OK I'm Sorry

While the boo-tay kicking hard rock onslaught of Bobby Bare Jr.'s first two albums with his group Bare Jr. certainly has its merits, it was his first solo album, 2002's Young Criminals' Starvation League, that offered a clearer picture of just how talented this guy truly is. Melding the casual feel of a late-night jam session with the emotional intensity of a songwriter singing his diaries out loud, Young Criminals' Starvation League was loose and low-key, but also displayed a wobbly passion that Bare's earlier discs didn't quite match for all their wattage. This time credited to Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League, OK - I'm Sorry... is an eight-song EP that suggests a bit of a reconciliation between the two sides of Bare's musical personality, offering a little more firepower than the solo debut but favoring the same relaxed but committed sound. OK - I'm Sorry... features live takes of three tunes from Young Criminals' Starvation League, among them a charging but powerfully emotional version of "Flat Chested Girl From Maynardville" from a gig in Holland and two tunes from "a drunken show at the Abbey Pub" in Chicago (both of which also appear as CD-ROM videos on this disc), loose recordings of two new tunes (the lovely "Pinky" and the less-goofy-than-it-sounds "Mother Ucker," which features a memorable interruption from a radio announcer), and a pair of covers (one of which has been used as a Coca-Cola jingle). OK - I'm Sorry... isn't quite up to the same level as Young Criminals' Starvation League, but it shows that Bare has more ideas from the part of his musical personality that produced that album, and serves as an amiably loose-limbed holding action while fans await the next installment in the YCSL saga. ~ Mark Deming