Album Briefs: New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).

** Cracker, “Cracker,” Virgin. David Lowery still offers skewed collegiate cynicism in his first post-Camper Van Beethoven project, with a few touches of warmth and yearning added to boot. But with Camper’s skewed collegiate world-beat music replaced by the new band’s too-straight collegiate folk-punk-rock, it doesn’t offer much more.