Seattle four-piece Harvey Danger are part of that class of charmless professional bands that execute well enough to feed the rock machine yet don't contribute anything to the lineage they've so diligently studied. Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? is tailor-made for bland modern-rock radio – "Flagpole Sitta," for example (already gaining airplay), could be a distant cousin to the singles of Third Eye Blind. And Danger are smart enough to adopt sonic traits easily apprehended by casual listeners – their hooks reprise vintage Joe Jackson, their backbeats emulate the freneticism of Green Day, and their vocalist (Sean Nelson) approximates Billy Corgan's brattiness. The result is vacuous, undifferentiated competence: Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? contains exactly one memorable song ("Problems and Bigger Ones") and nine punishingly average tracks that suggest the band's real creative genius might be its lawyer. (RS 787)

TOM MOON