Brand New Cage

Wild Billy Childish & CTMF

Under one guise or another, Billy Childish has been raising a punk ruckus for over 30 years. But he has seldom sounded more faithful to the Spirit of ’77 than he does on the 10 of these dozen grittily recorded songs atop which he rants (about his “conflicted mind,” about his having been “into ‘in’ before ‘in’ was ‘out,’” about the short shrift given the doomed Rolling Stone Brian Jones). The other two feature his bassist and wife, Julie, whose girl-group sweetness provides him an ideal foil.

Serve Somebody

Kevin Max

The idea on this seven-song EP (eight if you count the bonus mix of “Gotta Serve Somebody”) is to bundle together implicitly, explicitly, or incidentally Christian songs from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s using a slick, hard-pop sound to smooth over the originals’ stylistic differences. And for the most part the idea works. Max doesn’t add anything to “Pride (In the Name of Love).” But his marking of the 20th anniversary of Rich Mullins’ death by recording “Creed”—and by recording it so vibrantly—is perfect.

Versatile

Van Morrison

Morrison’s previous album came out in September, and he’s releasing a live DVD in February. Yet this collection of Gershwin-bookended standards (with a few reworked originals) from the days before rock ’n’ roll feels like more than a quickie. Or, rather, it feels like the best kind of quickie. Unlike his pal Bob Dylan, Morrison swings and sways, whether vocally or on sax, as if to the necessary mannerisms born. And, judging by the new original “Take It Easy Baby,” he can write that way too.

Songs of Experience

U2

“It’s not a place,” sings Bono in “American Soul.” “This country is to me a thought / that offers grace / for every welcome that is sought.” One can’t help wondering whether he feels the same about his own property and, if he does, why he hasn’t published his address and left his doors unlocked. At any rate, his version of Manifest Destiny is as sentimentally vainglorious as any other kind. It’s surely no coincidence that he’s at his catchiest (“The Showman [Little More Better]”) when not laboring under misapprehensions.

ENCORE

Seventeen years after their last release, the Houston heavy-metal heroes Galactic Cowboys have returned with a vengeance. Most of the songs on their hooky new album, Long Way Back to the Moon (Music Theories/Mascot), eviscerate sacred cows, such as the power of positive thinking in “Next Joke,” the power of negative thinking in “Drama,” and the seductiveness of conformity, whether dystopian (“Zombies,” “Hate Me,” “Agenda,” “Say Goodbye to Utopia”) or run of the mill (“Believing the Hype”). And each song is undergirded by Monty Colvin’s bass slabs, buttressed by Dane Sonnier’s thunderous guitars, and overlaid with the band’s pop-tight vocal harmonies.

But there’s another kind of song as well—specifically, “Amisarewas,” a mash-up of forms of the verb “to be” that Bible scholars will recognize as an approximation of the name of God. It begins with lead singer Ben Huggins wondering where to find “the treasury of knowledge [and] reason.” It ends with him repeating “Thy will be done.” —A.O.