Trunks: The Brothers Creeggan

It says a lot about the rigidity of the modern-day music industry (not to mention modern-day commercial radio) that The Brothers Creeggan, a side project featuring a current and former member of the platinum-selling Canadian band Barenaked Ladies, is releasing its third album without label distribution. A collection of gentle, often family-themed folk-pop songs, Trunks ought to commercially benefit from the BNL connection, yet it has virtually zero chance of scoring airplay in an industry dominated by slick, insincere schmaltz (Backstreet Boys, et al) and pummeling neo-metal (Limp Bizkit, and so on). Granted, the album's 11 songs are about as far from major as you can get—brothers Jim and Andy Creeggan keep them so soft and tension-free that they threaten to not even register—but the album is full of likably slight (or is that slightly likable) moments that would appeal to fans of Barenaked Ladies' oft-explored soft side. That is, if they know the duo, let alone the album, even exists. Trunks doesn't hold up to repeat listens particularly well, as the engaging simplicity of the acoustic arrangements is increasingly overshadowed by the bouts of tweeness you'll find on tracks like "Kitchen Dancin'." But regardless of the album's pleasantly marginal quality, it does supply compelling evidence that even mainstream music fans are going to have to start peering further into the margins to find what they're looking for. (www.brotherscreeggan.com)