Chutzpah!

Chutzpah! is a work on which THE WILDHEARTS sharply blended the urgency of punk and the big melody of hard rock. Even in songs that cut in short, the layers of guitar and the choruses are packed with rich ideas. There is rough energy, yet the pop sense is not lost in the least. On “The Jackson Whites,” “The Only One,” “Tim Smith” and “You Took the Sunshine from New York,” that balance conveys the band’s free-spirited nature in its most exhilarating form. Songs like “Plastic Jebus” and “Low Energy Vortex” breathe a firm melodic sense too. That sound, where roughness and accessibility coexist, shows the band’s creativity, undimmed even as the career piles up. It is a full record for savoring the exquisite coexistence of chaos and pop-ness.