A line such as "My journey has been so hard lately" attests to the fact that even the effervescent Bragg sometimes gets the blues. Recorded in a five-day blitz with Californian producer Joe Henry, Tooth & Nail is a downbeat affair, its mood softened by deft Americana backings and Bragg's adopted mid-Atlantic accent. Swallow My Pride and Handyman Blues are bruised relationship songs, while the two overtly political outings, There Will Be a Reckoning, which rails against "the peddlers of hate", and a touching cover of Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home, sound more exhausted than angry. Weary then, but, as ever, authentic.