*** Zen Guerrilla

TRANCE STATES IN TONGUES

(Sub Pop)

Zen Guerrilla don't really play music -- merely "playing" would be too namby-pamby for these guys. No, the Guerrilla build songs as if they were working on muscle cars, like, perhaps, the twin-cam blues-injected MC5. And the result sounds like a voluptuous machine on Trance States in Tongues -- picture that orange Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard translated into sludgy, jacked-up roots punk driven by a cat with a Rob Tyner soul-'fro and a throat to match.

The interior is no-frills pleather, with bass lines bolstering the guitar screech and scooping soulfully behind the beat. The songs come in two models: the Smoky Blues Super Sport, featuring shuffling beats and "Shake it baby" lyrics that in the hands of a lesser band would come off as mullet blooze, and the Soul De Ville, which offers James Brown ebullience and Booker T. grooves. "Peppermint" and "Magpie" cruise smooth and stealthily, like lowriders looking for short skirts and tube tops. "Preacher's Promise" and "Ghetto City Version" are for I-got-a-raise-and-a-new-hotty joyrides. The only thing missing is the Soul Ballad Riviera -- maybe it's still on the assembly line in some dingy rehearsal room.

-- Lorne Behrman