Ry Cooder is angry. The venerable guitarist has worked with Taj Mahal, Captain Beefheart, The Rolling Stones, Lowell George, Van Morrison and a host of others. His slide guitar work is heard on such classics as the Stones' “Sister Morphine,” Little Feat's “Willin',” and Van Morrison's “Full Force Gale.” He released the first popular music album to be recorded digitally (1979's “Bop Til You Drop”) and has scored numerous films including “Paris, Texas,” “Brewster's Millions” and “Crossroads.” In addition, he's an accomplished producer, giving us, among others, the “Buena Vista Social Club.”

Cooder's solo efforts have, for the most part, lacked a coherent theme, but that is not an issue in his new album, “Pull up Some Dust and Sit Down.” Appalled by the state of our political system and the media that is supposed to report the news as opposed to giving opinion, the new album is a spot-on assessment and examination of power and its abuse in today's America, taking the theme of a New Depression literally, resulting in the modern-day equivalent of Woody Guthrie's dust-bowl ballads championing the poor and casting shame upon the rich.

The album opens with “No Banker Left Behind,” which paints the financial industry as this era's most deserving villain with a banjo and mandolin accompanied by a military snare cadence. He tackles such relevant topics as immigration (“Quick Sand” and “Dirty Chateau”), the usurping of justice in favor of oil barons and Republicans (“I Want My Crown”), and television (“Humpty Dumpty World”). But one of the most staggering diatribes is the instant classic that will never get the airplay it deserves. “Christmas Time This Year,” is an exuberant Tex-Mex two-step in which war wounded ask for “two arms so I can hold my kids” and tells the President to shove his war up his “Crawford, Texas...,” well, you get the idea.

In “Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down,” Ry Cooder has given us a lot to think about, and the most lyrically potent protest album of this century.