The Kinks are craftsmen in a musical genre that often relies on flash and force, literate chroniclers in a post-literate medium. They are also the most consistent band in rock and roll. Each of the Kinks' preceding twelve albums … is an absolutely integral piece of work. While other groups have dried up, broken down, spawned generations of side-man/superstar spinoffs, the Kinks roll on.

Ray Davies, the group's lead singer and songwriter, seems to be an inexhaustible source of pithy, self-contained songs…. All 12 songs on "Muswell Hillbillies" … are his, though the spirit of pub philosophy that dominates the album owes much to Dave's brand of tipsy populism.

But this is essentially a serious album. Ray used to paint pictures of well-respected men that were quaint and a little one-dimensional, and his descriptions of English working-class traditions occasionally verged on the lugubrious. "Muswell Hillbillies" deals with the kind of...