The Connies traveled to Memphis to record at Ardent Studios, where the Replacements and Big Star made great records, and their mix of Seventies Stones (but dirtier), the New York Dolls (but tighter) and Jerry Lee Lewis (but Westerberg-ier) comes with an extra sense of bare-knuckled grit and sonic thwump to fight against the darkness. "Revolution Rock & Roll" is a slamming gospel-tinged get-woke anthem, while the strikingly spare piano ballad "Montreal" evokes Big Star's "Thirteen" and Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and turns on the lines "I gave conjunctivitis to a girl in a bar/I gave conjunctivitis like a star."