Oh the agony. After three grey years under the influence of the evil combination of Schlitz and grunge, I awoke one day and found that I could scan the entire FM band without hearing Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox or Pearl Jam. I'm not ashamed to admit that I liked grunge and still listen to it on occasion, favoring Pearl Jam's Ten or Alice In Chains' Unplugged performance for my fix. Unfortunately, that doesn't make me an automatic fan of Days of the New, perhaps the least appropriate name for our most recent addition to "post- grunge," a genre title at least as pompous as Matt Dillon's performance in Singles.

Had it been released in 1992, Days of the New's self- titled debut would surely have rolled all over our collective consciousness, and I would personally like to thank them for holding off their release until the cloud of grunge had passed from my judgement, allowing me the objectivity to criticize them without guilt. Sadly, as modern stragglers to the sound, we must first spank them for being late to the party, then we must spank them for their utter absence of originality, and lastly, we must spank them again because we love to spank. Oh yes... we love to spank.

Let's take a walk down memory lane for a moment. I recount the past because Days of the New's peers were more than pseudo- artistic dinosaurs then. They were powerful, intense, juiced- up rockers with heroin in their veins and a hotbag o' love swingin' between their legs. What they were doing was a little risky back in the day-- remember the first time you heard "Sex Type Thing" or "Rooster"? My god, man! They were talking about fucking and shooting up and hate on the radio! What could be better?

Well, eventually Kurt blew his brains out, Eddie had the foresight to begin practicing impenetrable crypticism, Soundgarden broke up, and heroin destroyed Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. Now we have The Spice Girls, Puff Daddy, electronica and "12 Angry Viewers." I can't say it's necessarily a better world, but the addition of Days of the New's washed- out grunge-a-thon isn't a hopeful sign for the rebirth of flannel.

Although these guys seem unhappy, I'm not satisfied. They're not unhappy enough, and the omnipresent acoustic picking (remember Chris Cornell's "Seasons"?) wears thin a mite quick and gives the entire album the feel of a featureless landscape stretching into the horizon. I say no my friends. No to Days Of The New, no to this horrid post- grunge plague, no to genital herpes, no to the revisitation of old trends by passionless turds, and just finally, no.

-James P. Wisdom