God's Lonely Men

The Lurkers’ second Beggar’s Banquet/Warner Brothers album was recorded at East Avalon Recorders in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and helmed by country producer and songwriter Phillip Jarrell. (He cowrote the massive country-pop hit “Torn Between Two Lovers.”) But God’s Lonely Men isn’t the misguided country-soul–meets–punk affair you might assume. Thankfully, the U.K. punk band played to their strengths: bashing and popping out the boredom like nothing else in life matters, with tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. Sure, left-handed guitarist Pete Stride had great Ron Wood hair and a flare for the downstroked power chord, and drummer Esso could plod along with the best of them. But it’s the indifference in Howard Wall’s singing that really hammered the songs home. Here you get baby hits (“Just Thirteen,” “Out in the Dark”) alongside surprisingly fleshed-out narratives (“Whatever Happened to Mary”) and winningly spare pop-punk (“Take Me Back to Babylon”), all charmingly pulled by Wall’s punk-rock Perry Como vocals. (The killer bonus track “New Guitar in Town” features the utterly overlooked guitarist/songwriter Honest John Plain from The Boys).