For sheer lack of substance, you can't beat retro rock n' roll. Spend a Night in the Box is the Reverend Horton Heat's opportunistic rock n' roll/swing hybrid, a beyond-predictable continuation of the same old shtick they've been beating into the ground for the last five years.

The Reverend Horton Heat make music so simple and harmless, it could only be appropriate for bars and parties where people need grounds this common to loosen up and dance. But if you think these guys are a "hip" rock n' roll alternative to squares like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis, both your bar and your party suck.

Original artists are always your best bet, because, as is the usual case, these guys aren't injecting anything new or vital into the medium they're mimicking these days. Singing about "Cool Hand Luke" is appropriate for greasers; there's no sense of humor in that, no identifiable wit or irony. It's reverbed 1950's rock, and it's as boring as sin when tempered with swing upbeats that are now-- thanks to exploitation-- bereft of any sentimental value.

Straight imitation is just bland; without a divergent persona or message like the Cramps had, there's nothing ventured and nothing gained. If I'm going to listen to a record of a bar band, it better be as honest, vibrant and captivating as the Pogues' If I Should Fall from Grace with God or the Mekons' Rock N' Roll. There's no soul in the Reverend's revival; it's as unfeeling and cold as "Swingers."

Bands like the Reverend Horton Heat can only succeed thanks to an ignorant and lazy audience; if people really cared about hearing this sort of music, they wouldn't wait for BMG to serve it up on a shiny new platter, they'd seek out the original artists. But such is the nature of pop music: whatever's new and looks right is good. If the Reverend Horton Heat want to help people out drinking and dancing, more power to them, but any money made outside the concert hall should be donated to Bill Haley's estate.

-Chris Ott