After a long delay owing to an unfortunate internecine quarrel, The Klezmatis are back, albeit with a slightly altered lineup.  Alicia Svigals has left the group, and Lisa Gutkin takes up the fiddle chores on this new album.  As usual, the band members engage with what’s happening in the work around them, and the post-Sept. 11 sensability is found on their Yiddish and English adaptation of Holly Near’s “I Ain’t Afraid” (“I ain’t afraid of you Allah/ I ain’t afraid of your Jesus/ I’m afraid of what you do/ IN the name of your god”).

The band swings as they did in the past on the Frank London composition “Kat Un Moyz (Cat and Mouse)” and on “Tepel,” which refers to the notorious, gun-toting klezmer clarinetist Rudy Tepel.  Lorin Sklamberg’s vocals and a swirling instrumental arrangement lend poignancy to the sensual “Loshn-Koydesh (Holy Tongues),” adapted from a poem by A. Almi (1892 – 1963), about a Hebrew tutor and his student.  The Klezmatics’ latest magical mystical tour into Jewish realms should delight old fans and those new to the music of these neo-klezmer innovators.