A compilation of various singles, EPs and other tracks. Go Sailor is not impressive on one listen (I barely even noticed the band's song on the A Slice of Lemon set), but when a few tunes get put together, the results are more impressive.

This band is completely unpretentious. The simple pop songs just keep rolling out, with slice of life song subjects and barely competent harmonies. Sounds like a recipe for generic music, but Go Sailor's work really has an amazing cumulative charm.

I would guess that many folks won't get far enough into this set (or heard one of the earlier releases, which barely had enough stuff to get a taste), but those that do will be rewarded. Simple pop has its charms, and perhaps the best way to create it is to strip away all the unnecessary parts and stick to the essentials. Despite a limited musical range and below-average vocals (from both singers), Go Sailor knows precisely how to create cool pop tunes.

I'll give Home credit: These folks are working their butts off. This is music that aspires to the prog-pop standards set by Todd Rundgren and Frank Zappa. The songs range all over the musical landscape, with about as extensive instrumentation as I've heard on an "alternative" album this year.

And often enough, the band connects. Mostly because instead of going for bombast, Home consciously pulls back the sound into a lo-fi atmosphere and just lets the whole mess stew a bit. Yeah, that gives this a bit of a seventies feel, but in a good (loose) way.

The more I listen, the more I think the production saved this album. There are so many musical ideas wandering through each song, it's impossible to keep up with all of them. Keeping everything to a slightly dull warp eliminates the need for such work, and the listener can instead focus on the totality of the band's musical vision. This, of course, is where you should be.

Alright, alright, there are some annoying Pink Floyd moments and even a weird homage to Led Zeppelin now and again. But Home is simply too erratic to stick to one concept for more than 20 seconds or so. I have to say this is the best album by a Tampa Bay area (which is my local scene) band in at least a year. With all the fermenting ideas, Home has a ton of potential beyond this very good album.

Another standard release from Doctor Dream: solid pop punk music that satisfies, but still goes down smooth. Not too filling.

And not terribly memorable. Quite a few catchy little songs, but then if a band can't come up with a handful of those playing in this area, well, they don't deserve to be recording. Knockout resorts to silly rock gimmickry at times, but for the most part the songs just keep flowing along.

Wish I could say more. I like this well enough, but it sure doesn't excite me at all. I'm quite happy to listen to it now, but it won't be a regular addition to the discer. In an increasingly overcrowded genre, Knockout needs precisely that to garner attention. And that's missing here.

McMahon is one of the original members of the Electric Eels, a long-departed punk band that included future members of Pere Ubu, Golden Palominos, the Styrenes and the Cramps. McMahon, of course, isn't one of those.

But he has recorded this impressive minimalist pop album that mixes Lou Reed-style lyrics (and vocal style) with spare accompaniment that is often not much more than a guitar and assorted noises, with a mildly-annoying keyboard flitting about on occasion. The songs are sarcastic and biting without getting bitter too often, and the weird musical backing keeps the mood of the album quirky and light.

Perhaps the most adventurous pop album I've heard this year. McMahon and his producer, Tom Smith, really have an ear for crafting creative yet accessible songs. Some of the press called this noise-pop, but if you can recognize what you're listening to as music, I won't call it noise anything.

That said, though, I can't take away from McMahon's musical achievement here. 17 Volts is the pop album 99 percent of the musicians in the world wish they could even approach. A real stunner.

Yet another side project for Edge of Sanity's main man, Dan Swano. This is the second installment of the Nightingale saga (with I could have gotten my hands on the first) "The Breathing Shadow".

Swano has been incorporating more and more of his prog-rock influences into Edge of Sanity's output, so side projects like this (with an obvious nod to stuff like Marillion, ELP and such) are becoming less surprising. Swano says in his press notes that he's been trying to purge his system of the goth influences that have been creeping into Edge of Sanity, and so he did the first Nightingale album.

Sure, but despite what the black-clad denizens of the dark wave might want to claim, there just isn't that much between the two sounds. Both are overly dramatic and ponderous. The main difference is that the lyrics whine about different things. Whatever.

Here, Swano has recorded the album Asia never could. Heavy keys that are used as stilettos, not machetes. Enough guitars to keep things amusing, and drum work that keeps the whole set in motion. Yeah, the tracks are long and occasionally a bit self-indulgent. This IS a side project, after all. Swano is one of the great musical minds of this decade. His ability to simply write in whatever idiom he chooses is amazing, and he has yet to crank out a bad disc. I never cease to be astonished.

The last Overdose album (the first one released in the U.S.) was refreshing because it was so loose. This time out, the band seems awful self-conscious, as if it is trying too hard.

Certainly, the folk drum tracks that are just dropped into songs without any context add to this perception. Sepultura had the technology and know-how to make such samples work within its sound. Overdose simply doesn't, and the effort sounds like a bad attempt to copy a more popular band. Even if that isn't the case.

This isn't that bad an album, really, though the echoes of Roots are really a bit too much. I thought Overdose's last album was better than Chaos A.D., mainly because of the supreme flow of the music. Now Overdose has tightened up, and allowed the crafty veterans to usurp higher musical ground. Scars is plenty enjoyable, but not up to what I expected.

Queers before queer was cool, and yet not queer at all. Um, I think I got that right.

The three guys who call themselves the Queers have been pumping out pop anthems for half my life, but never quite like this. The sound is astonishingly punchy, and the lyrics simply melt in my ears. Everything on this album is creamy sour-cream icing.

