Songs for Smoky Basements zZz The Sound of zZz (Howler Records) by Joe E. Rosewater In case you're not a young downtown New Yorker who just has to know where all the hip kids dance on the weekends, Lit on 5th Street and 2nd Avenue is one of those places. Or, at least it used to be. I haven't been there in a couple months, so by now the so-called hipsters may have already fickled themselves out of there.

One usually has two options at Lit- Duran Duran, Franz Ferdinand, et al on the nondescript first floor, or punk and soul in the dark, cavern-walled basement. Smoking is permitted in the basement (shh, don't tell anyone), which, if you can tolerate thick clouds of carbon monoxide, is a nice atmospheric touch.

zZz sounds tailor-made for weekends at Lit's lower level. In fact, they've already played there once during their recent trip to New York, and I'd bet they'll be back for their next visit. For one, the band- drummer/vocalist Bjorn Ottenheim and keyboardist Daan Schinkel- started playing together in a sunlight-deprived basement in their homeland of Amsterdam (which leads me to assume their basement also had its share of lingering smoke clouds).

Also, most of the songs on the band's debut full-length, Sound of zZz, seem to serve one of two purposes for Lit's basement DJs. When the dance floor is packed and sweaty, some songs, with their fuzzy 60's soul organs, hard-rock beats and reverbed baritone vocals, would make serviceable bridges between The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" and Suicide's "Ghost Rider" ("O.F.G," "Ecstasy," "Lalala," "Hammerhead"). The rest, including a chaotic six and a half minutes of gunfire snare and synthesized feedback called "Uncle Sam," are better mood-setters; they might not make the dance floor move, but they'd be good to play as the crowd filters in, as a way of saying, "Welcome to our dark, cavern-walled rock n' roll club. We play everything from the Spencer Davis Group to Suicide, and A.R.E. Weapons plays here regularly. Grab a PBR and get comfortable until the party really gets started. Oh, and by the way, you can smoke down here."

Whatever else zZz has to say, however, is stubbornly primitive. Schinkel can pound out a riff and induce a trance, but he's no melody maker. Ottenheim is equally rock-steady on the drums and lackluster on the mic. His weak melodies could be easier to overlook If his lyrics were more descriptive than his song titles, or if his barking croon were half as stylish as the voices it evokes (Jim Morrison, Alan Vega, Jon Spencer), but unfortunately, that's not the case.

Though to be fair, zZz probably aren't too concerned about being your new favorite band. They might be content just to provide the soundtrack while you make out with a girl to whom you won't be giving your phone number.

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