Bakesale

Sebadoh was designed as a modern version of the White Album-era Beatles: three singer-songwriters operating under one umbrella, using each other as their respective backing bands. Starting with homemade cassettes and moving on to CDs without bothering to up the recording technology, they became lo-fi heroes, largely on the strength of Lou Barlow's bitter odes to romance. With Bakesale, their fourth full-length album, Sebadoh start playing by more traditional rules, and subsequently reach a much bigger audience. Eric Gaffney, the founding member responsible for the noisiest and most outrageous songs, has departed (although he still shows up as the drummer on four tracks), leaving the band with a more consistent sound. And this time, it's a punchy guitar sound that seems to emanate from a lot more than the usual four tracks. What hasn't changed is the writing, and this time around Barlow--who contributes the Nirvana-ish 'License To Confuse,' the tuneful 'Magnet's Coil' and 'Skull,' among several others--is nearly rivaled for excellence by Jason Loewenstein, whose own fine pack of songs is led by the raw love ballad 'Got It.' Even new drummer Bob Fay gets a nice one in.