Certainly one of the great pop albums of the year. If a label with real AOR connections was releasing this puppy, well, the Queers would be headlining arenas by the end of next year.

This will still sell like crazy, of course. With the band's stellar rep, easily the best album the Queers have made should fly off indie stores' shelves. If my incoherent, joyous rhapsodizing isn't enough, check out the last (listed) tune, "I Can't Get Over You", which features Lisa Marr of Cub. A simply gorgeous pop tune, performed to perfection.

I figured this would be good. Don't Back Down is better than great.

Let me get all this straight: Ruth Ruth (from New York) signs a deal with American, releases and album and impresses everyone so much that they cut a special deal to score some street cred by releasing an EP on (jointly) Epitaph and Deep Elm. With another full length on American due out soon enough.

I think that's about right. Of course, the tunes are great, just enough bounce and guitar squall to add a punk sheen to the pure pop sensibilities of the band. The songs are nasty little paeans to the pain of being young. Brett Gurewitz helped out with the knobs, adding some Westbeach punch to the proceedings. and the results speak for themselves.

I never heard the first album (that came during the time when American wasn't sending me squat), but this EP is more than enough to get me damned impressed. I'm not sure how much more credibility the band is going to need. This stuff is pretty close to amazing.

I'm keeping my ears peeled; Ruth Ruth is going to be some kinda force.

Much more coherent than the last outing. David Berman's tales of weird people are pretty much as amusing as before, but the music is much more orchestrated, with real lines this time out.

While the sound is fuller, the effect is to make the lyrics even more spooky. Everything sounds almost normal. That's when you notice exactly what the hell Berman is singing about. Yow.

There are four other Silver Jews, by the way. Berman just happens to write and sing and such. The other folks have filled their roles more than admirably, fleshing out the vision that Starlite Walking merely hinted at.

Boy, do I like this album. I'm not sure where the Silver Jews are going next, but they've got me following the whole way. Folks have often compared this band to Pavement (a band I'm not crazy about). Yeah, but the Silver Jews are much better. There is vision here.

More Vancouver-style coming right at you. Thick bass, mid-range vocals and rather literate lyrics (yeah, with songs called "Bobbitt", that's always the case...).

I've never seen such a disparity between honest punk fans. Either the folks like Nomeansno, SNFU, D.O.A., etc. or they don't. There is no middle ground. Probably because these bands simply don't compromise their principles or their sound.

Another solid outing from the boys. The blitz never lets up, and the topics are as timely as ever. No, SNFU doesn't really break any new ground on the musical front, but do you want the guys to do that?

Fans will eat this up. I like it a bit better than the last album, The One Voted Most Likely to Succeed. If you've never sampled some of this (barely) great white north punkage, well, dig in. More than enough to go around.

An instrumental guitar album from a guy in the middle of North Carolina. And he has a few riffs to sell.

Unfortunately, the verse lines of his tunes are a bit lacking. A little generic and faceless. I like the slower, more expressive style he favors, but I don't hear him doing anything with the freedom he's allotted himself. Sucre cranks out some vicious riff work in the chorus sections, but that simply doesn't make up for the rest of the songs.

He produced this himself, giving the album a bit of a shiny feel, which is good for this type of recording. Actually, I think his talents may lie a bit more behind the glass than in front of it. He did a wonderful job of piecing this together. The musical ideas are what's lacking.

Still, as instrumental albums go, he's acquitted himself reasonably well. If he only knew what to do with his lead verse breaks, Sucre might just have himself something.

A few Epitaph bands and some friends (Helmet, Beasties and more) contribute mostly covers, live tracks or previously released material to this disc. I don't have a CD-Rom, but my brother does, and he says the computer element of this thing is rather underwhelming.

As a compilation, the stuff is alright, but I've heard most of these songs before. They can found in other places, often with a better version. I applaud the idea of merging the possibilities of computers with the spirit of punk music (um, well, that's what I'm doing with A&A, after all), but the execution just isn't right.

Maybe next time. The one thing that bugs me is that this reeks of monster label-itis. Now, in general, the folks at Epitaph are just as cool as they were three years ago before the Offspring sold a ka-zillion copies, but this seems a bit contrived and below the Epitaph spirit. Better luck next time.

A few months back, my brothers Matt and Aaron devoted a whole issue of Lies magazine to the phenomenon of glam metal. I thought that was cool enough; it has turned out to prescient.

Articles from that issue are still getting reprinted in zines everywhere, and they still get letters from folks that start with the word "Dude!". Alright, I'll admit that about 11 years ago I tried to make my hair look like Jon Bon Jovi's. To defend myself, this was before Bon Jovi had sold shit, and anyway, I lived in New Mexico, where weird stuff happens all the time.

That tangent aside, this puppy is a hardcore tribute to glam metal. Bands like No Fraud, Farside, Sinkhole, Snuka and Jughead's Revenge take on everything from Bon Jovi and Ratt to Iron Maiden and Voivod (those last two are perhaps ringers, but what the fuck...).

I just have to say that the Ff take on Stryper's "Makes Me Wanna Sing" is astonishing. Nothing like a hardcore pop band wailing "Jeeee-zus!" at a hundred miles an hour. Not to missed.

All in good fun, and I had a great time. Hey, the liners are written by Rudy Sarzo. How can you avoid this?