This might be just another good album of hopped-up blues-rock in the Winter/Thorogood vein if not for Zito’s lyrics, which give things a little more of an emotional kick. The hard-charging title track is about his struggles as a musician, while “Chin Up” and “Get Busy Living” are both about the same thing—trying not to get discouraged despite a bunch of good excuses to do so. In each case, the wailing slide guitars and hopped-up tempos are there to underline the lyrical pep talks.

The album’s centerpiece is “I Was Drunk”, written and sung with Anders Osborne. It’s hardly the first confessional song Osborne’s written, but this one is unusually brutal in its self-assessment: Both singers admit to their failings as husbands and parents, until the last verse when a woman shows up and offers to help straighten them out. This is usually the point where this kind of song turns around, but not this time: “She’s gone, she’s happy, and I’m drunk” is the only resolution.

The rest is more upbeat, but most of the songs have a point to make: “Cross the Border” isn’t specifically about immigration (though it has a nifty Spanish-styled guitar solo), but the universal need to leave the worst parts of life behind. The only lesser tracks are a pair of bar-band covers: “Get Out of Denver” doesn’t add much to Bob Seger’s original (or Dave Edmunds’ 1978 cover), and the sax solo on “Bootleg” misses the spare groove of Creedence’s original. Besides, after “I Was Drunk” you’re not quite ready to hear a happy song about liquor.