Artist: Concrete Blonde Title: Group therapy Label: Manifesto/Shock Sounds Like: The time just before the dawn when all your cigarettes have run out RIYL: Early Concrete Blonde Few bands chartered the late eighties/early nineties as coherently and consistently as Concrete Blonde. From their blitzing "God is a Bullet" through to their bright-lights-gone-wrong crossover hit "Joey", they managed to adroitly blend the smack rock of LA strip clubs with the swamp blues of New Orleans, all held together by Johnette Napolitano's cigarette-sprawled huskiness. In 1994, the band drifted apart, no big farewell, but now after 8 years of solo projects and various addictions they're back with Group Therapy, a wry title that covers the twelve tracks of memories, drunken nights and dreams of escape. The first thing that grabs the listener is the fact that nothing has really changed. Napolitano's voice is a gruff and glorious as ever, and she wraps her lips viciously around lines like, "With a flick of my tongue & with a lick of my lip, you'll never work your way up to where I slipped from." The guitar work of James Mankey and drums of Harry Rushakoff work a modern blues mojo for all it's worth. There's nothing that marks a huge change of format here, and for fans like me that's a welcome relief. Will it be enough to set the rock world on fire? I doubt it and I hope not. Concrete Blonde's music is for listening to alone in the hours after 3am when all the coffee and cigarettes just aren't enough. Like the vampires they sung about on their 1990 album Bloodletting, exposing these songs to daylight would strip them of their powers, saving and otherwise. Group Therapy sees a band comfortable in its ambience, at peace with itself but not with the world outside. Outsiders until the end, “When I was a Fool” puts it best: "I belong to nobody, belong to no place...Still I'd rather be me than anyone else."