Ian Svenonius is probably the most underrated musical mind to come out of the DC post-hardcore scene. But despite the idiosyncratic legacy he’s created for himself with the combined output of Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up and Weird War, not to mention his book and TV projects, the pseudo-spiritual joke-rock of his latest venture, Chain And The Gang, is a tough pill to swallow. While painfully appropriate for the current economic climate, songs like “What is a Dollar?” and “Reparations” suffer ragged delivery and demo-quality production — which may, admittedly, just be part of the punch line. Highlights are rare, what with “Trash Talk” and “Unpronounceable Name” sounding more like Weird War B-sides. In fact, for Down with Liberty ... Up with Chains, that description may even be a little bit generous.