Seattle novelty-rock trio the Presidents of the United States of America recently resigned from office; seems they were sick of getting paired with "Weird Al" Yankovic on award-show podiums, though when you write lyrics about the Brady Bunch Tiki-god episode, what do you expect? Pure Frosting is their obligatory posthumous casserole of leftovers – B-side rarities, self-mocking live versions, covers of 1979 skinny-tie classics by the Buggles and Ian Hunter. Between Sixties garage riffs, angular Cheap Trick arena-parody hooks and fast squaredance rhythms, the music's stamina almost makes up for the lazy limitations of Chris Ballew's singing.

Ballew's more downcast 13 Other Dimensions – classified under the fake band name the Giraffes – is basically a solo album about being solo. It revolves around the Christopher Robinlike theme of a shy young solipsist who starts a band with his stuffed animals and ponders the fauna on the forest floor of Hundred Acre Woods. When it's not drowning in its own whimsy, Ballew's channeling of Captain Beefheart's shambling ecologystoner sensibility manages a fairly coherent charm. If fans of unplugged Beck don't take the bait, all the rustic busking about millipedes, salamanders and spiders knitting sweaters should at least make 13 Other Dimensions a natural for precocious fourthgraders. (RS 788)

CHUCK EDDY