The Georgia Satellites cruised to platinum on their debut album with the novelty success of "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," and they keep the rural-Chuck Berry riffs and gags coming on Open All Night. There are some welcome steps forward, but for the most part the quartet keeps to the formula that worked so well last time.

Working again with producer Jeff Glixman, guitarist-singers Dan Baird and Rick Richards still play as loud and hard as their songs permit. Although Baird's songs paint him as a less than ideal long-term love interest, rollicking numbers like "Open All Night" and "Sheila" pack a ferocious wallop that crushes most objections. And the addition of Ian McLagan on piano for several tunes varies the settings without making them too fancy.

Like the last album, Open All Night pivots on smartly performed, wisely chosen covers (even if there's nothing as outrageously revelatory here as the Satellites' pummeling of "Every Picture Tells a Story"). "Whole Lotta Shakin'" is a bit of an obvious choice for a band so steeped in Jerry Lee Lewis's sound and attitude, but Richards's wry, wrenching vocal pulls it off. More unexpected is the Beatles' "Don't Pass Me By," which throws the White Album version out the window and turns the song into a Berryesque crossroads stomp. As Chuck himself might observe, there's no monkey business on Open All Night, just a cool, cool breeze. (RS 532)

JIMMY GUTERMAN