Junction -- Swingset

No local band was more infuriating than Junction. Changing lineups faster than the employees at McDonald's, the group used breaking up as part of its creative process. It's only fitting that they release their almost two-year-old Swingset EP after calling it quits for the final time. Or maybe not.

On Swingset, we get Junction's traditional playground -- guitarist Gregg Foreman, singer Vanessa Downing, bassist Garrett Rothman and drummer Ben Azzara. Fortunately, this lineup was their most formidable. With the EP's six songs, Junction is able to capture the frenetic, melodic punk sound they once honed diligently at the VFW.

I might even say they've gotten funkier, distancing themselves from the ho-hum of Dischord bands like Jawbox. From the stop/start of "Time Piece" to the chugging aggression of "Booster," the band offers up its tightest rhythms. It is an improvement from its last EP, 1992's Falling and Laughing.

While the musicians push and shove for position, Downing is there to bring the music together. Eschewing the fashionable screaming, Downing's voice is honest, resonating above all else. She actually sings.

Despite the somewhat slick production, the band delivers the goods on most accounts, saving their best song, "Ivy," for last, as if to remind us of how much better they could have become.

Scorpions -- Face the Heat

If I remember correctly, overproduced heavy metal died out years ago.

But here are the Scorpions, tight leather-sporting German veterans of the genre who brought us such sexy rockin' classics as "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and "No One Like You," still making the same-old slick sludge with their new album Face the Heat.

The album begins promisingly with a tense guitar riff and a driving beat on "Alien Nation," but quickly plummets into the depths of bland, tired songwriting. Lead singer Klaus Meine's male soprano, operatic-yet-phlegmy voice, shrieks out the songs' unfocused melodies.

Heat is full of cliches in the lyrics, soloing and verse-bridge-chorus formula. "No Pain No Gain," whose lyrics sound like a locker room pep talk, could have been a Rocky workout song, complete with power-chord riff and vocals overdubbed 5,000 times. To boot, lead guitarist Matthias Jabs' solo sounds right out of a heavy metal hammer-on textbook.

To give Scorpions some credit for effort, there are some bright spots of ingenuity on Heat. "Taxman Woman" features some clever sarcasm comparing tax collectors to materialistic girlfriends, and the little untitled song tacked on the end has a pleasant melody and energetic saxaphone groove, making it the coolest piece on the album.

But that's not enough to save Face the Heat from the doldrums.

Cowboy Junkies -- Pale Sun, Crescent Moon

The Cowboy Junkies' fifth album, Pale Sun, Crescent Moon, is sensitive to a person's occasional need for soul food, but it doesn't hurry to deliver.

Once its poetic and sweetly desolate mood sets in, the album's sound is so sultry and sincere, it can make you ache inside.

Margo Timmins' dusty soprano voice brings the songs to life vividly, like watching the scenes flash through your mind as if they belonged to a life-sized movie. With lyrics like, "Won't you come with me, she said/ there's plenty of room in my iron bed/ you're looking cold and tired and more than a little human," on "Crescent Moon," the songs penned by her brother Michael turn the album into a book of poetry.

Alan Anton's simple bass lines and Peter Timmins' understated drums accompany Margo's voice without going into sensory overload.

But don't think the instrumentals are neglected. On "The Post," written by Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, Michael's guitar gets a taste of self-indulgence and lifts your spirits.

The ballad "Cold Tea Blues" best displays the realistic-yet-romantic feel of the album. With its gentle guitar-piano-bass progression and lyrics like, "If I pour your cup, that is friendship/ if I add your milk, that is manners . . . But if I measure the sugar to satisfy your expectant tongue, that is love/ sitting untouched and grown cold."

The songs were crafted by practiced songwriters; there's not a trace of thrown-together garage noise anywhere on the disc.

Even though the Cowboy Junkies weave tales of pain and loneliness, Pale Sun, Crescent Moon is the perfect bedtime storyteller, easing your fears and reminding you that you're not the only one.