MELODY MAKER

As Dave Hause puts the focus on songs, he keeps the guitar work all about the hooks.

SINGER-SONGWRITER DAVE Hause has had a guitar around his neck, professionally speaking, for two decades now, first as the frontman for acclaimed Philly punks the Loved Ones, and for the past dozen years as a solo act. But when it comes to laying down guitar tracks, he's as likely to perform them himself as call in a Nashville ringer like Tom Bukovac, Sadler Vaden or Kris Donegan, who guests on his sixth and latest album, Drive It Like It's Stolen (Blood Harmony Records). "They can generate licks so much faster than I could," Hause says. "It's like each of these recording sessions has been a really expensive guitar lesson for me."

Hause built, deconstructed and rebuilt the 10 songs on Drive It Like It's Stolen on his Martin OM-21 and piano before hitting the studio with producer Will Hoge. Written from the perspective of a father navigating post-millennium tension, ever-present global calamities and all the uncertainties that lay ahead, the record finds Hause testing the fortitude of his heartland-inspired songwriting by turning down the volume, similar in spirit to the quieter moments on Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love.

"It wasn't all just 'ripping rock band, like you'll hear at the end of 'Pedal Down' or 'Cheap Seats, where the band comes in the