You gotta love those niche labels. Skin Graft Records evolved out of a comic/ punk zine to become a label with an uncanny knack for tracking down the most nausea- inducing bands known to man. They've released everything from viscera- spewing Japanoise outfits to obtuse Chicago- experimentalist side projects to no- wave blues- jazz reconstructionists. Think of Skin Graft albums as noise that doesn't threaten so much as annoy, like a bunch of geeky music students who try to invent death metal on their own without ever having heard the real thing.

Where Mount Shasta fits into the Skin Graft oeuvre is a little vague. They started out as an American version of Japanoise, with their 1994 album Put The Creep On. Purportedly recorded live at four in the morning under the influence of God knows how many cups of coffee, Creep was an incredible retch of sound, thrilling and disgusting. In contrast, Watch Out plays like a limping, junk- sick version of the blues. The misanthropic spirit remains, but most of the energy and splurgey noise has been filtered out, and the result sounds like Royal Trux with a penchant for adolescent gross- outs.

Apart from a few half- hearted guitar screeches, the only thing now separating Mount Shasta from total garage- band mediocrity is "singer" John Forbes, who sounds quite literally like a lounge lizard. His reptilian grunts and slurs purposely sound like a horrid Mick Jagger impersonation, or maybe Peter Lorre with all his teeth knocked out. For most of the time on Watch Out, though, Forbes doesn't do much beyond mumbling occasionally; more involved vocals would have greatly improved songs like "(He's On) Planet Dumbass" and "Vinegar Bed," which are otherwise merely okay. It's always a shame to see a band that was once full of so much piss and vinegar turn out such a lackluster album.

-Nick Mirov