Six years have passed since veteran West Coast media guerrillas and anti-copyright champions Negativland were sued by Island Records for their "unfair" use of a sampled fragment of a U2 song. But judging by the relentless spirit of their latest found-sound polemic against the Pepsi empire, Dispepsi, not even bank-account-draining lawsuits can stop the evolution of what they've named "culture jamming": the cut-and-paste, countercorporate art of using the media to critique itself.

Dispepsi is not the first album on which Negativland have set their sights on the disposable world of corporate advertising, but it is certainly their most compelling. Beginning with the sound of an aluminum can being opened and ending with the sound of one being crushed, Dispepsi stealthily recycles and manipulates a deep, decade-spanning archive of commercials, jingles, celebrity endorsements and other Pepsi-related media blips into a pointed series of collaged musical commentaries.

Wielding their knack for parody and satire as a grass-roots weapon of consumer resistance, Negativland take on Pepsi's use of black athletes ("Why Is This Commercial?"), relive the marketing battles and blindfolded taste tests of the great '80s "cola wars" ("All She Called About" and "I Believe It's L"), and even piece together a rousing chorus of celeb Pepsi boosters that includes everyone from Ricardo Montalban to Marion Ross to Michael J. Fox ("A Most Successful Formula"). The group's attack is so exhaustive and so cleverly rendered that even after one listen to Dispepsi, you'll never think of soft drinks in the same way again. (RS 771)

JOSH KUN