Following hot on the heels of The Year of No Returning, Ezra Furman issued Day of the Dog, his second solo effort after a fruitful five year/four album stint leading Boston's Harpoons. Day Of the Dog was recorded at Studio Ballistico in Chicago, engineered and produced by Tim Sandusky. Day of the Dog sees Furman progressing from the dark chamber-pop and gorgeous balladry of his solo debut and emerging as a stylish, technicolor, pulse-quickening rock provocateur conjuring an intriguing selection of iconic vintage styles. The album was recorded with the members of his regular touring band The Boy-Friends: Sam Durkes - drums, percussion; Ben Joseph - piano, miscellaneous; Jorgen Jorgensen - bass, miscellaneous; Tim Sandusky - saxophone. Furman supplied vocals, guitar, miscellaneous. Throughout the album, there is a sense of bold ambition and grand artistry in the tradition of songwriting giants of the past, but set apart by an undercurrent of deranged, ragged glory. Songs like "My Zero" and "Been So Strange" take the broad-stroke tunefulness of 80s heartland rock, strip off the gloss, deconstruct it, and reassemble it along unsettling and far more potent lines. "Tell 'Em All to Go to Hell," "Anything Can Happen" and "And Maybe God is a Train," affect a lurid 70s glam stance - jittery drumming driving glitter-and-dirt smeared guitar, strategically gilded with leering sax lines. Meanwhile, the title track evokes the shock therapy of John Lennon's initial harrowing post-Beatles albums - stark piano chords reverberating over massive but minimalist drums. Through it all, Ezra sings in a uniquely stylized yet powerful voice that alternates between odd, tremulous beauty and startling, guttural viscerality. For Day of the Dog it's all about the rock `n' roll with some punk panache thrown in. Ezra once again re-invented himself , this time as an angry young man ready to throw himself on the pyre in search of the redemption that will follow.