'Johnny Society's Kenny Siegal subscribes to the 'more is more' school of songwriting. His songs twist & turn at odd & unexpected angles, conflating styles & eras, but often creating something coherent & stirring. on their fourth album, Life Behind the 21st Century Wall, the NY quartet gravitates to swampy blues, elastic honky tonk, slinky blue-eyed soul, & pounding rock, sometimes within the space of a song. Case in point: Dirty Water, which begins with a few syncopated heavy blues guitar chords behind Siegal singing, 'Kick me if you mean it / Kiss me if you could stomach it / I'd still run away with you,' gets interrupted by a chorus worthy of some happy-go-lucky white-bread 60s band like the Lovin' Spoonful, then shifts to a swinging, bouncy middle-eight before cycling back again. The song is as gritty as the Standells' classic nugget of the same name, and it's nearly as catchy. Although Siegal's overwrought vocals (he tends to slip from a soft falsetto whisper to a histrionic scream) derail some of the sparser tunes, he easily pulls off the Faces-like stomp of Popular Man, the drunken barroom singalong Get Off My Farm & the darkly humorous blue-eyed soul of 21st Century Wall. Johnny Society's Life is full of surprises, not the least of which is that it holds together well.