Their own press calls it “gypsy punk”, but that’s more useful as a marketing tool than a real description. Klezmer usually has clarinet, accordion, trumpet, trombone, piano and cimbalom (hammered dulcimer), but Golem mixes it up by only keeping the accordion and violin, adding a contrabass and using for percussion. This modernizes the klezmer sound by putting it in a lower range but it stays consistent with the feeling. Besides, it’s harder than ever to find a good clarinetist these days.

Golem play hard and fast, but the musical styles they revive are known for that--think Semitic bluegrass. Nothing smokes quite like a klezmer band, and this band is savvy enough to nail it. It’s good music and they play it hard. Heart of the band, Annette Ezekiel Kogan, seems like a force of nature with her strong will, feisty accordion and saucy tongue. Her pairing with vocalist Aaron Diskin is ideal for the bombastic exuberance as well as the more tender moments. The two of them can cover the range of stock characters that populate the mini-dramas of the songs.

Citizen Boris is the loose narrative of the everyman greenhorn from getting off the boat (or plane, as it were) to American citizenship. The principle fault of this conceit is the ponderous weight of the past, and the narrow focus of cultural introspection verges on self-indulgence. Lingering on the discomforts and burdens of previous generations, the contemporary flair has at its heart this is the sound of the new generation trying to make sense of the old by looking through the same set of wire-rimmed glasses. In that sense, Citizen Boris is on the mark. The melancholy is faced with a wry humor, in keeping with the Weltanschauung of their inspiration.

Thematically the songs isolate specific moods in the stories of a previous generation with an attempt at understanding its meaning today. There’s broad humor in much of it: the passionate throws of “Come to Me”, echoed in the title track Annette Kogan’s eruption of “New Jersey” is straight out of the Catskills. Likewise the song for “Train Across Ukraine” plays on the pun of Shalom Aleichem. “Tucheses and Nenes” aims for the earthy side of things, unembarrassed by its embrace of crudeness. The laments of “Why am I so beautiful?” in “Mirror Mirror”, add pathos that is somewhat undermined by the laundry list of what the singer does not have.

Golem is more impassioned than edgy; there’s not anything transgressive in their playing by the standards of contemporary music. Polish elders may have shouted Golem off the stage in 2007, but that’s not because they’re punk—it’s because they are bold.