In response to 2003-2004 tuition hikes, officials at the Virginia Prepaid Education Program have delayed enrollment in their program from February 2004 until after most colleges and universities set tuition rates for the 2004-2005 academic year this spring, said Diana Cantor, executive director of the Virginia College Savings Plan, a state-sponsored financial aid program.

The Virginia Prepaid Education Program enables families to save early and prepare for their children’s college education through contracts, Cantor said.

Any tuition increase beyond what is projected by those operating the Virginia College Savings Plan “will cause a potential financial strain” on the program, Cantor said.

She noted that with the rise in tuition costs, families will be more apt to invest in these tuition programs, thus providing additional funding.

Cantor said the program is tentatively slated to reopen in the fall.

“We will not reopen unless we are relatively sure that the contracts will be financially sound,” Cantor said.

The VPEP encourages and provides a tax-exempt environment for investment. VPEP investments grow without being hindered by federal taxes, according to the Virginia College Savings Plan Web site.

In order to set up a contract with VPEP, the potential student or purchaser of the contract must be a Virginia resident, according to the Web site. The child must be no more than nine years of age.

It can be applied to all of the commonwealth’s public colleges and universities, as well as some private institutions in Virginia. VPEP can also apply to some national and international institutions, according to the Web site.

VPEP is one of three college tuition programs provided by the Commonwealth under Internal Revenue Code Section 529, along with College America and the Virginia Education Savings Trust.

VPEP has been in operation since December 1996, Cantor said.

She noted that over 68,000 VPEP contracts have been made, representing over $750 million.

“These programs serve as good vehicles for students and their families to fund education”, said Yoke San Reynolds, University vice president for finance. “We need a fully flushed out set of options for students.”

The current General Assembly debate on the budget does not seem to represent a cause for concern in regards to VPEP. “We don’t get any funds from the General Assembly anyway,” Cantor said.

Those already enrolled in the program will not be affected by future tuition increases. The commonwealth guarantees the contracts, Cantor said.

“That is the beauty of the plan,” she said.

However, Reynolds said unanticipated tuition increases will undoubtedly affect potential applicants for the program.

“It isn’t immediate,” Reynolds said. “The impact will be seen in a few years.”

The rapid increase in technological advances over the past half-century — including increased dependence on computers, the Internet and other information technology — has created a world in which an overabundance of information is available at the simple click of a mouse.

The University has changed to fit into the new technological mode and professors from all departments now utilize technology in some respect, whether it is to conduct class roll or to post video-taped lectures on the Internet.

History Prof. Brian Balogh said he takes advantage of technological innovation in his United States history class, “Viewing America.”

“If you were to list some of the significant changes in postwar America, one of them would certainly be the explosion of media with the emergence of television, computers and the Internet,” Balogh said. “It is a natural to let students see different sources first hand, so I try to let students see and touch primary sources as much as possible. The World Wide Web is a good way to give them access to these resources.”

Balogh has an extensive Web site for his class that includes video clips that are shown during lecture.

The Web site also features a Flash-based timeline that highlights all the major events covered in the class. By clicking on the various events, students can access a brief description, picture and, in most cases, a video clip.

Media Studies Prof. David Golumbia said he also employs technology for his classes.

“I think technology can supplement the classroom processes,” Golumbia said. “For example, I utilize the library’s digital delivery service. The library will scan in books and deliver them in pdf files, which are much more convenient because a reserved book can only be taken out one at a time.”

Other professors who use Power Point slides will post their entire lectures on the University’s Toolkit Web site for their students to use as a study tool.

Physics Prof. Lou Bloomfield posts videos of his lectures for his “How Things Work I” class.

First-year College student T.J. Ensele currently is taking the Engineering class “Foundations of Computer Science.” In that class, Prof. David Evans posts his lecture notes on the class Web site and also provides links to articles that supplement the topics of study in the class.

“The links aren’t entirely applicable to the class itself but allow us to expand out knowledge if we so desire,” Ensele said.

Technology will continue to be integrated into the usual classroom experience as the University strives to stay up-to-date with the cutting-edge innovations the world will continue to produce, Golumbia said.

Balogh also said as part his “Viewing America” class, students create their own Web-based unit and he teaches the best one as the final unit of the class.

“This really makes the class interactive and participatory and allows the students to have a say in the course,” Balogh said. “This would be very difficult without the Web.”

The University Board of Elections this week released candidates’ interim expenditure reports that included a complete account of all purchased materials and services as of Feb. 25.

