**** The Radiators

SONGS FROM THE ANCIENT FURNACE

(Epic/Legacy)

This is the perfect jam band for people who hate jam bands. Unlike the hordes of neo-hippies out there, the Radiators are truly funky and dependable mood elevators. Being from New Orleans helps, but the band actually played down the Crescent City grooves during their years on Epic (they were dropped in '91), plugging in to a more middle-of-the-road Allman Brothers/Little Feat sound. And they've always been inconsistent in the studio.

So it makes sense that this odds-and-ends compilation, which takes six of the best tunes from three Epic albums and adds on eight rarities, turns out to be their best studio album. Keyboardist Ed Volker hits his stride as a songwriter on the dreamlike "Let the Red Wine Flow" -- perhaps the band's single best song. And the outtakes catch them in loosened-up mode rocking loopily on "Fluid Drive," working Longhair licks into a love ballad ("Little Paradise"), and jamming up a storm on a live "Love Is a Tangle."

-- Brett Milano