It's time to stop fretting about "alternative" music; the phrase (like "grunge") is nothing but a marketing strategy and has been for years. Spearheaded by Seattle's flannel generation, the underground has become the mainstream, dissonant guitar is the new language of pop music, and you can tell which side of the latest generation gap you fall on by your reaction to the news.

Pond is a trio of bright young men from Portland, Oregon – guitarist Charlie Campbell and bassist Chris Brady moved there from Alaska and later hooked up with drummer Dave Triebwasser. Heaven help them; their debut, Pond, is the finest collection of loud pop music Sub Pop has released since another Northwest trio produced Bleach. Pond has none of the brooding range of its Seattle neighbors; rather, its forte is a kind of drowsy joy ("Young Splendor") periodically roused to moments of crunchy ecstasy ("Gone").

Sure, everyone from the Buzzcocks to Hüsker Dü and Screaming Trees has crossed this musical landscape. Pond, in the best tradition of post-modernism, has consolidated that messy history into one cogent sound – others did the hard work of creating this language. Having grown up speaking the new tongue, Pond has only to write songs that take full and fluent advantage of its possibilities.

Pond writes inspired songs with memorable hooks and plays them easily and joyously, with none of the timidity that usually mars debuts. Much of the credit doubtless falls to producer Jonathan Auer, whose own band, the Posies, knows a thing or two about pop-song structure. (RS 655)

GRANT ALDEN