Whereas a now blurry horde of goatees and flannels once followed in Nirvana's wake a few years back, Post- grrl outfits are now popping up around the Northwest like someone planted seeds. With the following for these bands steadily growing, it looks like someone did. The latest example of this trend is Gaze, a trio recording on Olympia's K Records.

Seemingly recorded in the same bathroom from which Michael Stipe dialed in his Murmur vocals, the trio's 1999 release, Shake the Pounce is lo-fi in every sense of the phrase. The album's fourteen simple rhythm guitar- driven pop songs are filled out tidily by Miko Hoffman's effortless vocals and Rose Melberg's direct harmonies. The album's opener, "So Early to Tell," sets the tone pleasantly, borrowing greedily from REM's aforementioned debut in both production value and heart. And on standouts like "Detail Queen" and the high school- ish "He Makes All the Girls Smile," the girls ask us persuasively to check alternative rock's faint pulse one last time before closing the coffin.

Shake the Pounce imagines the Feelies playing Sleater- Kinney covers in your garage and the result is simply solid guitar pop. Invoking alternative's sonic whisper that opened the decade with such promise, Gaze takes exception to the musical history that followed. If they keep putting it all together for tracks like "Nine Lives to Rigel Five," they very well could find themselves writing the ending.

-Neil Lieberman