ARTIST: Geoff Berner
TITLE: Victory Party
LABEL: Mint
REVIEW: Geoff Berner is a Vancouver-based singer-songwriter-accordionist who started out in a punk-rock band, writes a lot of political material, and has been very interested in klezmer music for the last several years. On this new album (his sixth as a solo artist) he’s found the precise midpoint between Billy Bragg and Gogol Bordello. With production help from Josh (Socalled) Dolgin, the band rocks like crazy. Berner’s lyrics are erudite, voluminous, occasionally off-color, and purposefully angry; his singing has an offhanded brilliance that brings Joe Strummer immediately to mind. With comps like those, he has to be good, and he is – this is certain to be on my best of 2011 shortlist and is recommended to punks, folkies (that don’t mind a little noise), world music fans (ditto) and everyone who thrills when authority gets tweaked. Bravo!
REVIEWER: Bill Lupoletti
TOP TRACKS: 1 3 6 8 9
ALSO RECOMMENDED: 5 7
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