Rock and Roll that is. Sings Like Hell’s February installment was a kind of tribute to the punk end of the American musical melting pot. Jesse Malin, who began his career in 1978 at age 12 in the hardcore band Heart Attack, showed a slight mellowing of the form with a set of mostly acoustic songs from his smart and trenchant songbook that were certainly high-energy, but no distorted guitars. Not so with Alejandro Escovedo’s return to his roots with a set of hard-driving and appropriately loud rock and roll stripped down to it’s essence. Escovedo, who hails from one of America’s most musical families, also began his career playing punk, but has had success in hard rock, roots rock and alt country, and even a string quartet as well. There was dancing in the aisles.
