Editor’s Note: In Sound Advice, the first Saturday of every month, veteran Bangor Daily News entertainment writer Dale McGarrigle reviews new rock, pop, alternative, country, folk or blues albums. Different NEWS writers contribute reviews from other musical genres.

“Sharp Dressed Men: A Tribute to ZZ Top” (RCA) – Various artists

With their familiar cheap sunglasses and facial hair, ZZ Top has been a part of the musical landscape for the past 30 years. During that time, Billy F. Gibbons, Frank Beard and Dusty Hill have influenced countless artists across genres.

On this album, 15 male country artists say “I Thank You,” contributing their arrangements of classic songs by “that little ol’ band from Texas.” “Sharp Dressed Men” shows that, even though the trio enjoyed most of their success in the ’70s and ’80s, their music still has legs.

Once the listener gets past the blasphemy of mixing in fiddle and steel with the trio’s patented guitar boogie attack, this album definitely has merit. Although a few of the artists didn’t really have the necessary vocal chops, or attitude, most offer up fitting tribute, capturing the grit and soul of the ZZ Top originals.

Standout cuts are Hank Williams Jr.’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago/Waitin’ for the Bus” medley, Brooks and Dunn’s “Rough Boy,” Andy Griggs’ “I Need You Tonight,” Dwight Yoakam’s “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” Trace Adkins’ “Legs” and Montgomery Gentry’s “Just Got Paid.”

“Sharp Dressed Men” makes you want to go dig out your old ZZ Top cassettes, or better yet, to go out and snatch up CDs of “Eliminator” or “Deguello.” And that’s the ultimate compliment that you can pay to a tribute album.

“Jinx” (Time Bomb) – Quarashi

Quarashi is from Iceland but you shouldn’t infer too much from that. Forget about your quirky Icelandic pop, and certainly don’t think Sugarcubes or even Kukl for that matter. We’re dealing with a whole different kettle of herring here. Quarashi is only from Iceland, not of Iceland.

“Our goal is to mix hip-hop and industrial,” says Solvi, the band’s producer and drummer. Not the most original of ideas, but one to which the band does seem committed. Unfortunately, what the band really seems to have mixed is the Beastie Boys and Limp Bizkit. From the opening crunch of “Stick ‘Em Up,” the first single off “Jinx,” an awkward familiarity of approach is all too evident. While the band does achieve its stated goals, vacillating comfortably around the middle ground they’ve sought and found, it ends as a synthesis that provides little new.

Energy never is lacking and the band is often at its best when

shards of originality slice the sound. “Tarfur” drifts dancily, an Icelandic rap stuttering over a threatening bass repetition. “Malone Lives” goofily struts serious rhymes over pimping keyboard squelches and marimba punctuation. “We want to dance tonight.”

Absolutely.

The idea of four B-boys from Reykjavik is entertaining from a distance, but that distance between NYC and the crisp North Atlantic is not explored. Quarashi could be from Hoboken, still have made this album, and would have received scant attention.

At no point is this the bad album it easily could have been. It’s always listenable, occasionally dark, and sometimes even exciting. But it never provides the truly edgy thrills Quarashi so desperately tries to agitate. – Adam Corrigan

“Elva” (Interscope Records) – Unwritten Law

Good punk music means being able to switch it up.

Having embraced this fact as an inevitability for their music style, pop-punksters Unwritten Law have used their fourth album like a 10-year-old uses a chemistry set. The product is pungent three-minute punk, ska and hard rock concoctions prone to catching fire.

The San Diego quintet goes beyond the fast and furious drum ticks and abrasive guitar lines in favor of random tempo changes. Double-time rock switches to cut-time jazz stylings without losing the pace. Dribble in some tambourines, organs, harps and mildly ethereal synth tones on “Evolution” and suddenly the band is riding a horse of a different color.

Among the priceless selling points you find the harmonic back-and-forth between guitarists Steve Morris and Rob Brewer. The sweet-rock interplay on “Actress, Model, Dancer, Whatever” engulfs the listener and could easily stand on its own as a hopping instrumental.

Which is not to negate the surging appeal of vocalist Scott Russo. Charged and gritty, Russo waxes sincere about salvation, sex and drugs, and being scared but jumping anyway in “Geronimo.”

In the rhythm department, drummer Wade Youman knows less is more, keeping his beats simple and tight but full of punch and sweat on tracks such as “Hellborn.”

As an album, “Elva” is an essential enhancement of Unwritten Law’s forcible thumps, beefy guitars and catchy hooks; the change was necessary for this punk circle to progress. – Anthony Saucier

“In Your Light” (Unintentional Music) – X-Ray Actress

This new release out of John Dyer’s Blue Hill studio sees the prolific producer going back to the role of performer, as he combines with young vocalist Shirley Moe and veteran multi-instrumentalist G.S. Young in this new “found-sound” trio.

This intriguing “tweener” album (too long for an EP, too short for an LP) showcases the trio’s sound, which blends electronic sampling and live instrumentation in an enjoyable pastiche. Moe’s breathy vocals float easily over a lush sonic background.

Young, who is a poet as well as a classically trained musician, wrote the bulk of the songs on the album, along with playing all the keyboard, bass and guitar parts. He and studio wizard Dyer, who had been guitarist for the L.A.-based band The Party Boys during the early ’80s, had been collaborating on adding new sounds to their songs, and their discovery of Moe, a Machias native, completed the lineup.

The music of “In Your Light” shows that X-Ray Actress manages to escape the trap that too much electronica falls into: a sameness of sound that slides into monotony. These half-dozen seamless numbers (the seventh is a remix) offer plenty of variety to keep the listener surprised.

Hopefully, this is just a taste of things to come from the group. Since they’re planning a series of dates over the spring and summer, they’ve got to have more of a repertoire than appears on this short album. Still, this release shows that X-Ray Actress is a concept rife with potential. (X-Ray Actress will play June 1 and July 6 at the Mercury in Portland. To order, or for information, write unintentional@acadia.net.)