Various Artists: Honor: A Benefit For The Honor The Earth Campaign

Honor is one of the more ambitious benefit albums around, compiling two CDs full of songs to benefit the Honor the Earth campaign, which works to save indigenous people and cultures from all sorts of oppression and hardship. Contributors balance pretty equally between well-known benefit-album mainstays (Matthew Sweet, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Indigo Girls) and indigenous musicians both established (John Trudell) and obscure (Sherman Alexie & Jim Boyd). For the most part, it's awfully stone-faced and earnest, with the preachiest performances coming from folks like Exene Cervenka (the screechy spoken-word "The Future Is a War") and Bruce Cockburn (the overlong "Wise Users"). A new track from Indigo Girls (who helped compile the project) should intrigue fans, but the album is 75 percent over before Soul Asylum delivers its first rollicking moment (the previously unreleased "Motel Notell"). Honor may make our world a better place, but it isn't much fun to listen to. Send a check instead.