Thank God for famous friends. If it weren’t for Adam Duritz or Rob Thomas, Peter Stuart might be working in a coffee shop in some Bohemian district.

Stuart was one of the many who fell victim to what has unfortunately become a formula in the music industry. Solo Artist plays around and records some demos which come to the attention of Record Company.

Record Company signs Solo Artist who assembles some other musicians and becomes Rock Band. Rock Band puts out an album with “Minor Radio Hit” on it, so they get to record another. Except this time, “Minor Radio Hit” can’t be replicated, surpassed or imitated. So Record Company drops Rock Band, and they disband. This is usually where the story ends.

Fortunately for Stuart, he has friends in high places. While he was in music-industry hiatus, his good buddies in Counting Crows and Matchbox Twenty took him on tour and had him sing backup on their records.

During this time, Stuart set about writing new material. The end result appears to be much in the same vein as his previous band, Dog’s Eye View.

The result is “Propeller,” an album full of straight-forward sensitive and introspective alternative ditties. But nothing really new or interesting is contributed in the process.

Another formula of sorts seems to be followed on this album — putting the best songs first. “Take Me Back,” “Propeller Girl” (featuring Duritz on backing vocals) and “With My Heart In Your Hands” are easily the most memorable tracks.

“Here I Am Here” showcases the musicianship and instrumentation you can expect with highly produced alt-pop. The track features a nice piano track and some extraneous but appreciated mandolin. “Bring You Back” ends the album and backs up Stuart with a very lush string section.

Peter Stuart has proven himself to be one of the more respectable songwriters around today. But “Propeller” finds him sitting stagnant, seemingly unable to see anything but a Dog’s Eye View.

— Jesse Stensby

Keller Williams is nothing if not a talented musician. Each song on this disc shows off his skills with various instruments and his experimentations with different styles. The songs don’t serve to do much more than that, however.

Goofy titles such as “Freeker by the Speaker,” “Bob Rules” and “Kidney in a Cooler” may be quirky, but since they fail to be funny and also fail to say anything, come across as shallow.

That’s the way it goes with a jam band, though — make it up as you go — and Williams probably doesn’t strive to break any new lyrical territory with those tracks.

Many songs rely on the same jammy feel and Dave Matthews-like singing on track after track. It seems ol’ Keller is playing on the fact that a lot of his fans are suffering from a bit of memory loss, eh? For the rest of us, however, the crazy effects and jammy beat can get unnerving and a strong hook would do wonders by the middle of the CD.

“Gallivanting” comes through with some straight-up swinging jazz and quality acoustic bass from Tye North to offer a break. Williams sings with one letter from the alphabet on each short verse, saying nonsense like “appetite for applesauce, abrasions applaud” and “easily elaboration epitome of exceleration.” If you can ignore the blabbering, there is some good music to be had.

And really, alone, jam songs such as “Freeker by the Speaker,” “God is My Palm Pilot,” which features some beat boxing from North, and “Crooked” do sound all right. It’s just the effect of an entire album’s worth of it that makes your eye start to twitch.

There’s a good mix of different, well, kind of different jam-jazz in “Laugh.” You have your instrumentals in “Mental Instra,” which hits a sour elevator music note; “God is My Palm Pilot;” and “Freeker Reprise.” Then you have your slow, soft love song in “Spring Buds” and your stripped-down bongo song in a cover of Ani DiFranco’s “Freakshow.”

It would be nice if Williams were as good a songwriter as he is a musician, but “Laugh” should make a few people at least smile.

— Jeff Mitchell

Sometimes you have to go way back to find a CD that stands out as something new.

“The Early Years EP” has just been released, and the title may refer to Tiger Army’s early years, but the sound really comes straight from the ’50s rockabilly scene — at least as played by sneering ’90s punks.

For a collection of demos, the recording sounds pretty good. The nearly vinyl-like quality of the production adds all the more retro flavor. The boys didn’t do it on purpose, though; they were broke.

The three cash-strapped Californians were just getting their act together when these songs were recorded in 1996 and 1997, but the tightness and groove Tiger Army played with didn’t show a bit of inexperience.

Only six songs show up on the EP. An entire album’s worth of youthful aggression is packed into it, though, as well as a range of styles that belies friendships with such bands as Operation Ivy and AFI. Vocalist and guitarist Nick 13 isn’t anything spectacular on the microphone on this album, either. It’s just a steady barrage of punk crooning over fuzzy hollowbody guitar, acoustic bass and simple drum popping.

“Temptation,” the first track, hits hard with desperate lyrics such as, “Down on my knees I look up at the sky/ Here I am again and I don’t know why/ Life is pain I know this in my heart/ I guess it’s always been that way in the start.”

Attitude such as that prevails through much of the album. It just wouldn’t be the same without it.

A cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” also shines in the trio’s hands, but the real surprise on the album is a very rootsy cover of “American Nightmare” by the Misfits.

Though short, “Early Years EP” is a glimpse into how “The Stray Cat Strut” and Eddie Cochran fell upon punk ears, a look back into the formation of a solid band, and proof to newcomers that the gloomy, introspective attitude was around before Dashboard Confessional, and will be around afterward as well.

— Jeff Mitchell