Lit's bait for indie cred (in my really arrogant and assumed form anyway) comes in the form of their self-titled, independently released fourth album. The band most famous for whoring their "My Own Worst Enemy" single amongst modern rock airwaves in 1999 returns with a fully-loaded disc of bland pop/rock sure to kick start some great microwave fires at that next drunken spur of genius.

To give them some credit, I really didn't mind this band a couple years ago. I even admit to enjoying some of the tracks on Atomic (for a couple months), which were somewhat more sincere in a rough style than their frat-boi glamorizing of the past. But this is just boring.

Though their self-producing skills obviously have merit here, I'm not impressed by wanky, pop-radio guitars or the melodramatic act of filling the sound with copy-paste guitars. The token ballad represents the worst of their collective writing skills, the victor being "Lullaby" (OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING HERE), droning "IIII...am always gonna love you" and additional forms of what seem like hopeful break-up resolvement, even though the song was apparently written for Jeremy Popoff's son.

Even when their hideously repetitive nature subsides, it leads to something like their cover of The Cure's "Pictures Of You," which, with its twinkling windchimes in the beginning, or whatever the hell it is, and their "pluck the guitar chord once every 10 seconds, let the amp do the rest" process is "eh." I'm sure the CEO of Hewlett Packard heard this, kicked himself, and started regretting himself for not buying the song license for use by a different band...or something of similarly bad wit. The following Cheap Trick references in the closer "Bulletproof" aren't anything hiply-nostalgic either. Okay, you guys watch "That '70s Show." Spectacular.

One of the dudes from The Matches comes in to play a five-second guitar solo in "Needle & Thread." Yeah, I have no idea.

Lit getting bashed on a so-called punk site, there's something new! But honestly, there's really nothing on the album inspiring any words of thought. This rocks about as much as a symphony orchestra's tribute to Yanni and rolls the equivalent distance of a lead box. Lame.

Oh, and apparently the first 100,000 copies comes with a DVD. Hooray.