Working Man's Cafe

The mouthful from ''One More Time'' and other clunky social commentary can't mask a cache of Kinks-worthy melodies, including the aforementioned track, the gorgeous ''The Real World,'' and ''You're Asking Me,'' which could almost be a lost tune from the late '60s.

Café draws Davies out just enough to refresh and reinforce his legend.

Working Man's Cafe feels like exactly the album a 60-something rocker would craft--assured and direct yet searching and restless, a glimpse into the head of a man who's comfortable in his skin but still wonders how he fits into a world that seems to be turning faster and stranger as the years pass by.

The net result is smart, personal and potent.

Sonically, Working Man's Café is also a triumph.

Despite the somewhat pessimistic prognosis, Davies is a sharp enough tunesmith to keep his darkly droll song cycle upbeat and rockin’ throughout.

Singer and song shine through clearly on Working Man’s Café, another great album from Ray Davies, who had already given us so much to love.

There are times when the playing of the session band is slick to the point of blandness, and the production (by Davies and Ray Kennedy) is crisply tasteful when the songs cry out for dissonance.... But when it works, it works.

The songs have more bite than those on "Other People's Lives," as do the performances, which makes Working Man's Café more immediate than its predecessor, yet it benefits from repeated plays as well, as those subsequent spins reveal that these 12 songs are as finally honed as those on "Other People's Lives."

Not every number here reaches its perfection, but 'twas ever thus with the works of Raymond Douglas Davies; warts and all, and even the warts are interesting. [Dec 2007, p.109]

It could have come across as professional formalism enhancing a half-assed satirist's latest free-market nightmare, but Working Man's Café adds lyricism to the reportage and makes itself useful enough.

If the lyrics occasionally seem first-draft rough, the melodies are sharper than on 2005's "Other People's Lives," and the varied musical settings--such as the rockabilly of opener 'Vietnam Cowboys' or the spooky New Orleans blues of 'The Voodoo Walk'--throw into sharper relief the classic Kinksian pop of songs like 'You're Asking Me' and the title track, which show Davies alternately snarling and sighing at the world as winningly as ever.