SLOW GOING

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Summer 1997 seems like a good moment for Blues Traveler. Grunge is gone, alternative is stale, and so the band's harmonica-happy pop-blues may be just what audiences want. The group's last studio album, Four, featured two terrific hits, Run-around and Hook, and sold 6 million copies. With its follow-up CD, Blues Traveler had the chance to extend its success and prove that it really deserves to be touted as the next Grateful Dead.

Alas, Straight On Till Morning is an aggressively mediocre album. The problem with Four was that its two great songs were islands in a sea of banality, and the new record suffers from the same inconsistency. It starts off well with a stirring workout called Carolina Blues, but the rest of the album is long on harmonica solos and short on melodies. The songs aren't bad--Canadian Rose, Felicia and Most Precarious are modestly entertaining--but they aren't exactly good either.

Blues Traveler tours constantly, and when it performs, it can breathe bright life into its songs. Of course, it also has the bad habit of jamming and soloing the stuffing out of them. Straight On Till Morning includes an unfortunate number called Psycho Joe (Goes to the Electric Chair). "He worshiped Satan/ And liked Iron Maiden," run the lyrics. The prospect of listening to an extended version of that, live at Madison Square Garden, is deeply dispiriting.

--C.J.F.