Thug of Love

Dirk Hamilton's final major-label album before an extended hiatus from professional music-making, 1980's Thug of Love suggests that perhaps he left the game a bit too soon. The newly shorn hair, the leather jacket over the white T-shirt, and the hip black-and-white graphics make it clear that Elektra's A&R department was pitching the album to the emerging new wave audience, and certainly Thug of Love would appeal to fans of, say, Joe Jackson's early work. The album, produced by Hamilton and longtime cohort Don Evans, is a bit harder-edged than his more acoustic earlier efforts, and the more aggressive tone suits his hard-boiled, cynical lyrics well. A Los Angeles black humorist along the lines of Warren Zevon or Tonio K., Hamilton invests songs like "Need Some Body" and "Moses and Me" with a humanizing sense of self-deprecating humor and a hint of compassion for his downtrodden characters. On the haunting "I Will Acquiesce" and the genuinely touching closer "In a Miracle," Hamilton drops the wise-guy shtick in favor of a warmth akin to Graham Parker's more romantic moments. [The 2007 Wounded Bird reissue included bonus tracks.]