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THE MENDOZA LINE - If They Knew This Was The End (Cooking Vinyl/ 52:21) ** 1/2: The Athens (Georgia) alt-rock outfit reissues its debut album with six bonus cuts tagged at the end in an attempt to realign the set's artistic focus.
Only problem is, there's a bitty feel about most of the 18 short songs which seem more like home-studio sketches than fully fleshed- out pieces.
Then there's the generic indie guitar rock that's a lot less stimulating than the band's music on efforts like We're All In This Alone (2000) and Lost In Revelry (2002).
Fans of folk-tinted pop may be able to relate to wistful, whispery acoustic ballads like Behaved That Way and If You Knew Her As I Know Her which are more distinctive than rockers like Comeback, Dollars To Donuts and Small Town Napoleons that bring to mind Dinosaur Jr and Smashing Pumpkins.
It's stuff that exudes a raw spirit, though the post-collegiate angst expressed in many of the songs can get wearying after a while.
* ALEJANDRO SANZ -...