It seems like a lazy way to put it, but if you dig “Our House,” the massive early 80s U.S. hit from U.K. darlings MADNESS, you’ll appreciate the band’s latest album. That’s not to say The Liberty of Norton Folgate simply clones the group’s single, mind you. It does mean that Folgate is a delight, with all the earmarks of what makes Madness distinctive: observational lyrics about working class life in London, personable vocals courtesy longtime frontperson SUGGS, jaunty hooks, carefully crafted melodies and arrangements that draw from pop, cabaret and reggae in ways that keep styles more feels than forms. Superlative tracks like “Rainbows,” “Bingo” and “We Are London” (quite) are building blocks in an edifice with a dual purpose, as both a love letter to the band’s cherished locale and a reaffirmation of everything that made Madness great in the first place. It’s unlikely the group will be rewarded with a hit single as it was in 1982, at least in America, but it hardly matters. The Liberty of Norton Folgate is a near-definitive statement of purpose from a band that’s as vital now as it was two and a half decades ago.
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