The Whackmaster talks a big game, but until ‘02’s forceful Craveman, he’d made nothing but poopies for years, boobie. For Love Grenade, somewhat disappointingly, the back bacon band is all new, so there’s that chemistry squandered. But the new guys miraculously match the grit and grind of Craveman, so… check. Love Grenade is a substantive, sparks a’ shootin’ album, but it’s a slight step down from Craveman’s surprise heft and hellaciousness. Why? Quite simple, although compartmentalized and various: ‘Funk U’ and ‘Girlscout Cookies’ are too silly, the long Indian-themed stretch in the middle is a bit limp and meandering like the bad Ted albums culminating in Spirit Of The Wild, ‘Journey To The Center Of The Mind’ is superfluous and the closing joke tune, ‘Lay With Me’ is a dreadfully boring old blues – a waste. OK, but in that list, some of that’s still of value, and then outside of the list, everything rules. Really, I had no reservations (pun intended) about bass journeyman Barry Sparks and classic-rocker-out-of-time Tommy Clufetos being able to do the job, and they fire it up, all over ‘Still Raising Hell’ and especially the shocking run of songs late in the sequence that save the album, ‘Aborigini’, ‘Stand’, ‘Broadside’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Daughters’, each riff sampling from Ted’s glory years, a composite of dark horse State Of Shock, as it were (my fave Ted album, second being Free For All). And I love the man’s voice, his woodsy words of wisdom, just the idea of Ted. Fact is, I’ve played this damn thing dozens of times, so maybe all those peaks and valleys of jamminess, seriousness and hamminess were architected and telescoped ruefully for maximum firepower, or something like that.