When Ted Leo gave us a Progress Report about recording his followup to 2007′s Living With The Living, Jessica, inspired by a punky Pier 54 set, asked him if we could expect the new collection to be “a little more punk rock” than recent outings. He noted he’s “never stopped listening to ’80s hardcore since it was the ’80s and I was in hardcore bands” and that:

Mid-’80s hardcore is well represented in this batch of songs! Flexing those decrepit muscles and feeling good about it also inspired me a bit to push the elements of what has come to be, maybe, my more “normal” types of songs and really not let my own hang-ups and expectations get in the way of the potential of where we could go with this band, while still staying “this band,” if you know what I mean.

It’s hard to gauge the hardcore influence in this solo acoustic performance, but the speedy, lyrically detailed new track “One Polaroid A Day” does sound like vintage Leo. It went down during CMJ at the MSNBC.com Digital Cafe. Which is not necessarily mid-’80s hardcore.


(Via P4K)

Ted Leo’s on Matador now. There’s a new album tentatively scheduled for early 2010.