The latest releases reviewed

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW Big Iron World Nettwerk ****

Bruce Springsteen may have given American folk music a shot in the arm, but there are many less celebrated outfits making sure that the heartbeat of roots music continues to throb into the 21st century. The Old Crow Medicine Show are among that coterie and with this, their second album, they fire off another blast of raucous, ribald, rebellious and religious music that owes as much to the spirit of The Pogues as it does to the memory of Woody Guthrie and his ilk down the years. Produced again by David Rawlings (his partner Gillian Welch plays drums on a number of tracks), Big Iron World has no time for polish; the music comes draped in a roughneck quality that grows in appeal. Loads of great tracks, but special mention for Let It Alone, the intense God's Got It and a rollicking Down Home Girl. www.crowmedicine.com Joe Breen

CHUCK E WEISS 23rd & Stout Cooking Vinyl ***

"You could call this album 'alternative schlock'. Rock'n' roll, jazz, blues . . . you could call it all those things, but for your enjoyment, I like to call it 'discom-bop-ulated jive'. So enjoy." So writes Chuck E Weiss in the liner notes of his fourth album, which is once again a homage to the bohemian street life he has met along the way of a quite extraordinary life. Friendly with Tom Waits (with whom his sound shares many characteristics), the subject of the Rickie Lee Jones radio classic and an all-round backstreets mover and shaker (he co-founded the Viper Room with Johnny Depp), Weiss has no shortage of colourful subject matter and, thanks to producer and drummer Don Huffington, these dark funny stories are brought to musical life with real verve. An oddity, but an interesting one. Joe Breen