Memo to Lou Barlow and crew: please turn out the lights when you're done, okay?

Actually, it's a good thing that Sebadoh's members continue to ignore the dance and hip hop bandwagons (with the notable exception of the Kids movie soundtrack). The world still needs guitars, world-weary lyrics, and quirky melodies.

Barlow and co-songwriter Jason Loewenstein happily provide them on Sebadoh's new SubPop lp, The Sebadoh. If the whole concept sounds quaint, go listen to the "new" R.E.M.

Alternating songs, a la Hüsker Dü's dueling songwriters, Barlow and Loewenstein mine similar territory. "Weird" is a pleasant, jangling affair from Barlow, and his "Tree" is a lively, acoustic respite. To the martial beat of "Flame," Barlow strikes his best pose: sensitive and hurt: "You can feel anything you want to feel and call it real," Barlow observes, "but that's not me."

Lowenstein's contributions -- fully half of the CD, as if to emphasize that this is the not the Lou Barlow Explosion -- rock out a bit more, such as on "Bird In The Hand" and the coda, "Drag Down." His are tuneful, hardly filler, but fall just short of the bar consistently set by Barlow.

The quibble here is that The Sebadoh doesn't explode out of the jewel box to fulfill the promise of Bakesale and perhaps Sebadoh III. Today's music scene could have used a little reminder of indie rock's power, old school.