American Beer is only Fear's fifth album in the last fifteen-plus years, breaking a six-year silence, and even with numerous personnel changes during that time, the band's sound has remained remarkably unaffected. The standard ale anthems are trotted out on American Beer, from "The Bud Club" to "Beerheads" to "Beer:30," in predictably raw and needle-spiking fashion. Some of the more thoughtful moments come on the Wayne Kramer­like jazz interludes that punctuate "33rd & 3rd," the boozily placed holiday hooks in "Another Christmas Beer," and the full-throttle version of Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man." One of the great tracks here (entitled "What if God's Not One of Us?") is Ving's brilliant response to Joan Osborne's ubiquitous 1995 hit and has all the swaggering volume and attitude of the early days of punk. Even with 15 years of hard living and experience to color the process, Lee Ving and Fear still have an incredible capacity for plugging in and letting fly, even if it's just to honor beers.