Helix

You know what you're getting yourself into with this: nothing fancy, just a single-disc anthology of Canuck rockers Helix, as that horribly awkward album title illustrates. There are nineteen old tunes and two brand new ones, with nothing in the way of liner notes. How do you rate classic Canucklehead summertime rockers like "Running Wild in the 21st Century," "Rock You" and "Heavy Metal Love"? High for being accidental soundtracks to our youth or low for being cheeseball rockers that haven't aged that well? Tough call, but "Rock You" actually still sounds great, and the classics still sound good, although it's the nostalgia, and booze, talking more than anything. The two new tracks? One is called "All I Want For Christmas Is the Leafs to Win the Cup," which manages to sum up exactly why these guys will always be peers to Anvil — that Canadian humour admirable, but also part of the problem. Head-shaking aside, these lug nuts have a long history of cranking out rock anthems that worked (and many that didn't, as this disc also illustrates). If you don't have a few of them in your collection and you're a rock fan, you could do worse than picking this up to help make the beer go down all the smoother on a hot, sweaty summer night.