Threats of a younger Bush invading a weaker Iraq have revived one of the many sides of Eugene Chadbourne, and probably the one historically with the broadest commercial application.

During the go-go ’80s, Chadbourne worked with two of the biggest oddball rock acts around -- Camper van Beethoven and the Violent Femmes. – to create some of his most noted and most scathing records. During a time when the protest song was primarily under the purview of hardcore bands, Chadbourne channeled Pharaoh Sanders and Phil Ochs (if with a dose of Dead Kennedys), successfully updating Vietnam backlash to the days of Reagan and Bush.

A decade later, and everything old is new yet again. Don’t Burn the Flag, Let’s Burn the Bush is the third in a spate of new protest songs the good doctor has released on his home cdr label in a year. Coming on the heels of New New New War War War and Homeland Security, Don’t Burn the Flag is the first that doesn’t contain any previously released material (the vertigo-inducing rate at which Chadbourne releases records – about a dozen this year – is due in part, unfortunately, to the fact that he is an avid recycler), and is the strongest of the three. Starting off with another one-man dialogue with Dorothy Helms and a reworking of a Chuck Berry song (“Jesse B. Goode” – Chuck and Jesse apparently share a birthday), Chadbourne goes on to teach history with Johnny Cash on Filipino sweatshops and Nancy Sinatra on Newt Gingrich, topping it off with Phil Ochs’ “Another Country,” which needs no revision to sound current. He also updates his own “New New New War War War,” musically and lyrically one of his strongest compositions to date, and throws in a Minuteman song and a reading of TLC’s “Waterfalls” (incorrectly credited to Prince) that finds a surprising poignancy in the pop hit.

Chadbourne’s lo-fi love affair is a nonissue here. The sound quality, like the song selection, is gooda nd consistent. And it comes packages in an actual (and apparently legal) incendiary device. Here’s hoping Volume Four is a rock opera with libretto by Howard Zinn.