POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Smithereens Make Most of Material

The stolid, plodding nature of the Smithereens’ music marks the band as perpetual journeymen. At the House of Blues on Sunday, the New Jersey band book-ended its set with tastes of the level it aspires to but is too mundane to achieve, preceding its appearance with a recording of the Sex Pistols’ scathing “EMI” (their comment on their previous record-company affiliation) and welcoming the Kinks’ guitarist Dave Davies as a guest for the encores.

Unlike Davies’ band, the Smithereens lack the wit and invention to transform musical mud into transcendent pop statements. They have good, garage-rock instincts, deploying riffs and hooks that regularly culminate in rousing anthemlike choruses that manage to be catchy for the moment. But the moods don’t penetrate--it’s all rock-noir atmosphere with nothing lurking in the shadows.

But at Sunday’s show the quartet did what it takes to get the most out of it, turning in a hard, sweaty performance that got the music airborne through sheer force of will. Singer Pat DiNizio does a pretty good Elvis Costello now and--looking more Frank Zappa than Maynard G. Krebs these days--he embodied well the Smithereens’ blend of the blue-collar and the bohemian.

* The Smithereens appear tonight at the Ventura Theatre, 26 S. Chestnut Ave., Ventura, 9 p.m. $18.50. (805) 648-1936.