Road Apples (1991)

The Tragically Hip are the latest great rock & roll hope from Canada. People with very loose standards have compared their bluesy, lanky attack to the Rolling Stones', but that's confusing what the band wants to do with what it actually does. The Tragically Hip (yes, an unfortunate name) compound the problem by trying to sound world-weary and cynical about the whole thing, when they're actually a bunch of college kids who do quite well at home, thank you, but now want U.S. record sales. There are passable grooves here on Road Apples (the wailing chorus of ''Three Pistols'' is my favorite), but far too much distance between the band's dated, secondhand sound and life today anywhere you look, in the U.S., Canada, or elsewhere. Sure, other groups, the Black Crowes among them, are working similar territory. But the Crowes do it with an almost primal obsession and genuine style, two elements conspicuous here by their absence. C-