The mixing of music from various folk traditions with rock is hardly new - rock itself is arguably a product of similar mixing - but then, folk music seldom places a high priority on "new." But the tension between the two competing aesthetics - the value rock places on "new," even if that means only a new spin on older styles, and folk music's respect for tradition and continuity - means that any band that tries to mix the two will likely please one audience while displeasing the other. Or it will please neither. This compilation of Boiled in Lead's first fifteen years shows the differing weights they've placed on these two components of their music over that time. Their earliest work has much in common with Fairport Convention - electric instrumentation and greater emphasis on beat grafted onto songs either genuinely traditional or crafted to seem such - although Boiled in Lead draws from a broader range of folk musics than Fairport's focus on primarily British Isles folk traditions. Their original compositions from this era seem also to emulate Fairport alumnus Richard Thompson's dark, skewed sense of humor ("The Microorganism," "Madman Mora Blues"). This is a good thing: the band brings that sense of humor and energy and integrates it with the folk music virtues of storytelling and communal playing. The nineties, though, finds the band (with almost entirely new personnel) emphasizing the "rock" end of its lineage to a far greater degree - and to rather mixed effect. I'm generally wary of bands that congratulate their music as "twisted" and claim to give that music a "kick in the butt." Gruff, mannered vocals that wouldn't seem out of place in a beer ad and pointlessly squalling guitar leads make me think of Alice in Chains (with the addition of a good fiddle player): the wrong rock to emphasize, I'd say. Guitarist and vocalist Adam Stemple seems to be the culprit here: his songs evoke the same nightmare vision of a heroin-addicted Crosby Stills & Nash performing acoustically after staying up for several days and nights listening to nothing but Uriah Heep records. The three songs from two 1997 live sets featuring "funny" lyrics about Rasputin, "Russia's greatest sex machine," and "Puking in the Heather" would probably work well in the soundtrack to a movie about goatee-growing fratboys trying to pick up Deadhead chicks in a bar. The folk music component seems present solely as lifestyle accoutrement, a means of getting their music played on World Cafe, while the rock is a cliché. Too bad, since the closing "Jamie Across the Water" shows that they're still capable of delivering a pretty but unsaccharine instrumental ballad in the best folk tradition.

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