Virtually every single piece of music press written about the band SWAG (acronymic without elaboration) at least mentions the fact that this supergroup is a "fun" project for the members. You almost start to believe that the band is benefiting from its use as their exempt clause. As if "fun" doesn't have to be good. One shouldn't get a second set of standards just for fun projects. Take me, for example, I write for Pitchfork for "fun" (here, euphemistically meaning I don't get paid). The hate mail I get doesn't seem to consider this as a mitigating circumstance. Anyway, I'm not convinced that making shitty music is "fun" for anyone involved.

Should you have heard of SWAG? No, probably not. But odds are you've heard of the bands from which they at least temporarily fled for this project (their story, anyway): Wilco, the Mavericks, Cheap Trick, Sixpence None the Richer. Not exactly the kind of groups chosen in those "dream lineup" threads on music message boards and newsgroups, is it? Yeah, you didn't blink; I said Cheap Trick. And you've probably also heard of the bands from which they pilfer and corrupt in their attempt to pay homage: most of the plural bands of the 60's-- Beatles, Hollies, Turtles, Zombies and Kinks-- and some 70's jangle-pop and AM-radio staples, all filtered through a late-model wussometer.

So how bad is SWAG? I daresay there's not a single interesting note on this entire album. Produced, engineered and mixed by Brad Jones (I was actually expecting Alan Smithee), Nashville's own pop-rock wizard, Catch-All is a combination of eight new tracks buffeted by four songs collected from 7-inches over the last few years. The songs that don't sound like watered down attempts at better bands instead display a terrible phoniness to them.

Three-part harmony-driven power-pop ("I'll Get By"), freedom rock jams ("Ride"), and a head-bobbing "Happy Together" for the 21st Century ("Trixie") all cohabitate miserably in this style fakebook for retro fetishists. You can say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but "homage" is the most guiltless form of plagiarism. Do I feel less like I've somehow received stolen goods since the band puts a shout-out to Dave Davies in the liner notes? Not really. Everyone here is indicted; the writing credits strike upon practically every permutation of members, from the full band to two, three and five at a time.

Zeroing in on lyrics reveals an inability to write even a single noteworthy line. Every emotion, reaction and response is trite and utterly lacking in any sort of insight or poetic turn of phrase. Suffer with me: "Our love was just a play/ I never paid to see/ But your little tragedy... / It's all Greek to me." (I'll pause here to allow you to recover). Lest I be accused of picking the absolute worst example on the disc, try this little mind-twister from the closing track, "She's Deceiving": "Watch her how she comes and goes/ When she leaves she is here/ And when she's here, that is when she's gone." She's gone all right; especially if she had the misfortune of finding herself at a SWAG concert.

Wilco drummer Ken Coomer is the only member who escapes with his musical rep intact. "Eight" is his moment in the spotlight, co-written and sung by him. More rough-hewn in the pipes than the others, Coomer imbues his track with a sort of affable Ringo character, and it survives on the strength of its Costello-like melody and bizarrely structured words. It's fractionally interesting, but doesn't offer much in the way of balance or redemption, especially since his name is still on half of the other tracks.

As regular readers of our little online publication will note, we often delight at reviewing awful music. It gives us a chance to pull out all the stops and rain down derision in hyperbolic showers and holier-than-thou hailstorms. But this is an exception. I took no delight in writing this review, and what's more, I feel guilty even giving SWAG the coverage. But I persisted and finished it, because you are the victim here-- the consumer, wandering the record store with an innocent smile and a fistful of hard-earned cash, looking for something new to try. You might be enticed into taking a chance based on some name-dropping sticker slapped on this turkey. But today, we're committing a public service. I'm here to warn you away. Catch-All is exactly the sort of music that Pitchfork was created to eradicate. It makes me thankful I was born totally deaf.

-John Dark