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Simply put, Michael McDermott's latest, What in the World... is a rock and roll/ singer-songwriter tour de force in a career full of them. What in the World is a cavalcade of emotions and textures. Guitars ring one moment, then soothe with warm fingerpicking the next. The title track is a flat-out rocker and a politically charged anthem for the election year. There might be a lot of pain being sung about, but the record never succumbs to the darkness. The characters might be buried, but they're not dead.

What in the World... is a record by a man who knows who he is. Bloody and unbowed.