by JT LindroosJulian Cope is back with another unfeigned stab at anything that puts a bee under his bonnet. The Arch-Drude manages to display his baser nature with the Brain Donor records (like 2003's Too Freud to Rock 'N' Roll, Too Jung to Die), while his solo albums seem to search for the perfect blend of modern protest songs and garage rock. Following in the footsteps of Citizen Cain'd, You Gotta Problem with Me covers subject matter from corporate greed to celebrity culture, homophobia, and the war in Iraq. But his main target this time out is what he terms the misogynistic Sky-God religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It's both passionate and silly, slapdash yet gorgeous, chock-full of new ideas and concerns while informed by nuggets of arcane antiquity -- like most of his work in the last two decades. Doctor Know opens the first CD -- perversely, he has split in two this hour-long CD to approximate the turning of the vinyl record -- with an eloquent nine-minute epic. Though it proves Cope's knack for marrying a thought-provoking lyric to a fluid melody, musically it's not quite up to the standards of, say, his Safesurfer. Beyond Rome and Soon to Forget Ya are fun while they last, but in their brief burn they remain more like sketches than fully developed songs. The title song manages to showcase the attributes that make Cope tick these days. Its raw crunch and humorously delivered chorus turn into an almost saccharine, lilting melody before it's over, and the natural flow between the polar opposite sections are a joy to both the mind and the ear. ...