Lit Expands the Retro Grooves of Its Party Pop

* * * LIT “Atomic” RCA

Orange County has long been a breeding ground for angry punk bands, but lately its sunny, sweet side seems to be getting all the attention, thanks to charismatic outfits such as Lit.

On their 1999 breakthrough major-label debut, “A Place in the Sun,” the O.C. sensations dived headfirst into the mainstream with bubble-gum melodies that still maintained an air of intensity, thanks to the every-guy anguish expressed by singer A. Jay Popoff’s light yet heartfelt words and wails.

Infectious harmonies and bittersweet reflections made “Sun” hits such as “My Own Worst Enemy” and “Miserable” waft like a cool breeze, and their cartoony videos--filled with swimming pools and blond bombshells such as Pamela Anderson--only added to the SoCal fantasy they evoked.

With “Atomic,” due in stores Tuesday, the slick-haired quartet serves up more of the same backyard party pop about bad girls, cool cars and good booze that’s become its signature, and it still works. Tunes such as “The Last Time Again” and “Addicted” aren’t much different from the groovy ditties of, say, Smashmouth or Sugar Ray, but other cuts, like “Lipstick and Bruises” and “Drop D” are beefed up with metallic riffs (courtesy of A. Jay’s guitarist brother, Jeremy) that suggest a nostalgic nod to arena rock.

Lit has always had a retro flair, and “Atomic” suggests an attempt to expand the references --something that should keep the fun anthems and frustrated laments feeling fresh no matter how popular the tunes may become.

Lina Lecaro

* * * JOHN MELLENCAMP “Cuttin’ Heads” Columbia

After the “Johnny Cougar” hit fluff of the early ‘80s, Mellencamp responded to his huge pop-rock base with a series of challenging albums--most notably “Scarecrow” and “The Lonesome Jubilee”--that addressed issues of the country’s character and his own with seriousness and heart. His sound too was an imaginative blend of rich pre-rock strains.

For much of the ‘90s, however, the singer-songwriter seemed to lack the same creative fire, sometimes seeming arbitrary and bored as he searched for direction.

Mellencamp doesn’t recapture the spirit of his best days on all of this collection (the personal, introspective songs are too tame), but he comes close enough when he’s in the role of commentator for us to again pay attention.

For starters, “Cuttin’ Heads” (in stores Tuesday) is the best-sounding Mellencamp album in years--from the fiery, gutbucket guitar work by Andy York on the explosive title cut to the pedal steel-violin interchange by York and Miriam Sturm, respectively, on the more reflective “Deep Blue Heart.”

The key moment is the provocative title track, in which Mellencamp teams up with Public Enemy’s Chuck D. for a provocative look at racial tensions that includes a slap at hard-core rappers for the widespread use of America’s ugliest racial epitaph to make their records more commercially potent. The fact that Mellencamp uses the word in the track leaves him open to attack himself, but it’s a bold move that is helpful in conveying the full fury of his argument.

Robert Hilburn

* * NEW ORDER “Get Ready” Reprise

New Order once seemed like an essential band, back when it helped forge the foundations of dance music in the early ‘80s. After its initial rush, the group soon slipped into the middle of the pack, and for the past eight years, the pop world has steamed along pretty well without any new music from the English quartet.

New Order’s first album since “Republic” in 1993 (in stores Tuesday) is pretty much a by-the-book return, if you discount the often sunny sentiments that belie its origin as Joy Division, rock’s definitive chronicler of the tortured soul.

New Order’s signatures are here: brisk rhythms and hopeful, melancholy melodies, Bernard Sumner’s deadpan vocals, Peter Hook’s burrowing bass lines, brittle, electronic drums. In the opening “Crystal,” the band deploys these ingredients with a restless unpredictability. But “Get Ready” soon slips into a neutral zone. The familiar flavors are there, but without the same intensity. Billy Corgan sings on one song, but it takes Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes, on “Rock the Shack,” to give “Get Ready” the jolt it needs.

Now that that’s over, can we please have the Jesus and Mary Chain comeback?

Richard Cromelin

In Brief

* * * Ozzy Osbourne, “Down to Earth,” Epic. The former Black Sabbath frontman and creator of the annual metal-rama Ozzfest is back on the sonic crazy train with his first solo release in seven years (in stores Tuesday). It’s classic Ozzy, all willowy vocals and surging choruses embellished by frantic fret work from his ‘90s-era guitarist, Zakk Wylde. Noise-hungry kids who flock to his namesake festival may find it a bit tame, but longtime fans will relish the maturing madman’s enduring ability to be melodic and menacing at the same time.

L.L.

* * 1/2 Live, “V,” MCA/Radioactive. Live’s arena-rock spiritualism has had its fleetingly cathartic moments, but on its new album, even the band seems to acknowledge that frontman Ed Kowalczyk’s furrowed-brow proselytizing has grown wearisome. Instead of endless elegies to Siddhartha, the band concerns itself with more fleshly pursuits, with songs such as “Deep Enough” and “Transmit Your Love” squarely addressed to corporeal bodies. There’s a lightness of tone here that has been absent from the band’s work since 1994’s “Throwing Copper,” and it effectively leavens Kowalczyk’s earnestness.

Marc Weingarten

* * 1/2 Dwight Yoakam, “South of Heaven West of Hell,” Reprise. Nearly a year after Yoakam’s debut as a film director quickly opened and closed in theaters, here comes his soundtrack with songs “from and inspired by” the movie. There’s no attempt musically to be faithful to the film’s end-of-the-Old West setting in atmospheric pieces that tap country, western, gospel, Tex-Mex, rock, folk and even jazz elements. Yoakam is single-mindedly interested in one cowpoke’s struggle for redemption, but his unrelenting search for deep meaning often becomes long-windedness, the kind Clint Eastwood would deflate with one disdainful glare.

Randy Lewis * * 1/2 Absinthe Blind, “The Everyday Separation,” Mud. Lessons from the heartland: Be confident enough to keep one’s influences at arm’s length, and work, work, work. With the players barely out of their teens and already on their fourth album, the Illinois sextet features the faintly liturgical boy/girl vocals of siblings Adam and Erin Fein soaring over a string/keyboard miasma. The album moves methodically from anthemic rockers to sprawling psychedelia, and though a Radiohead echo or an Edge-y guitar line might reveal itself, the references never upstage the whole.

Kevin Bronson

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless noted.