Quick Spins

COSTELLO MUSIC

The Fratellis

Here's a bit of rock-and-roll wisdom that sums up the beauty of the Fratellis: "Bara bap bara ra ra ra." It's the tutti-frutti heart of the Glasgow band's rocket-fueled first single, "Flathead," and the nonsensical sentiment runs through the rest of "Costello Music," the group's new-wave debut, which stalks in the bootprints of Sham 69, the Hives and the Arctic Monkeys.

"I hate your [expletive] lyrics!" somebody in the trio shouts at the end of "The Gutterati?," in which slurring singer Jon Fratelli spews images of Cinderella, old queens, TV-watching and feet-picking so fast it's almost impossible to keep up. Not even the band knows what it means! (Although it's funny and probably about sex: "Well I may not have a big boy's pistol, but I'll help you any way I can.")

There's a whooping party feel to "Costello Music," but the narrator is so foggy with drugs, booze, camper-van sex and the occasional gang fight that it's difficult to penetrate his thick Scottish accent. Fortunately, the music makes the translating much more enjoyable. "For the Girl" is in the same mold as "Flathead," with sharply strummed electric guitars and a chorus of "la-la-las." And give the Fratellis credit for trying to change the mood, but although "Vince the Lovable Stoner" starts out country and "Doginabag" is more or less a ballad, every song pretty much devolves into "Flathead." It's easy to picture the Fratellis doing this exact thing for decades, endlessly screaming out these songs like the Ramones and never stopping until disease catches up with them.

DOWNLOAD THESE: "Flathead," "For the Girl," "Got Ma Nuts From a Hippy"

-- Steve Knopper

DON'T TELL COLUMBUS

Graham Parker

Back in the day -- the day being 1977 or thereabouts -- Graham Parker was regarded as one of the lesser artists in a pack of Angry Young Men that included Elvis Costello and Warren Zevon. The British singer recorded one classic album (1979's "Squeezing Out Sparks") and a few minor '80s hits before virtually dropping out of sight. Now, a recent deal with Americana label Bloodshot has led to his rebirth as a roots-rock artist and his best album in more than a decade, "Don't Tell Columbus."

"Columbus" mixes the snarly, modified new wave on which Parker built his career with a plangent country-folk. He now sounds like a honky-tonk version of Bob Dylan, if Dylan had spent a lot of time in Brixton. Time has slightly chilled Parker's infamous rancor: He seems to be in a constant state of mild irritation, his targets both novel (such as the imprisoned Pete Doherty, who "came out looking handsome with a ton of pride / With muscles on his muscles / And Kate Moss by his side," in "England's Latest Clown") and shopworn (President Bush, who fares badly on the rollicking "Stick to the Plan").

Parker is as economic and as sly a songwriter as ever. He's incapable of excess sentiment, even on "I Discovered America," a mash note to his adopted homeland ("I knew one day she'd let me in / I knew I'd get the girl") that's the warmest, giddiest thing he's done in years.

DOWNLOAD THESE : "I Discovered America," "The Other Side of the Reservoir," "England's Latest Clown"

-- Allison Stewart