better than ever. Once More into the Breeches may not be the foppish foursome’s best album title — last year’s Entitled (Reptilian) still has that honor — but it’s de nitely their best-sounding and in many ways most ambitious recording.

For a time, Breeches was the “lost” album: they recorded it a couple of years ago for Emperor Norton, but until last month the label had declined to release it. So many of the songs here — “Paradise Lost,” “We’re Finished with Finishing School,” “Heirloom,” “Bleed Me,” “Luncheon,” and “Matron” — were re-recorded for the live-in-the-studio Entitled. But as raw and rocking as the Entitled ýersions are, they don’t come close to matching the re ned power that the band, with the help of A-list producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie, bring to the table here. There’s the usual dose of garage-rocking AC/DC-style riff rock, replete with Duc û’Istortion’s Angus Youngian soloing and topped off by Lord Bendover’s wry Anglophilic musings on the good life (“Some people got a lunch break/I got all day/They’ll be sucking on milk shakes/I’ll be sipping on a chardonnay,” he growls in “Luncheon”). The pedophilic “Concubine,” though, nds Bendover getting all soulful with some ne falsetto vocals; and on “Matron” the band turn the microphone over to bassist Count Bassie for some prog-rock theatrics. It’s all done with the utmost care and precision, and that’s really the key because, as amusing as the Upper Crust’s shtick is, the band never fail to rock.

— Matt Ashare

— Ted Drozdowski