The Universal cache

From Universal Records comes a cache of four recently-issued CDs of more or less diverse bands and persuasions: Boxcar Racer, New Found Glory’s Sticks and Stones, Hatebreed’s Perseverance, and Safri Duo’s Episode II.

First on the CD player was the eponymous first album of Boxcar Racer, easily the most compelling of the batch. Just when we thought there was hardly any life after Green Day and the rest of the post-punk bands, Boxcar Racer, whose nucleus is Thomas DeLonge and Travis Barker, lays out largely guitar-based tracks.

Guitarist/vocalist DeLonge and drummer Barker actually co-wrote all of the songs on the CD, which range from straight rock songs to more daring excursions in syncopation.

From the opening track I Feel So, to the closing instrumental, this relatively new band combines hard rocking chord progressions with introspective, spontaneous improvisation.

New Found Glory’s Jason Pundik lends vocal work in Cat Like Thief, which has an attractive piano part that helps the song along in an unobtrusive, neo-new wave style.

In Elevator, clanging guitars further give us an idea that the band members know their chops well, and hardly drift away into a complacent boredom.

My First Punk Song has all the exuberance of that swift period in music history, and Sorrow has one of the most oft-repeated lines in rock lyrics: "I’m sorry."

In the liner notes, Boxcar Racer explains that the songs were all originally conceived as acoustic tracks, and only when Barker added the drum parts did they take on a noisier, electrified feel. But the acoustic foundation is kept intact, making Boxcar Racer one of the more exciting young bands around.

As for New Found Glory, they seem to be a distant cousin of Boxcar Racer, and Pundik’s session work for the latter band is not out of place.

When Pundik stands on his own with his band, their work on Sticks and Stones hints of the direction where rock may be heading, post-Green Day. The trademark grinding guitars are there as usual, with the obligatory salute to a protracted angst ever-present in a song like My Friends Over You.

New Found Glory, which comes out of Florida, may not be as immediately arresting as Boxcar Racer, but they have a charisma of their own which may take more than random listening to catch on to.

In Hatebreed, the listener gets more than a fair dose of what could be described as seething rap-metal, if we can temporarily meld the two forms with apologies to purists of both sides.

The album Perseverance is chockfull of angry, gut-wrenching vocals, ripping, aggressive guitar work, and attacking drums and bass, as if some kind of war was going on.

While a local band like Badburn may opt to temper such loudness with a semblance of musical pretension if not tasteful inclination, Hatebreed chooses to let all nuances and digressions of their pure noise go hang.

As such, listening to them can be quite an assault on the eardrums, and the best revenge is to keep the volume low, otherwise the CD’s title is an apt description of what the listener must have in order to finish the album.

On the down side, or what might be termed the weakest link, is the Safri Duo’s chemical explorations of house and disco music in Episode II.

The duo out of Denmark give us an idea of the musical predilections of that part of Europe, as we understand that the rhythmic percussion tandem is a bestseller in that part of the globe.

But what may be hip-sounding when stoned can be mere campy, downright cheesy compositions on the aural sonograph when sober.

Granted, Episode II has its inspired moments in the guest appearance of Michael MacDonald, but on the whole the proceedings reek of a not too persuasive percussion.