Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Crash Romeo’s second CD, GAVE ME THE CLAP!, comes with a great calling card, and it’s not a positive Wasserman test. No, “Popular” from the CD is featured this season on The Hills, the MTV reality series that everyone seems to know about but me. “Popular” is a catchy post punk tune but it’s first among equals on GAVE ME THE CLAP!, whose cheerfully impolite title and CD jacket (which features cheerleaders from a school that is undoubtedly named “F**k U”) hints at what is within: eleven post punk, teen angst-laden tunes pumped with energy, piss and vinegar.

Crash Romeo is from New Jersey but they could just as easily be from Akron, Ohio or Champaign, Illinois, a factor that no doubt contributed to their (appropriate) placement on 2007’s WARPED tour. Musically, there’s nothing you haven’t heard before, but there aren’t any missteps either, just plenty of power chords and derivatives of “Louie, Louie” chord progressions (particularly on “Popular”). With bands like Crash Romeo, it often comes down to their ability to tap into the nervous energy that permeates the halls of a high school where the social commerce of the day is transacted in three minute intervals. There is a classic line in “Lady Luck”: “you looked so pretty/when I was passed out on the floor.” Is there any heterosexual male over the age of 15 who hasn’t experienced that at some point, or who hears it now and thinks of someone from long ago (for me, it’s C----- H-----). Given the band’s setup --- guitars, bass, drums, and vocals --- there’s not a whole lot of difference instrumentally between songs (though the cello and violin on “Give Me Love” one of GAVE ME THE CLAP’s two ballads, is a nice touch), but if one tends to blend into another that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re driving 80 miles per hour on a spring night and you simply do not --- cannot --- go home. It also makes it difficult to pick a favorite that sticks, but that’s not a bad thing, either. “Victim Liar” is mine at the moment, but that could change later today.

GAVE ME THE CLAP is a lot of fun (the CD, not the…oh, never mind). A necessity if you’re 15-25, a guilty pleasure if you’re older than that, this is a band, and disc, with which we can all identify. Recommended.