Life Death LIVE and Freedom is an 8-song live “companion” to John Mellencamp’s 2008 studio release, Life, Death, Love and Freedom. This live collection was actually recorded before Mellencamp hit the studio with T-Bone Burnett, to “road test” the new material and whip it into shape. From his earliest hits, “Jack and Diane,” “Pink Houses,” and “Rain On the Scarecrow,” Mellencamp has used current events and social realities to make his philosophical points. Surely, there’s a sense of topical urgency to tunes such as “Troubled Land,” “If I Die Sudden,” and “Jena,” but as important as he considers the message, Mellencamp also stresses the purity of the music. These are unadorned tapes, capturing the band in action without the luxury of overdubbing or any post-concert enhancements. “Don’t Need This Body” stands as a modern-day folk song with Mellencamp starring in the elder bluesman role, a situation that befits this politically oriented music veteran, while elsewhere the band kicks in with a roots-rock dedication that never trivializes the matters at hand.