*** Magnet

SHARK BAIT

(PC Music)

Singer/songwriter Mark Goodman has a knack for attracting a rotating stable of top-shelf alterna-rock rockers old and new (well, newer), and in that sense the name of his band is apt. What we have here, then, is either the best Cracker album since The Golden Age or a nifty souvenir from a partially reunited Camper Van Beethoven. This time around, Goodman -- who lured ex-Velvets drummer Moe Tucker out of semi-retirement a couple years back for Magnet's debut, Don't Be a Penguin -- has enlisted the guitar/keyboard/production efforts of Cracker/Camper frontman David Lowery, Sparklehorse sideman/
Camper alum Jonathan Segel, and Johnny Hickman and Bob Rupe (Cracker's guitarist and bassist, respectively). Also aboard is House of Freaks/Gutterball guitarist Bryan Harvey and a house party of next-door neighbors, psychiatrists, one-time Hanson (yeah, that Hanson) engineers, and Tucker, who plays a cameo role here, appearing on two tracks.

And herein lies the quandary of this kind of "supersession" approach. On the one hand, Shark Bait's a cleverly cool disc of sly pop references that range from the raggedly Cracker-like chug of "Drag" to the cold shoulder VU-by-way-of-Luna-isms of "Over You" to the Steve Wynn-esque rhyme whines of "Esque." On the other, Magnet sound mostly like, well, somebody else.

-- Jonathan Perry