** Collective Soul

DOSAGE

(Atlantic)

In the wake of their 1994 breakthrough hit, "Shine," Collective Soul have done their best to build upon that song's canny mixture of drama and sleaze. On their best album, 1995's Collective Soul, the Georgia quintet separated the two and scored twice, with a dramatic ballad ("The World I Know") and some sleazier rock ("Where the River Flows"). Not bad when you consider frontguy Ed Roland's modest presence and the band's general lack of charisma.

Dosage leans more toward the sappier stuff, like the first single, "Run" (from the high-school-football drama Varsity Blues), and the pretty, strings-and-falsetto-driven "Needs." But Collective Soul's real strength lies in their Lynyrd Skynyrd-meets-Radiohead three-guitar attack, which here reaches its potential only on the riff-laden second track, "Heavy." Elsewhere, the band rely too much on shopworn trip-hop loops, though "Generate" compares favorably with similar techno-rock fusions by R.E.M. and Smashing Pumpkins. "Only the strong shall survive," Roland sings on the disc's hidden track, and though Collective Soul have shown considerable strength in the face of alterna-rock's demise, they'll probably need more than James Van Der Beek to save them at this stage of the game.

-- Sean Richardson