Riding the crest of the recently successful live outing "Viva Wisconsin," the emotionally charged trio returns to the studio for their sixth album, first in five years, and one that's befitting of the wayward nature that's been their calling for a nearly twenty year career. "Freak Magnet" carries about four years of baggage that's now finally ready to be released and abruptly fling its contents from one end of the room to the next. This isn't an easily placed recording of songs that sticks to any one contrived design. When you think you've put your finger on something-don't look now but by songs 7 & 8, "Rejoice & Be Happy" and "Mosh Pit"-you're liable to discover it firmly entrenched straight up your nose! The clear surface of a smooth segue just got mud kicked in its eye! We're exploring the unsettled nature of a group that's still riding the fast lane of adolescence unwittingly cloaked in grown up bodies.

Bent further toward the electric spectrum in a wily tradeoff with their casually pop-inspired artsy punk rock and folk tendencies, "Freak Magnet" is a most versatile and, at times, jaw-dropping work that would confound even the most advanced psychoanalysts. Preconception and predictability have never marked a Violent Femmes outing and here they've made sure that any befuddling to the listener's musical intelligence is purely non-coincidental. The catchy upbeat flight that opens with the title track and carries through to first single "Sleepwalkin'," take a sharp U-turn away from the straight and narrow... how else could you explain an outcry like "New Generation" and the convulsive ode to the "Mosh Pit" with its colorfully blunt lyrics barging their way into the relative calmness. Yet there can never be a quiet calm without the threat of a storm lurking in the distance and more often than not, that's what we get here.

Offbeat and comically inspired even at their most subtle, the music of Violent Femmes' "Freak Magnet" jumps out at you in a full range of emotions that mark personal significance with crooked sincerity… Attention all listeners, take no prisoners-indeed!