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**1/2 Remy Zero

THE GOLDEN HUM

(Elektra)

It’s fitting that Remy Zero’s brooding modern rocker “Save Me” has become the theme song to the WB network’s demographically and aesthetically simpático teenage Superman series Smallville. The exposure may well have saved the LA five-piece from the cutout bin, but it’s a small wonder no one discovered them sooner: The Golden Hum, their third album, is full of sweeping and accessible big-rock numbers that evoke the anthemic qualities of U2 before Bono discovered irony. You do have to excuse an uncomfortably large number of brow-furrowingly earnest laments about the human condition, but there’s enough jangle-pop hookcraft here to make up for the overplayed angst. Familiar totems are everywhere, from the ringing REM-ish guitars of “Impossibility” and the dynamic title track (which brings to mind “Creep”-era Radiohead) to the Travis-style folky Brit-pop ruminations of “I’m Not Afraid.” Remy Zero’s reach occasionally exceeds their grasp, and every so often they come across as too studied in their application of familiar modern-rock devices, but it’s hard to nd a song here that doesn’t make a strong melodic impression.

— Allison Stewart