Before this album, Canadian singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith had been something of a folkie, but on Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline, he rocks out, making most cuts as much about rhythm as anything else. The opening "Seven Shells" is almost all rhythm--slow, insistent and creepingly malevolent. Whether singing about relationships that either fade away (the pathetic "Drinking Too Much") or explode into violence, Eaglesmith"s typically dark themes are well suited by these new arrangements, so even when his character studies are too broad to be revealing ("Time To Get A Gun"), or when his insights are banal ("Alcohol and Pills"), their pulsing musical settings still compel. --David Cantwell