This is the Trains’ first album in six years, and it comes across like an aerosol can in the fireplace: extremely flammable, contents under pressure. The band, under the guidance of longtime helmsman and Weekly contributor Falling James, has been consistently active during the interval, but a changing scene and the decline of the underground ol’-school punk-label network has kept the Trains offa the racks. This has got to be beyond frustrating for James, who had consistently cranked out close to a record a year since the Trains’ debut, Well Down Blue Highway, in ’84. After a nine-record run with SST, the band is back on Philly true-blue dirt-punk label Steel Cage, home to heathens like Antiseen, Limecell and the 440s.

Emotional Legs, produced with an unrefined clarity by Andrew Buscher, kicks off like a somewhat typical three-chord punk stomper but gradually unfurls into something more cinematic, though no less vitriolic. The feel begins to broaden with a well-chosen cover of the Urinals’ moody “Black Hole.” In James’ own melancholic, wistful “Dumb as a Crayon,” the singer defends his looked-down-upon girl, chiding the naysayers, “I shoplift at your daddy’s store,” and reassuring his girl, “I like the way your smile implies a crime and says, ‘Let’s get out of here.’” On the other side of the coin, drummer Dennis Carlin’s “Judy Don’t Mind” comes off like an update of the Monkees’ theme. The aptly titled “New York Is Gone” begins with a riff straight from Television’s debut, and seemingly bemoans declining urban music scenes in the U.S.

Over an hour in length, this pressure cooker blows off six years’ worth of steam with wit and finesse. (S.L. Duff)