Saliva’s most recent release offers variety

Remember cassette tapes? Many times one side was better than the other?

Saliva’s new release, Back Into Your System, will remind you of those middle school days. One side rocks and the other side just doesn’t cut it.

The side that rocks would be the “A” side, with head bangers like “Superstar II,” “Always,” “All Because of You” and “Raise Up.”

In the wonderfully brief intro skit a kid tells his dad, a band member, that he wants to be a rock star just like him when he grows up.

Immediately afterward, “Superstar II” kicks in the door. It screams with blazing riffs and gets serious about rock star stuff.

A few poorly disguised shots are thrown at rapper Eminem for his songs about his personal life.

“No crying ass bitching about my wife or girlfriend / ’cause in my life I can’t have either one. No crying ass bitching about my evil parents / they did their best to raise their only son.”

“Always” is probably the best song on the album. It’s a smooth, melodic ballad that also has a raging chorus. Saliva’s lyrics are easy to relate to.

“I love you, I hate you, I can’t get around you / I breathe you, I taste you, I can’t live without you. I just can’t take anymore of this life of solitude / I guess that I’m out the door and that I’m done with you.”

The song takes listeners to a familiar place where many of us have been before.

The title cut sounds like it belongs on the original motion picture soundtrack to some flag-waver movie.

It has this “good ol’ fashioned American rock n’ roll” feel to it. It conjures memories of that scene from Armageddon with the astronauts walking in unison.

The “B” side tracks are 7 through 12. This is where the album starts to suck.

Saliva slides into different sounds, trying something like a rather twangy melody on “Holdin On.”

The band also appeals to audiences’ more sensitive side with “Rest In Pieces,” though it sounds grossly out of place on the album.

The star of the “B” side is “Pride.” It’s a solid rocker that makes you want to put on your stars and stripes biker jacket, jump on your Harley and ride cross-country singing about the “pride of America.”

“Famous Monsters,” the album closer, sounds dorky and out of place behind “Pride” until you realize that it’s the inverse of “Superstar II.” On this slow, quiet ballad they sing about being a slave to fame.

The Verdict: All in all, it’s a half and half. You get six great songs and six mediocre songs. It’s not even that the sucky ones are that bad, they’re just not as compelling as the others.

The CD is enhanced with a demo of the computer game “WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos,” and that’s definitely cool.

But a nicer surprise would have been putting “Click Click Boom” on the album as a bonus track, since it was recently reintroduced to a mainstream audience on the Formula 51 soundtrack.