Threats of a younger Bush invading a weaker Iraq have revived one of the many sides of Eugene Chadbourne, and probably the one historically with the broadest commercial application.

During the go-go �80s, Chadbourne worked with two of the biggest oddball rock acts around -- Camper van Beethoven and the Violent Femmes. � to create some of his most noted and most scathing records. During a time when the protest song was primarily under the purview of hardcore bands, Chadbourne channeled Pharaoh Sanders and Phil Ochs (if with a dose of Dead Kennedys), successfully updating Vietnam backlash to the days of Reagan and Bush.

A decade later, and everything old is new yet again. Don�t Burn the Flag, Let�s Burn the Bush is the third in a spate of new protest songs the good doctor has released on his home cdr label in a year. Coming on the heels of New New New War War War and Homeland Security, Don�t Burn the Flag is the first that doesn�t contain any previously released material (the vertigo-inducing rate at which Chadbourne releases records � about a dozen this year � is due in part, unfortunately, to the fact that he is an avid recycler), and is the strongest of the three. Starting off with another one-man dialogue with Dorothy Helms and a reworking of a Chuck Berry song (�Jesse B. Goode� � Chuck and Jesse apparently share a birthday), Chadbourne goes on to teach history with Johnny Cash on Filipino sweatshops and Nancy Sinatra on Newt Gingrich, topping it off with Phil Ochs� �Another Country,� which needs no revision to sound current. He also updates his own �New New New War War War,� musically and lyrically one of his strongest compositions to date, and throws in a Minuteman song and a reading of TLC�s �Waterfalls� (incorrectly credited to Prince) that finds a surprising poignancy in the pop hit.

Chadbourne�s lo-fi love affair is a nonissue here. The sound quality, like the song selection, is gooda nd consistent. And it comes packages in an actual (and apparently legal) incendiary device. Here�s hoping Volume Four is a rock opera with libretto by Howard Zinn.