Sep 6, 2002 By "volume," Flipp 3 min read

It was inevitable that the resurrection of rowdy rock brought on by the likes of The Strokes, The Hives and The White Stripes would uncover a new Kiss. Yet the modernistic glam-rock band Flipp figures to be more than a 21st-century Kiss – the foursome is also a new Cheap Trick, AC/DC and Alice Cooper. Storming along with a combination of guts and thievery, Flipp bulldozes through a “Volume” that is so familiar.

It sounds like an album of enthusiastic cover songs.

Listeners will even find themselves singing along during their first go-round with anthem-like cuts such as “Whole World’s Sick,” “Freak” and “Oh Yeah.”

The cartoonishly-styled guitarist/lead singer Brynn Arens, instrumentalist Chia Karaoke, bass player Freaky Useless and drummer Kilo Bale may not look recognizable, but their sound dovetails with the clichid classic rock rotation. … The group even stumbles into the obligatory rock ‘n’ roll quagmire of self-indulgence with the sluggish bluster of “Zoom.”

What’s more, Flipp churns forward from the 1970s through punky mayhem (“La De Da”) and Beastie-Boys-ish rock (“Hairdo”) while periodically channeling amped-up Everclear, whose frontman Art Alexakis co-produced “Volume” with Arens. (Alexakis also appears on the album.) Generations X and Y need more raw bands like Flipp so they can hear such bawdy disorder without having to witness the frightening spectacle of an aging band that should have gotten off the stage a long time ago.

Meanwhile, most middle-age rockers will have to acknowledge at least grudging admiration for the flattering mimicry mustered by these Flipp hoodlums.

Rating: 3-1/2

“Cherry Marlalade,” Kay Hanley

Kay Hanley’s solo debut “Cherry Marmalade” starts inauspiciously with the simplistic and uneventful “Fall” and rarely improves on that as it wanders to a conclusion 11 tracks later.

That’s a shame. Hanley showed promise as the spirited lead singer of the now-defunct Letters to Cleo (biggest hit: “Here and Now”), and she got an extra push in 2001 singing the part of Josie on the gold-selling “Josie and the Pussycats” soundtrack.

But the Boston-based singer struggles for a sense of purpose as she works her way through the enervating muddiness of her debut. Maybe she just isn’t cut out to be a soloist: “Cherry Marmalade” often sounds like it’s lacking a focal point, as on the grainy and ever-shifting “Made in the Shade,” the mopey “Faded Dress” and the would-be liberating “Sheltering Sky.” It’s hard to imagine anyone feeling emboldened or empathetic or touched – or much of anything – by these songs.

To her credit, Hanley regularly shakes out of her stupor. The singer weaves her voice into the lounge-y mix of muted blues guitar and high hat of “Chady Saves the Day” … until the song is scorched by an overambitious upheaval.

She also blends lust into the pedal-steel-backed “Princely Ghetto,” singing, “My fingers on your faded blue jeans, where my eyes had already been.” And the improbable “Happy To Be Here” sounds like a life-affirming, barn-dance classic.

Hanley, who co-wrote much of the release with her husband/guitarist, Michael Eisenstein (also formerly of Letters to Cleo), never lacks for charm on “Cherry Marmalade,” and somehow that makes the debut all the more disappointing. Listeners are going to want to like this one more than they do.

Rating: 2-1/2

(Chuck Campbell is the entertainment editor at the News-Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn.)

(Contact Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at http://www.knoxnews.com.)