***1/2 Big Bad Bullocks

NIGHT ON THE TILES

(SoundProof/Monolyth)

The funniest album of 1999, to my wicked ears, is this Northampton outfit's debut CD. Now I'm not much for Irish music, but these songs of alcoholism and casual sex -- straddling punk-rock crunch and tin-whistle traditionalism -- weave such a strange journey through the Guinness-flecked recollections of head Bullock John Allen that I'm often either spellbound or roaring with laughter. On the surface, titles like "Drinkup Yabastards," "Thirteen Pints," "Night on the Tiles," and "Drunker Than I Was" (a song about a special lady) seem to tell the story. But on close listening, I find much vulnerability and regret in Allen's lyrics -- a fine-tuned sense of human frailty that comes through in lost-soul numbers like "Uncle Ted" and "Jimmy," and in lines like the decidedly unmacho observation "Sometimes when you're drinkin'/You find yourself thinkin'/That you're more of a man than you are." Allen's musical sensibility isn't as developed as his wordsmithing, but thanks to producer and Celtic fiddle star Johnny Cunningham, moments of beauty find their way into the brawling arrangements.

-- Ted Drozdowski