Jesse Malin: The Heat

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating * * *

On his first album New York punk refugee Malin got a leg-up from mate Ryan Adams, whose production work on the impressive The Fine Art of Self-Destruction burdened it with inevitable comparisons with the higher-profile singer-songwriter's work.

On this collection Malin is self-produced, though Adams helps out on the sweetly country Block Island. However, the identity crisis, if it can be called that, continues on this rockier set, with Malin and his adenoidal voice still sounding like a collection of other people's best bits. There's Springsteen, Dylan, Neil Young and some intriguing combinations thereof.

Malin isn't short of literate phrase in his street-level and occasionally political songs ("Cocaine cowboy is going to back to war" he opens on New World Order), but there's something a mite plodding about the whole thing, which makes it less rewarding than that debut.

The guitar-crunching likes of Silver Manhattan and Scars of Love would be something to hear in some down-at-heel downtown NY bar, but whether you would stay for the whole set is another thing.