The Black Moods

The Black Moods deliver powerful music with a positive message, but only if you like your cock rock mixed with kick-rock. On the band's mini-album Laurel Canyon, there's a post-rehab, Velvet Revolver vibe that screams "hedonistic maturity." After weighing in with a song about diminished faculties ("I don't know why I love that woman") and singing a dirty joke about a girl named after the triangular state ("I can't wait to be back in Virginia"), the band gives a sobering look at old habits dying hard. Yet the Moods keep preaching out of it by recalling the decadent heights of the early '90s ("If it keeps you thin, you know it's wearing on you, I know it's wearing me away"). Singer Kevin Prier carries Chris Cornell force with that bygone Eddie Vedder enunciation, so you'll really believe the word "yeah" ends with the letter "r." Expertly played and sturdily produced by Jim Kaufman (Opiate for the Masses), the Black Moods are going places. Heck, they left Whaton, Missouri, for us; let's meet 'em at the halfway house. (www.theblackmoods.com and myspace.com/theblackmoods)