This is the first year that candidates were required to submit interim reports, which were mandated by the UBE and released to the public, UBE member Justin Bernick said.

“If people know expenditures are available to the public, they can keep their spending in line and are not likely to try to buy the election,” he said.

Campaign spending ranged from $0 to over $300.

Bernick said he has not noticed any problems with the new system.

“People have been truthful,” he said.

He added that candidates who add themselves to the ballot after the Feb. 25 deadline could pose a possible problem with the new system because the public would not be aware of their spending at interim.

“We are still in the development process,” Bernick said. “We are learning as we go.”

Student Council presidential candidate Curtis Ofori said he spent the majority of his money on flyers, photocopying and building his campaign Web site. Ofori said he spent personal funds to finance his campaign, adding that he does not have an opinion concerning expenditure limits.

“I do not really care one way or another,” Ofori said. “If you’re spending a lot of money, people are going to think you are desperate. I do not spend money on anything extravagant.”

Instead, Ofori said he spends his money to inform students about the upcoming election and has spent a total of $26.27 thus far.

Council presidential candidate Elliot Haspel also said he funds his campaign with personal finances, the majority of which have been spent on flyers, chalking and photocopying. He has spent a total of $108.50.

Haspel also said he holds no opinion on spending limits and believes that imposing restrictions on expenditures should be left to the UBE and Council.

“I think the question of campaign finance is extremely complicated,” Haspel said.

Council presidential candidate Greg Scanlon said he spent the majority of his money on cups for a recent bar night and flyers and reported that he spent a total of $99.94. A mixture of donations made to his Web site and personal finances funded his campaign, he said.

“I like this new system,” Scanlon said. “I have not seen any ludicrous spending.”

The fourth Council presidential candidate, Noah Sullivan, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Sullivan’s campaign has spent $40.80 thus far.

Bernick said he does not believe the UBE will impose a limit on spending.

“We cannot [impose limits] because it is illegal to impose arbitrary restrictions on how much candidates can spend,” Bernick said.

A volunteer cap on finances has been proposed, Bernick added, but this idea has not been implemented.

The four candidates vying for Student Council president squared off in a debate last night in Wilson Hall. Candidates Elliot Haspel, Noah Sullivan, Curtis Ofori and Greg Scanlon described their campaign platforms and were given the opportunity to directly question each other.

The roundtable debate, moderated by University Board of Elections Chair Brian Cook, opened with remarks from each candidate, followed by a period of questioning.

Haspel, who served this past year as Council Chair for religious affairs, focused on reforming Council.

“Student Council does not have the ability to get student initiatives to go from inception to completion,” Haspel said.

He said he wants to see Council support the idea of a new pedestrian bridge linking Memorial Gym and the International Residence College.

“I’d rather see a new bridge now than a ‘Joe Student’ memorial bridge after a student gets killed,” Haspel said.

Sullivan, current Council chief of staff, focused much of the debate on touting recent Council initiatives, the need for a student liaison to Charlottesville City Council and supporting increased University autonomy from the General Assembly. He criticized Haspel’s reform platform.

“People come on and they have this internal organizational attitude,” Sullivan said. “I think it takes someone that’s willing to think about the bigger picture, the issues at large and not just Student Council.”

Ofori stressed the need to gauge student opinion in creating council initiatives.

“You’ve got to be one-on-one,” Ofori said. “You’ve got to get out to Rick in your accounting class, Sarah in your economics class.”

Ofori, a former Council College representative, said Council representatives need to travel to student “hotspots” to better understand the overall student prospective.

Scanlon, a former Cavalier Daily cartoonist, presented himself as a Council outsider, stressing that the group is out-of-touch with the general student populace.

“I’m a cartoonist — all I do is doodle and make fun of people,” he said. “Go ahead and vote for me because I’m one of you guys.”

Scanlon said he supports the creation of a liaison committee to the student body. He also criticized the administration’s treatment of the Pep Band as “fascist, trampling student self-governance” and described renditions of the “Good Ole Song” at sports events as “awful.”

The candidates then discussed divisive issues among the student population, including awarding benefits to domestic partners — a measure supported by each candidate — mandatory diversity training and off-Grounds housing.

Candidates then directly questioned each other.

Sullivan inquired how effective Scanlon would be as a president given that he has little Council experience.

“People respond to what works,” Scanlon replied. “I think a hell of a lot of leadership has to do with being open, easy to work with, accepting of new ideas.”

