The Datsuns: The Datsuns

It hasn't taken long for garage-rock's hype explosion to spawn a major-label feeding frenzy, and where there's a signing spree, imitators and also-rans are sure to follow, each bringing the celebrated genre closer to creative obsolescence. Every Nirvana spawns a thousand Candleboxes, which in turn dilute the music's freshness until it's outclassed by all but the cheesiest junk it replaced. (Really, was Candlebox's "Far Behind" any better than a Winger ballad) Fortunately, garage-rock–at least the permutations popularized by the media-friendly likes of The White Stripes, The Strokes, and The Hives—has a ways to go before saturation begets bastardization, but many up-and-comers are already signaling the onset of diminishing returns. The members of New Zealand's The Datsuns tick off the flashiest garage-rock signifiers as if working off a checklist: good looks, impeccable fashion sense, jokey stage names (everyone's last name is Datsun), well-worn riffs, and swagger by the ton. With so much apparent calculation involved, it makes sense that the group's self-titled debut is neither as good nor as bad as it might have been. All that shrieking and preening and derivativeness would be disastrous if the songs didn't include blazing high points like "MF From Hell" (the "F" stands for "Fucker") and "Harmonic Generator," but those songs would pack more power if the album as a whole didn't merely add up to 39 minutes of derivative shrieking and preening. Unlike The Hives, an obvious spiritual cousin, the Datsun boys too often eschew brevity for epics that go nowhere special; The Hives may borrow riffs shamelessly, but those tend to be used in the service of stronger, more concise songs. Nevertheless, once rock's garage craze starts producing bands that sound like Bob Seger, The Datsuns will no doubt be remembered as one of the genre's brightest second-tier stars.