*** Jim Infantino and Jim's Big Ego

TITANIC

(Gadfly)

The name of his band may be Jim's Big Ego, but based on the large number of songs on Titanic that mention murder, dismemberment, and suicide, it's Jim Infantino's id you need to worry about. This live album, recorded over two nights at Club Passim in Cambridge last June, takes you on a dark ride through Infantino's dream world, where the air goes bad on a WW2 submarine, causing the crew to turn into coldly mechanical killers ("Normandy"), where a lonely Greek deity at the bottom of the ocean pines for company ("Down Here"), and where a suicide has the last laugh at his own funeral ("At the Funeral"). Infantino alternates solo acoustic Laurie Anderson-style spoken-word with acid-folk numbers from his trio -- featuring John Kiehne on Chapman Stick and Tom Maher on drums -- over the course of 19 tracks, including new and previously recorded tunes. A morbid poet, a mordant social critic and a savvy scavenger of pop detritus, he is to Boston's burgeoning alterna-folk scene what Warren Zevon was to the Los Angeles singer-songwriters of the '70s.

-- Seth Rogovoy

(Jim's Big Ego performs at Johnny D's in Somerville this Tuesday, December 3.)