Ofori also stressed the importance of experience.

“You need somebody who’s been there, somebody who sat in that seat to lead,” Ofori said. “You can’t have somebody who hasn’t been there trying to lead because nobody is going to respect him.”

In addition to the presidential candidates, students vying for executive board and College representative positions also faced off in earlier debates.

Teams from residential dining halls began competing in the first University Dining Chef’s Challenge, according to University Relations.

Last night, the Newcomb team prepared a meal. The next round will be held at Runk, followed by the contest’s conclusion at Observatory Hill Wednesday.

The meals will have a theme with “mystery” or “challenge” ingredients.

The teams have three hours to prepare each meal. Then, a panel of judges comprised of University students and administrators will rate the meals based on execution of the given theme, creativity, presentation, flavor and the use of “challenge” ingredients, University Relations reported.

“We adapted the idea of the Iron Chef competition to suit our needs and add excitement to our dining program,” Brian Murtagh, executive chef for U.Va. Dining told University Relations.

The awards ceremony will be held Thursday.

–Compiled by Sarah R. Gatsos

The College Republicans and the National Organization for Women at U.Va. hosted a mixer in the newly created Diversity Center in Newcomb Hall yesterday.

This event inaugurated the Mix, a Student Council initiative to bring together different groups of students.

College Republicans Chair Joe Schilling said he and NOW President Katy Shrum are mutual friends and wanted to bring their groups together.

“We though this would be a great idea to kick off the Mix,” Schilling said.

The groups watched the political comedy “PCU,” drank hot chocolate and ate cookies.

“We wanted to do something that would open up dialog,” Schilling said.

Shrum said the effort put into the new Diversity Center warranted this activity.

“We want it to be a place with a function and get the ball rolling,” Shrum said.

The mixer served as a relaxed atmosphere for the groups.

“We just want to get people into a non- confrontational atmosphere,” Shrum said.

Out of the two reggae musicians who performed at James Madison University last week, Ziggy Marley is, hands down, the more well known of the two. The son of reggae legend Bob Marley has won a handful of Grammies and just released his first solo album, “Dragonfly,” after splitting from his family band, “The Melody Makers.”

Although Ziggy Marley has a big reputation to live up to, so far he seems to be doing pretty well. But frankly, as I sat down with him, I wondered if part or much of his fame wasn’t an extension of his father’s. Maybe it was the fact that he was following Michael Franti that made him seem a little boring and impersonal–or maybe it was the marijuana. Contrary to Franti, he walked into the room, slumped down into his chair and just stared at us for a couple seconds before speaking.

Cavalier Daily and Press: What is that? (pointing to a necklace around his neck)

Ziggy Marley: Star of David. My name is David. But people just call me Ziggy, ya know?

CD: Does “Ziggy” have an origin?

ZM: A small joint.

CD: A marijuana joint?

ZM: Marijuana, ya.

CD: So, all this time you have been compared to your father. I really don’t want to continue that, but it’s an important part of who you are. What was it like growing up the son of a legend?

ZM: I don’t know. I was born in 1968, right? So he wasn’t a legend. I spent a lot of my life without him being a legend. Then he became a legend. I grew up with him being a musician. He was a hard working musician, a well respected musician, ya know? A musician with something to say, which was respected in the community. So he was very well respected in Jamaica before he became a worldwide legend. He was “Bob.” In Jamaica, it doesn’t matter how big you get. People still see you as who you are from the beginning, ya know what I mean? You go back to your hometown, and you are just “Bob.” I’m just “Ziggy.” You are no bigger, and you are no better. That’s how we do it.

CD: Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?

ZM: I do music because I like sound. And that’s the only reason why I do music. If I didn’t like sound, there be no reason for me doing this, ya know? I went to school, I wanted to be a doctor, but the biology classes were too much theory. I wanted to get my hands into things, so that didn’t go through.

CD: What would you have done if you weren’t a musician?

ZM: If I wasn’t a musician, I would still be a musician. Being a musician is not about being popular or being on tour. If I wasn’t here, I’d be at home at my farm, or at my 9-to-5, and I’d still be a musician. Musician is not a profession. Musician is a part of life.

CD: What was your childhood like?

