"Temple Beautiful" Release Date Feb 7, 2012: Theme projects can be dicey propositions. For every successful one that examines a subject in a song cycle, many more fail miserably as performers strain and stretch lyrics to fit the matter at hand. Leave it to San Francisco's Chuck Prophet to turn that generalization upside-down on his twelfth studio release since the 1990 dissolution of Green on Red. This concept set centers on his San Francisco hometown. The 12 tunes on Temple Beautiful, named after an influential and long defunct S.F. punk club, sometimes only obliquely reference the city. In fact, without Prophet's song-by-song explanations in the press notes, it's often impossible to place this rootsy, melodic rock & roll to any particular location. Still, Prophet proudly declares that the album was "made in San Francisco, by San Franciscans about San Francisco." Regardless, this is another in a remarkably consistent series of terrific Prophet discs, filled with tightly wound blues-based rock, driven by his unassuming talk-sung vocals and ever-present, always imaginative Telecaster riffs. The dreamy trip-hop beats that once played a distinctive part in Prophet's sound have been replaced by a tough four-piece augmented by occasional horns, keyboards from producer Brad Jones, violin and cello, and even a guest vocal from San Francisco's Roy Loney, founding member of, and frontman for, the legendary Flamin' Groovies. The rather open-ended theme namechecks everyone from world-re