SOUND CHECK.

SPOTLIGHT ON...

Trent Summar & the New Row Mob/``Trent Summar & the New Row Mob'' (VFR)

Tennesseean Summar and his gang of crack session men are being pitched as heirs to Southern rockers like ZZ Top. But they're better than that. This self-titled debut album by the ex-Hank Flamingo frontman sounds more like the sequel to ``Exile on Main Street,'' a soulfully raucous, eclectic collection of blue-eyed country r&b. Things start up fast with the stellar stock-car romance ``Paint Your Name in Purple'' and from there careen between stompin' redneck anthems (``I'm Country,'' the marvelously witty ``New Money'') and high-pep heartbreaker paeans (speed tonker ``Colene,'' the muscularly syncopated ``Too Busy Missing You''). Summar's drawl has a Jaggerish versatility, too; he even makes a cover of the sappy ``It Never Rains in California'' sound real. All in all, one of the best alt.country debuts of the year. Four stars.

- Bob Strauss

America/``Highway: 30 Years of America'' (Rhino)

Foreigner/``Anthology: Jukebox Heroes'' (Rhino)

Multi-disc box sets like these can be head-scratching propositions for anyone not interested in the featured bands. Cynics could argue that three discs of America's tuneful folk rock is three discs too many, but go beyond the band's classic '70s hits (``Ventura Highway'' and ``Sister Golden Hair'' still bring a smile) and you've got two decades worth of easy-going material from America's remaining members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. So in that sense, three CDs is just about right, although try telling that to Neil Young fans still bitter about the shameless ``Horse With No Name.'' Two and one half stars.

Foreigner, with more hits and, yes, talent, rates only two discs from Rhino, which makes the listening a little more consistently rewarding. The combination of Lou Gramm's booming, arena-rock singing and Mick Jones' crunching, catchy guitar riffs holds up well after all these years, although it's hard to muster much enthusiasm for the group's most recent work. But then, celebrating the present isn't really the point of these sets, is it? Three stars.

- Glenn Whipp

Joao Gilberto/``Joao voz e violao'' (Verve)

If the name of the album (translated: ``Joao, voice and guitar'') doesn't fully reveal its gentle, hushed mood, the record company has helpfully hinted at what's inside with its cover photo of a pouty woman holding her index finger to her lips. Shush. Not that you really need such instruction. Gilberto, making his first album in nine years, is the same as he ever was, delivering 10 delicate bossa nova gems. The singing is expressionless; the guitar work gorgeous. Gilberto revisits the past with Antonio Carlos Jobim's classic ``Desafinado'' (one of three Jobim songs here), but the program is dominated by songs Gilberto has never recorded. That's good news for fans eager for a new chapter in Gilberto's five-decade exploration of an art form. Three stars.

- G.W.

Victoria Williams/``Water to Drink'' (Atlantic)

Williams, whose public battle with multiple sclerosis made her a cause celebre in the mid-'90s, came to prominence via a child-like folksiness only slightly more soulful than Nanci Griffith's. The stylistic mishmash ``Water to Drink,'' however, proves that though she may be a country girl at heart, her tastes are becoming far more eclectic.

Much like the rewarding retro feel of ``I Am Shelby Lynne,'' Williams' latest is all over the map - one moment she's a homespun Dusty Springfield, another she's doing an uptempo but faithful cover of Jobim's bossa nova title track with a Sergio Mendes twist. Later she revives Bacharach and Gainsbourg with the Parisian playfulness of ``Claude,'' and she even tackles that old chestnut ``Young at Heart'' with orchestral aid.

All this in between heartland rock tunes. It's a jarring progression, especially for an indie icon. Yet somehow her album is structurally sound, perhaps because when it seems most unhinged it's still cool - like Rickie Lee Jones' standards collection ``Pop Pop,'' only with a bounce in its step. Three stars.

- Ben Wener

Orange County Register

Rancid/``Rancid'' (Hellcat/Epitaph)

Short songs, big messages.

On the second self-titled album from Bay Area quartet Rancid - its fifth overall release - the band tackles some familiar issues: working-class liberation, corporate sleaze, political globalization. But the biggest message on this brisk, raucous attack (22 songs in 37 minutes) is this: Rancid is still a punk band.

After the relative pop success of 1995's ``And Out Come the Wolves'' and 1998's ``Life Won't Wait,'' the predictable chorus of disgruntled punk purists kicked into high gear. With a horde of catchy, clever roots-reggae and metal stylings, those albums enticed reviewers and new fans while helping the band lay worthy claim to the Clash throne. But in the world of punk - particularly the cutthroat West Coast scene - you don't dress up your music without getting smacked with some degree of backlash.

Where melody and careful crafting defined the best stuff on the previous two albums, ``Rancid'' makes its point more viscerally. Like the black-and-white artwork and illegible lyrics scrawled inside the accompanying booklet, the music is often deliberately primitive, relying on the sheer velocity and volume of the attack to provide the emotional potency. The closest Rancid comes to tunefulness here is on ``Radio Havana'' and ``Let Me Go,'' both flanked by roaring, guttural punk tracks. Three stars.

- Brian McCollum

Detroit Free Press 

Jo Dee Messina/``Burn'' (Curb)

It's a familiar pattern: A female singer comes to Nashville, makes a couple of records just twangy enough to establish herself with country audiences and then - usually at the urging of a big-name label - heads for the pop mainstream.

Messina, who showed promise on ``I'm Alright,'' her second disc, plunges headfirst into that trap on her third. It's bad that ``Burn'' is full of pop songs; it's even worse that these pop songs are so bland they sound as if they were generated by a computer in some sterile Music Row office building.

Sure, they deal with topics like love, passion, broken hearts and dreams. But they do it in a chirpy, humdrum manner that makes them indistinguishable from dozens of other chirpy, humdrum tunes that have filled the airwaves over the last five years. To complicate matters, Messina's big voice never seems to connect with the words she's singing. Even on lines that have the potential to be compelling - such as ``Live, love, seize the day and dare to dream'' - she seems detached.

The result is a disc that's spunky but emotionally bare. Look for country radio to lap it up. Two stars.

- Greg Crawford

Detroit Free Press

The Fairfield Four and Friends/``Live From Mountain Stage'' (Blue Plate)

The bone-shaking baritone of James Hill, who died in July, can be heard one final time on this 1997 tribute concert, which saw the a cappella gospel group, founded in the 1920s, joined by a parade of admirers. Yet even accompanying Elvis Costello (on a mournful ``That Day Is Done'') or Steve Earle (giving his tune ``Valentine's Day'' an Ink Spots-style spin), the Fairfields would never be mistaken for backup singers: They have the power and the glory.

As would be expected, the best cuts are unadulterated Fairfields. ``Hallelujah (Love Just Bubbles Over in My Heart)'' is as joyous as the title implies, with Joseph Rice leading the call-and-response. The live rendition of ``I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray'' surpasses even the brilliant version that lent its title to the group's last studio album.

Founding member Hill's chariot has carried him home, but the Fairfields will undoubtedly continue to make this joyful noise. Three stars.

- Terry Lawson

Detroit Free Press

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no caption (Trent Summar and the New Row Mob)