In Brief

* * Sloan, “Smeared,” Geffen. This Nova Scotia quartet owes as much of its sound to the Velvet Underground as to contemporaries Ride and Sonic Youth. Sloan coats its songs of frustrated relationships with some appealing vocal harmonies and snazzy guitar effects, but ultimately suffers from clumsy lyric writing. Maybe My Bloody Valentine’s decipher-proof recording technique would better serve the band.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).