Phantom Planet: Phantom Planet

From the beginning, Phantom Planet seemed doomed to exist as a footnote, or as several. It was the band featuring Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman as a drummer, then it was the source of the inescapable theme song to The O.C. (Going back even further, it was once summoned up by Melissa Joan Hart on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.) Maybe frontman Alexander Greenwald and the rest of the group sensed this, since everyone seems to be giving their all on the group's self-titled third album. Schwartzman went his own way after the disc was recorded, so there's never been a better time for the group to rely on music instead of novelty. Fortunately, Phantom Planet has enough muscular, infectious tracks to introduce a good half-dozen Fox soap operas. Producer Dave Fridmann trades in the trademark sprawl he brought to The Flaming Lips and others, and he simply lets the band fill out the sound on its own. It does so easily, usually loudly, kicking off with the infectious, fuzzy "The Happy Ending" and scarcely taking a breath until the album's end. The rest switches between sweet ("After Hours") and mean (the single "Big Brat"), throwing in some fashionable nods to the New York garage sound and some unfashionable but no less effective nods to second-wave ska. Whether Phantom Planet will be the second coming of Cheap Trick remains to be seen, but for now, it neatly fills the void for trashy, catchy power pop left by Urge Overkill's premature burnout. If Phantom Planet keeps it up, eventually The O.C. and the band's famous former members will become the footnotes.