The greatest songwriters take our commonalities and offer them back to us in uncommon ways, finding the phrasing and cadence that eludes us in our workaday rush. As we dig around for enough change to do one precious load of laundry or save our after-school job money for something more salacious, BTF's Ed Anderson is there, introducing us to red haired, blue jean girls who love the color yellow or jostling us beautifully as the rubber tears up highway.

Anderson might be the finest chronicler of the shaky, thin edge lives most of lead since Tom Petty started singing about American girls. No bullshit, and the proof of this rests in your hands.

Good To Be, from its perfectly open-ended title through its road won wisdom and Kinks-ian pop fizz, is music to get one through the day and long, worried filled nights. It's glorious driving music that also rewards a good headphone exploration (BTF, for all their live trio fire, dot their studio work with the same subtle, lovely touches of say Revolver-era Beatles).

There's a half dozen radio jewels here, songs that'd light up folks from the first spin, maybe especially because the hope residing in their bones feels earned and true. No panaceas for Anderson and co. but flashes of things that get us through to another sunrise. A distinct lack of sentimentality infuses these tunes with a toughness we can borrow, and they offer them up with gutbucket precision that's, as Ed puts it, "sweaty and it's smoky and it's ripe and it's rock 'n' roll." Backyard Tire Fire is the real deal, and that's a good thing to be. –Dennis Cook