Common Sense Leads to a Well-Crafted Album

Pop-reggae must be out of vogue. It can’t be done much better than this, yet Virgin Records dumped Common Sense rather than release these tracks recorded while the long-running O.C. beach-club band was under contract to the label.

The formula here is good singin’ and good playin’, with tunefulness at every turn. All those week-in-week-out gigs over the last 10 years have turned Common Sense into an extremely sharp and resourceful band, and it shows.

The songwriting isn’t going to make Bob Dylan hear footsteps, but even with the requisite reggae-band odes to positive vibrations, Common Sense manages to avoid the boilerplate slogans and sentiments that often bog down the genre. It also skips the common pop-reggae ploy of bidding for a hit with reggae-fied covers of pop or rock standards; the material here is all original.

There is a sense of context and depth in songs like the opening track, “Let It Roll,” in which a guy finds himself overwrought and confused by life--maybe his label dumped him--but resolves to get over it by letting the good times roll. Laying down a cheery ska beat, Common Sense sounds like a West Coast cousin to Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes.

“Place In The Sun” oscillates between clouds of tension on the verses and rays of hope in the chorus, and “Sanctuary” and “What Do You Say To God?” are strong examples of how well-suited reggae can be for songs about struggle, whether personal or social.

Singer Nick Hernandez is soulful and confident throughout, and his bandmates’ harmonies and instrumental sharpness bring a sense of fullness to the highly polished production. The lighthearted “Good Girl, Bad Man” has so much pep and fun in it that it threatens to resurrect the ska-rock fad before it even received a proper burial.

Common Sense fills out the 64-minute disc with tracks from its first cassette released in 1991. The archival assortment includes “Never Give Up” and “State of the Nation,” solid songs later redone for CD releases in 1994 and 1996. But the thin sound quality is a reminder of the advantages of a major-label recording budget.

*

Common Sense landed an auxiliary stage spot on the high-profile Warped Tour this summer, and has been resourceful in finding sponsors among surf-wear companies as a partial substitute for a big-label promotion machine.

With an easily appealing album to sell, the band may be able to prosper outside the system if all the folks who bought Ziggy Marley, UB40 and Big Mountain CDs earlier in the 1990s haven’t renounced pop-reggae, but are waiting for a catchy, well-played example of it to come along.

(Available from Common Sense, www.commonsenseband.com.)

* Common Sense and Ten Mile Tongue play Friday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m., $15-$17. (714) 957-0600.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).

Mike Boehm can be reached by e-mail at Mike.Boehm@latimes.com.