It's a bit neglected these days, but at one time a spiky, stripped-down, and twice-removed take on early Motown records had its moment in the (generally British) sun, even producing a few hits. I say "twice-removed" because many of the first-wave British bands to reach US shores in the early sixties took a similar approach to those early Motown singles. While those records featured large ensembles of highly skilled musicians, usually from a jazz and R&B background (see the recent film Standing in the Shadows of Motown for a good look), the Brit Invasion bands borrowed the sense of feel and groove but rendered it riskier, alchemically transmuting their relative lack of musicianly polish into a musical virtue. Fifteen years later, a lot of acts that at the time were called "new wave" borrowed from those records, once more recognizing the potent combo of soul feel and aggressive attack. Bands like the Jam made up in raw enthusiasm what they lacked in technical facility (the better Paul Weller learned to sing, the less powerful his material became), although plenty of contemporary acts also featured seasoned and trained musicians (the original Joe Jackson band, Elvis Costello's Attractions) who were capable of the offhand yet precise feel of their inspirations but played it in sparer arrangements for small ensembles. More recently, Spoon's last two albums demonstrate the band's having found its voice by paring away some of its Pixieisms and seemingly giving close listens to some key Beatles releases from 1964 or so. And now here's Ted Leo, with a more or less stable backing band this time, with a new album that recalls moments from all of the above, along with harder rocking predecessors like Thin Lizzy - Hearts of Oak's first single release is "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?" which, although its lyrics celebrate the multiracial late-seventies scene that produced acts like the Specials, musically sounds an awful lot like Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town." Leo's an affecting, enthusiastic vocalist, a skillful guitar player, and an incisive, intelligent lyricist. Nearly every track on this album jumps coltishly out of the gates, and Leo's habit of rising into falsetto to accent the peaks of his musical lines convey an energetic, on-the-edge-of-one's-seat intensity that makes most of these tracks downright infectious. Leo and company balance the populist tendencies of the music with intelligent, sometimes obscure lyrics and unusual arrangements. Someone in the band apparently has fallen in love with the manager of a percussion store, at least judging by the clattering percussion all over this record: wood blocks on the title track or a whole chittering roomful of hittable items on "The Ballad of the Sin Eater." Elsewhere, drums are shunted off to a single channel and balanced by a growling fuzz bass in the other channel, or guitars and keys drop out entirely and let distorted bass and a hypercompressed drum sound carry the instrumental backdrop to Leo's singing ("Sin Eater"). And Leo's not afraid to let his influences show - from the unimpeachably cool (the melodic line of "First to Finish, Last to Start" is very Curtis Mayfield) to the less so: I'm not the only one to hear a moment or two of Dexy’s Midnight Runners ("Come on Eileen") on occasion, particularly in the celtic-inspired melodies of "Building Skyscrapers in the Basement" and "The Crane Takes Flight." Hearts of Oak ideally blends catchiness as strong as that of classic Top Forty radio with intelligence and creativity, making it one of my favorite releases of 2003 so far.