Todd Snider is one of the most entertaining acts around. He puts on brilliant concerts and puts out great records. Lately he has experimented a little and it has had mixed results though. His two records with his supergroup Hard Working Americans were pretty good but undoubtedly had a different mood than much of his previous work. His latest solo album “Eastside Bulldog” is influenced by his time with the supergroup.

The singer/songwriter being irresistibly clever and writing brilliantly funny yet sad songs is not on this record. Snider originally started messing around with a side project known as Elmo Buzz and the Eastside Bulldogs and put out a digital EP and played some shows. The project was great for that but the project morphing into a full Snider solo album is disappointing. After the brilliant “Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables” it is difficult not to be disappointed here. These are mindless bar songs with shout along chorus’ which are fun but not as good as you’d hope from Snider. “The Funky Tomato” is funny and “Hey Pretty Boy” is entertaining but they are just mindless fun. If you are having a drunken party this might be a good album to put on, the music is good and the vibe is extremely positive. Even the fighting song “Enough is Enough” is realistically drenched in a good time.

This is a good thing to exist for Snider fans but there simply isn’t very deep content here. This seems like it would have been a great release if it remained a side project.

Key Tracks: “Enough Is Enough” “Bocephus”