ZM: What part of it? Puberty or? (laugh) I was born in Trenchtown, in the ghetto. My father and my mother worked real hard and got some money and they moved us out of the ghetto. We moved to a better place … not a great place but better than we were before. My mother’s auntie, she was a strict disciplinarian. School was the most important thing. My mom and dad were always on tour. Our grandaunt really gave us the discipline. We kept going to better schools and got a lot of good discipline … got a good beating once in a while. When my father got more popular, more people start coming around, ya know? When my dad and mom got shot, I remember being asleep at the house and the police coming and saying “let’s go, ya gotta go.” But yeah, we went to school, played sports. I started writing songs in my early teenage years, and then our first song was in 1979, with my brothers and sisters. The rest is a mystery.

CD: Your music is very happy, very uniting. What kind of music do you listen you when you are pissed off?

ZM: (laugh) I don’t get pissed off. If I get angry, I write a song. I don’t listen to music because I’m upset. I listen to music because I feel like it. Sometimes I am interested in hearing what other artists have to say. I like to mix it up. I like Norah Jones, the White Stripes. I like “Hey Ya!”

CD: Outkast?

ZM: Outkast. I checked out Outkast before “Hey Ya!” though. They are unique, and I like that. I like original artists. That interests me.

CD: How has your Rastafarian religion influenced your music, or has it?

ZM: Rasta is not a religion. People try to make it into a religion. It’s a way of life. Religion is a … what is religion? Religion is an organization. Ya know, this is just a way of life. We try to live good, we try to live loving. We try to be good with nature, eat properly, eat natural foods, healthy foods. It’s just life. Rasta is my foundation, but I created my own religion. Only I have it. Like becoming a part of a gang, and doing what the gang says. You have to be independent-minded and think for yourself. Don’t follow the gang. Religion can be your foundation, but it can’t be your limit of your thoughts of God. Don’t let religion limit what you can think about God. God is bigger than religion. The most important thing is love.

CD: Reggae has taken a step back from the mainstream. How do you feel about that?

ZM: What is in the mainstream? It comes and goes. But the mainstream is not the best stream. Ya know what I’m saying? There is another stream that goes around the mainstream. A’right. You know you have the main beach where everybody goes to? That’s not the best beach. The best beach is the one that nobody knows about.

CD: But don’t you think that you could influence more people if you were on that big beach?

ZM: No, on the big beach everybody is having a good time. I gotta go to the other beach where people who know about that beach are gonna come. Because the big beach is all about partying and having fun. The ones who want the other thing go to the other beach and relax, ya know? So the mainstream could never be good to make music. The music would not be true in the mainstream. Jesus was never in the mainstream. Martin Luther King Jr. was never in the mainstream. They were all in the side stream. Just do what you do. And then eventually you’ll get to the people on the main street.

CD: How will you know when you are there?

ZM: I may never know, ’cause I may not be here. I’m not here thinking about when I’m going to be successful. It is what I am doing right now. I lived my life according to what I was here to do. And that is an important thing.

The lights dimmed as Michael Franti and Ziggy Marley took the stage at James Madison University last Monday. Hundreds of students with non-dilating eyes looked up at them with awe and disbelief as they screamed their welcomes. As I stood there, one of the only non-high people in attendance, a feeling of pure joy came over me as I remembered the interviews that myself and two other press members had had with them only two hours earlier.

Michael Franti, the lead singer of Spearhead, spoke with me first. He walked into the room and around the conference room table and gave everyone hugs. The room was immediately filled with a warm, “one-love” attitude. I just had to love him instantly.

Throughout the session he joked with his and our crew and made a point of remembering everyone’s name, which in my case is an unusual occurrence. After meeting this man, you want to be his friend.

Cavalier Daily: How would you describe your music?

Michael Franti: Somebody, I don’t know who it was, said that talking about music is like dancing about poetry. You can’t really describe it. My music is about emotions, you know? I try to find some truth, whether it’s a hidden truth or a spiritual truth, a sexual truth or a political truth, and from there I kind of describe that truth.

CD: When did you decide you wanted to be a musician?

MF: When I was growing up as a kid, I grew up in a family with five children, and everybody played an instrument except me. I played basketball. I took one piano lesson, and I quit. … It’s just so frustrating. But when I got into University of San Francisco, I got a scholarship to play basketball there. When I was there, my first year, I was in the same building as the college radio station. I went there every day.

CD: You said [earlier] that you were influenced by different types of music. What kind of music would that be?

MF: Well, at the time [I went to school in 1984], it was a very emerging time for hip-hop, punk rock, REM, other more underground rock, but not in the hard rock style. And reggae. And so those were the combinations of music that really touched me.

