The Hanged Man

This seven-year stretch has obviously been both reinvigorating and emotionally devastating for Leo. Fortunately, he’s channeled all that grief, anger, and inspiration into another 14 tracks packed with commentary and experimentation.

The Hanged Man is a return to form--not with a whimper but with a bang. It’s just not the bang we expected.

There are songs that seamlessly slip onto your mental shelf for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists--the music-hall-nodding “Can’t Go Back,” moody, politically-aware “William Weld in the 21st Century,” Lizzy-raising “Run to the City,” nostalgic, Billy-Bragg-ish “Lonsdale Avenue” (which first surfaced via The Both, Leo’s project with Aimee Mann)--but there are also some very interesting diversions.

The Hanged Man continues to project a bold, subversive spirit even after that introductory blast of static clears.

The Hanged Man, despite some of its thinness and unevenness, is still a great record.

Hanged Man absorbs the worries of a world (Leo’s and ours) and reflects on it, rolling with the inconsistencies and fractures to make something better.

With a couple more killer songs and rougher production, it will all come together eventually. Until then, this is a fine place to mark Leo's welcome comeback.

Not everything works, and some might bristle at the somewhat inconsistent recording quality that hearkens back to Leo's earliest work, but even though he turned to his fans for funding, these feel like songs that Leo needed to write for himself.