Rise Above

Dave Longstreth could have gone off the rails when re-imagining Black Flag favorites as lo-fi indie-soul oddities. But RISE ABOVE righteously subverts the hardcore legends' original machismo, actually illuminating their songs' intelligence and interpretative potential, while equally illustrating Longstreth's beautifully bent creativity. "Six Pack," in particular, is quite the trip, having morphed from alcohol-crazed testosterone into loose-limbed Talking Heads dysfunction (with female vocal harmonies to boot). As is the case with any covers/tribute album, the greatest superlative it can garner is that it feels essentially independent of its source material. By that criterion, RISE ABOVE has ascended to rarified skies.