Royal Trux: Sweet Sixteen

Royal Trux is a hip, long-underground rock band with a mission like that of many others: to make it on the radio as soon as possible. Still, if Sweet Sixteen is any indication, these folks want to skip the hit stations and go right to classic rock, where they'll fit somewhere between the rock block of Crue and gettin' the Led out. Sneering vocals, half-assed funky guitar sounds and all, the Royal Trux sound is a twisted, postmodern homage to the glory that is FM. "Morphic Resident" is a good old-fashioned, get-yer-lighters-out power ballad, "The Pick Up" is a grinding cruiser that would sound perfect coming out of a Camaro's dash radio at 1 a.m., and "Roswell Seeds and Stems" is a sort of modern "That Smell." If you were raised on classic rock—and admit it, most of you were—Sweet Sixteen is worth a listen.