By RUSSELL BAILLIE
(Herald rating: * * *)
Five for Fighting isn't a band but the vehicle for American singer-songwriter John Ondrasik and America Town - which has spawned an international radio hit Superman (It's Not Easy) - is his second album after an unloved 1997 debut. Ondrasik's songs are earnest things,
mostly piano-based creations possessed of fairly ordinary melodies and rustic rock arrangements, the distinguishing factor being his adenoidnal voice and - as the album title and songs like The Last Great American - his observational lyrics about life in the good ol' USA. It can swerve toward ye olde stadium rock at times, but in an American mainstream rock league defined by the dull likes of Matchbox 20 and their ilk, at least Ondrasik seems to have something to say and mean it too.
Label: Columbia
