A novel take on the live album, Thompson wrote and rehearsed these songs with his band before taking them on the road and recording them without overdubs in front of audiences during an American tour in 2010. The result is a muscular display of Thompson’s enormous aptitude as a performer, periodically mitigated by a lack of premium songs and the difficulty of performing new music to an expectant audience unfamiliar with the source material. As experiments go, it is more than worthwhile — the bracing, banker-shaming opener “The Money Shuffle” sets a tone of cheerful malevolence, while the rockabilly-flavored miserablism of “Haul Me Up” maintains the atmosphere of genial depravity. Unfortunately, Thompson’s longstanding weakness for difficult dirges raises its head on hard-going tracks like “Crimescene” and “Sydney Wells,” the latter of which might have appeared as a B-side on a far less appealing version of Dylan’s Desire. As with any Thompson release, there is greatness to be had here, but live energy aside, the stakes feel decidedly low.