The Exies HEAD FOR THE DOOR (VIRGIN)

Boundary-pushing rock may be making a commercial comeback. (See Franz Ferdinand, the White Stripes, Modest Mouse, and any other band featured on The O.C.) But don’t tell that to the Exies. On their second full-length, the LA band rock as if it were 1994, on hook-laden songs full of the same neo-metal guitars that fueled the early Stone Temple Pilots album Core. Singer Scott Stevens even appropriates STP’s Scott Weiland; the opening "Slow Drain" is cut from the same blurred roar as most of the songs on the recent Contraband from Weiland’s current band, Velvet Revolver. It goes downhill from there: though the Exies hired producer Nick Raskulinecz to re-create the pounding guitars of his recent work with the Foo Fighters, Nick can’t do much about the Exies’ generic-to-a-fault songwriting, which plods through "Ugly," the disc’s first single, with the sort of radio-friendly precision shown by faceless one-hit wonders like Fuel. Still, it’s the corny refrain of "Tired of You" ("Tired of searching/Tired of trying, but I’m/Not tired of you"), which sounds primed more for Beverly Hills 90210 than for The O.C., that should really give listeners a reason to head for the door.