CD: If you had one thing you could teach the whole world, what would it be?

MF: I don’t know. I don’t think I could really teach them anything, you know? I would have the desire that everyone has an ease of heart. Right now, we are living in a really painful time. Just sitting around discussing the news of the day, there is so much turmoil and confusion in the world right now, and it’s really hard just to get up in the morning and face the day. I wish people ease of heart. Whatever it is that they are feeling inside, it is ready to pass. If they need to cry, you cry. And if you need to laugh, laugh, you know? It’s kind of what I try to do with my music, too. I deal with stuff that is political, but sometimes my songs are just about inspiration and determination.

CD: How did you get exposed to the Rasta culture?

MF: Through music. I’m not a Rastafarian, but our tour manager is and Ziggy [Marley] is. There is a lot in the Rastafarian beliefs that I think are really important ideals, you know? Like the idea of shared community, and the idea of one love, that we are not just individuals, but one body of human beings and are connected to the natural world.

CD: So you accept the beliefs of the Rastafarian beliefs, but you are not Rasta?

MF: Well, I look at it this way­–my religion is “kindness.”

CD: That’s what the Buddhists say!

MF: Yes (laughs). But I’m not Buddhist. I just believe in practicing love and kindness.

CD: Do you think you sacrifice a lot for your music?

MF: Yeah, I think the biggest sacrifice for me has been time. Family is certainly one of the things. … It’s hard being on the road. But I always knew from the beginning I wanted to make music that my family and children could be proud of.

CD: Any big near-future or future plans?

MF: Well, we are continuing with Ziggy for the next month, and then we go to Australia for about a week. Ziggy is going to Brazil, and so we might go there with him. We are working on a new album, and in the summer we are going to Europe.

CD: Thank you so much!

MF: Thanks a lot, thank you.

French pop-electronica duo Air’s release “Talkie Walkie,” while an excellent introduction to synth-pop, is an album divided against itself, warring between a happy-go-lucky, romantic spirit and a melancholy, dark tendency, unified only by an air of inaccessibility. “Talkie Walkie” marks another point in Air’s arc from the dance club electronica of their 1998 debut, “Moon Safari,” through the subdued soundtrack for “The Virgin Suicides” to a more psychedelic (think the Beach Boys’s “Pet Sounds”) pop sound.

I should admit before I continue, I have not been a loyal Air fan since 1998, and I hadn’t even heard of an electronica album before this one. On my first listen, I was confused as to why it was labeled “pop,” but now I understand. The album is not industrial noise –beeps, squawks and city traffic — but synthesized backbeats and melodies underneath piano, guitar and delicate vocals. Vocals range from ethereal, almost breathless whispers on “Cherry Blossom Girl” to the vocals on “Run,” which seem as if Air’s Jean-Beniot Dunckel and Nicolas Godin were trying to recreate as closely as possible the vocal style of Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings” movies. Happily, the standard is a relatively processed mix of Dunckel and Godin.

As the singer-songwriters of the French electronica genre, Air infuses the stark tracks with wit and warmth. The opening track, “Venus,” begins, “You could be from Venus, I could be from Mars,” but is far from tongue-in-cheek. It is, like many of the tracks, a meditation on love. This love is tentative in “Venus” and on the other lighthearted tracks, like “Cherry Blossom Girl.” But like every singer-songwriter duo, Air has a lower side.

Tracks like “Another Day” and “Run” bear down with slow beats and minor chords, at times sounding like what you would expect to hear in a haunted house. The darker songs seem heavy-handed in contrast with lighter tracks; to have these almost spooky songs mixed in with bright songs like the stand-out “Mike Mills” is somewhat jarring– almost as if Air could not decide on a direction for the album and simply put two together.

Mediating between the two sides of “Talkie Walkie” are the three instrumental tracks. However, they show a leaning toward the more lighthearted side of the album. These tracks make the most use of non-synthesized music. Piano, strings and even whistles temper the created sounds where human vocals do not.

For me, the romantic faction of “Talkie Walkie” is the clear winner. Dunckel and Godin seem more at home and more inventive here, both musically and lyrically. The lyrics are clever and lovable, as on “Cherry Blossom Girl”: “I don’t want to be shy, can’t stand it anymore, just want to say ‘Hi’ to the one that I love,” and “XX XY that’s why it’s you and me” on “Biological,” a song about love on a genetic level. The wit and whimsy that are so plain in tracks like these get obscured on the heavier tracks. The sometimes grating electronica stifles Air’s humanity on tracks like “Venus.”

