"If there's any juice left to be wrung from punk rock, count on You Am I to extract it. On the seventh studio album of its nearly 20-year career, Convicts, the Australian quartet sounds as if it just heard the Clash for the first time last week. Few listeners will be that unschooled in the band's chosen style, and punk's familiarity does limit You Am I's impact -- but not that much. On such craggy yet streamlined songs as the album-opening "Thank God I've Hit Bottom," singer-guitarist Tim Rogers and his cohorts treat the 30-year-old style as if it's breaking news.

Like most way-past-'77 punk bands, You Am I has a rock-history streak. "Explaining Cricket," which uses that game's inexplicability to Americans as a metaphor for the inability to communicate, combines Kinks-like verses with a Who-ish central fanfare. Yet only a few of these songs demand a game of spot-the-influence. More characteristic are jumpy, word-stuffed rockers such as "Nervous Kid," which balances breakneck characterization and feverish backing vocals for as long as it can manage. (That would be 2 minutes 18 seconds.) Outside Australia, You Am I has made its reputation as a live band, but Convicts shows that Rogers' material is ideally suited to the group's storm-the-stage approach."

-- Mark Jenkins