On February’s Heavy Meta, the latest from Nashville transplant Ron Gallo, the former Philadelphian employs what we at the Scene like to refer to as the Trojan-horse approach to rock ’n’ roll: Get inside the city gates with thumping bass lines and red-hot licks, then eviscerate everyone with insightful lyricism. With caustic call-out anthems “Why Do You Have Kids” and “Can’t Stand You” and the withered-romance postmortem “Put the Kids to Bed,” Gallo tops Jon Spencer-, Stooges- and Zeppelin-informed blues-rock with lyrics that actually, y’know, say something. D. PATRICK RODGERS


