Wide Eyes and Nonsense...

While ska-ish punk is a little played out these days, here is one of those cases, yet again, that when something is played this well, it just doesn't frickin' matter. Any English band that includes Thatcher on Acid frontman Ben Corrigan on guitar just has to have hot riffs, and there's as much good old punk & roll as there is ska on this 12-track compilation of the band's first three import singles (and two bonus tracks). The CD announces itself with a blatantly Jam-influenced slammer called "This Is a High" that begins much like the Clash's "Clash City Rockers" or "Guns on the Riff," and two tracks later appropriates the Clash's "Guns of Brixton" lyric "Where you gonna run." (Later, in "Roadkill," they also filch the intro to the Clash's cover of Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves.") Most of all, the Tone sound like 1979-1980 Stiff Little Fingers when they covered Bob Marley or the Specials, with two high-octane guitars and a steady rocksteady rhythm to match the chunky riffs. "Virtual Punk" further sounds like the Young Canadians' 1979 surf-punk classic "Hawaii," and other singer Dan Bernstein sometimes sounds like Joe Strummer singing "Wrong 'Em Boyo" or "Pressure Drop." Again, this is 100% nostalgic, but it's so tight, crunchy, and meaty that it's hard to care about that. (P.O. Box 460402, S.F., CA 94146; broken@sirius.com)