Earle guaranteed plenty of media exposure for Jerusalem by including John Walker's Blues, an attempt to get inside the mind of John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban" captured in Afghanistan. The September 11 aftermath posed tricky questions for songwriters: do they ignore it, write some flag-waving drivel, or try to offer fresh insights and run the risk of denunciation by foam-flecked American "patriots"? Earle picked the last option, and John Walker's Blues is a more nuanced piece than you would imagine from the response it provoked in the US. His critics presumably won't listen to the rest of the disc, but they're missing a vibrant, rejuvenated Earle, who grabs fistfuls of Tex-Mex, rock'n'roll and gutbucket blues and subjects them to a shed-load of studio wizardry. Brain meets brawn.