Artful Dodger's Honor among Thieves is especially welcome right now; it is a malted amidst the martinis of current hard rock. Gary Herrewig and Billy Paliselli, the group's main songwriters, succeed at devising invigorating melodies with catchy thrust, and Paliselli's voice is a good, sassy instrument, even if it never says much.

This is the Dodger's main problem: beyond the usual teen social frustrations and triumphs, they have absolutely nothing to talk about. This lack becomes irrelevant when they dive into fluffy, fast material like "Keep Me Happy," a terrific idea for a single, but anything slightly slower languishes in verbal paucity.

Beyond this, however, the band frequently displays an extraordinary knack for sounding like other groups without such echoes spoiling their novel effect. The title song could have been the Raspberries on a good day, and "Keep A-Knocking" is a nice Led Zep mugging. Gary Cox's "Dandelion" is more overt, dedicated as it is to Brian Jones; its chorus makes a conscious musical allusion to the Stones' song but still manages to hold its own.

In this way, Artful Dodger is quite adventurous. And despite the reservations I feel bound to note, Honor among Thieves finds its way onto my turntable with increasing regularity, its hollowness of thought filled by exciting music. (RS 224)

KEN TUCKER