Various

Syrup and Gasoline is a compilation of indie-pop, garage and straight-up modern rock. It’s a combination that will be sure to please no one, with a ton of weak material surrounding the solid stuff. The CD starts of with a series of timid, sparse-sounding pop tracks, the lo-light of the bunch being the just plain terrible Jalo-Pea song, “Sofa.” More musically competent, but equally annoying is the Sandbox-ish waste of time turned in by Lowbrow. The “stupidest singing in the history of rock music” award easily goes to Les Thanatologues for their unforgivable performance on “Milkshake.” What is good? Tricky Woo’s cover of the Creation’s “Making Time” rocks, as do the Goblins, Pin-Ups, Spitfires and Girl Bombs songs. These five tracks can’t possibly make up for the rest of the 20 selections, but let’s hope that college DJs might discover and give some airplay to the few goodies.