* RIALTO

(Sire)

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before: cute, fashionable British boys with guitars and fey accents compose precious, semi-literate, mopy, ultimately nondescript tales of swingin' London. Gene, dear chap? Bluetones, ol' boy? Geneva, guv'ner? Nope, it's Rialto, yet another faceless flavor-of-the-month. Ever since recovering Britpoppers Blur became slanted and enchanted and Oasis had a champagne implosion, the milieu of bowler hats and Union Jacks has been wide open for a new wave of synonymous understudies. Rialto is Britpop-by-the-numbers: the aching-to-be-Morrissey pun of "Milk of Amnesia," the uncomfortably dumb ripoff of Oasis's "Cigarettes and Alcohol" ("Broken Barbie Doll," which refers to "sleeping pills and alcohol"), the pseudo-Suede pomp of "The Underdog," the Divine-Comedy-meets-Morricone cinemascope of "Untouchable." If it's any indication of success, the quartet have already nabbed a couple of Top 40 hits back in Blighty. But here in the States, Rialto are only for those who find the wait between Ocean Colour Scene albums to be unendurable.

-- Patrick Bryant