For all the warmth that Air’s romantic and pop sensibilities brings to “Talkie Walkie,” it is still not an especially accessible album. Even masked by the vocal, piano, guitar and string arrangements, the songs do not envelop, remaining distant and unattached. Perhaps that is the aim of Dunckel and Godin, to perpetuate a “hipper than thou” attitude which will unify the radically different parts of the recording.

Taken as a whole, “Talkie Walkie” is an album divided against itself that manages to stand. It would have been more powerful and cohesive had Dunckel and Godin picked a tone and stuck with it for a whole album. For its inaccessibility, “Talkie Walkie” delivers a few catchy, standout songs, “Cherry Blossom Girl” and “Universal Traveler.”

Your debut album just conquered rock radio like it was France, and you’re being hailed as the next “Next Big Thing.” You swim daily through a giant pool of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.Your band has just set the bar for as seemingly paradoxical a genre as acoustic metal. You have money, power, respect. What do you do now?

You fire the bastards who helped you get there and announce that you intend to continue performing under the same name while hanging on to all the copyrights and associated royalty payments, that’s what.

As incomprehensible as such a decision might seem, that’s precisely the move Days of the New frontman Travis Meeks pulled in 1998 — at the jaded old age of 18. Tantric, which includes the three poor souls who served as Meeks’ backing band in days of yore, promptly regrouped in Talk Show fashion with new (and suspiciously Meeks-like) vocalist Hugo Ferriera for an album that came out quickly and came off like a “shove it” missile aimed at their former employer’s allegedly bloated noggin.

OK, fine. Though it may make for a wonderful article introduction and will surely be milked for all it’s worth by morally deficient reviewers, it’s not entirely fair to Tantric to keep playing up the importance of that history. “After We Go” is a sophomore album, implicitly meaning that it is Tantric’s attempt to establish itself as an act which can remain viable even without a captivating soap opera of a biography.

Furthermore, for all their initial vocal similarities, the two branches have actually diverged quite a bit by now. Meeks has gone off in a darker, more progressive electronica-tinged direction with his now-solo project, and Tantric continues with their skillfully crafted (if overwhelmingly generic) brand of mainstream Top-40 rock. Remember “Breakdown?” Very little has changed since then.

Ferriera occasionally meanders too much as a lyricist and is a few years behind the curve on the Eddie Vedder cloning championed by baritone valedictorian Scott Stapp. He may be a bit one-dimensional, but the fact remains that he’s very good along that one axis and can usually carve out a sizable path in front his band-mates. His overtly “Look at me, I’m a rock star!” vocal poses are often challenged by the backup harmonies of guitarist Todd Whitener, an equally skilled (if somewhat less flamboyant) singer in his own right.

As a matter of fact, it is Whitener who delivers the best vocal performance on the disc, a staccato Disturbed-inspired pre-chorus passage in the title track which effortlessly eclipses both Ferriera’s role in that same song as well as his own attempted nod to Disturbed in the single “Hey Now.” As a result, Whitener’s voice is featured much more prominently in the mix than that of your average modern rock second banana, and at times the dialogue between the two is actually reminiscent of the Chris Cornell/Eddie Vedder duets from the 1990 Seattle All-Star “Temple Of The Dog” project. Sometimes the combination of mixing technique and contrapuntal composition even causes the relationship to invert entirely, with Ferriera unintentionally coming across as the secondary harmony to Whitener’s lead.

Even without considering vocal contributions, there’s little doubt that it is Whitener who has matured most of all since the last album, apparently having decided to jettison post-grunge sonic neutrality despite Ferriera’s vocal propensity toward the same. Less than a minute after dominating the mic on the grinding “After We Go,” Whitener turns around and delivers some of the most inspired guitar timbres I’ve heard in months. Don’t get me wrong, he is still entirely capable of being formidably bland when the occasionally vapid songwriting so demands, but he also does not hesitate to viciously discipline his guitar for its insolence afterward.

When the fat lady sings at the end of the 12th track, Tantric’s second album has become as irresistible as it is unremarkable. As long as you are willing to admit that you like your hard rock easy to digest and just a little bit on the mindless side, “After We Go” is not to be missed. Hey Travis, suck on this one for a while. Who’s laughing now?

Here’s to bouncing back. Cheers.