Flickerstick - Welcoming Home The Astronauts (2001)

Chances are, most people who've heard of Flickerstick first caught them on VH1's Bands on the Run. After going on a national tour before all of cable-ready America, the Dallas-based quintet beat the other unsigned acts on the music channel's "reality show" contest, sitting pretty with $50,000 in winnings and a deal with Epic Records. Welcoming Home the Astronauts is Flickerstick's double debut, coming out on an indie label in 2000 and getting wider exposure once the major label signed the champions. The album is a pretty generic package of power pop and power ballads (close your eyes on "You're So Hollywood" and you can almost picture some '80s hair-metal act singing the same song, minus the handclaps), with a bit of Brit rock laced in the floaty guitar effects--nothing to give the current crop of mainstream rockers a run for their money. That said, though, the songs are well structured for big guitar pop and well produced, with the help of Tom Lord Alge (Weezer, Blink-182, Marilyn Manson). Astronauts packs stadium-size anthems into every song, and the band's emotions run so high you'll be waving the lighter many times before the slow jam on "Direct Line to the Telepathic" has even started. -- Jennifer Maerz