Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, export Breaking Benjamin is swell at what it does -- endorphin-rush, third-wave grunge by, for and about twentysomething, short-haired (or bald) white guys. Not really headbanging fodder, but its radio-friendly yet sorta-heavy tuneful dunder sounds pretty darn good when you're concentrating on something else, like hoisting a beer or lining up a shot on a pool table. Taken blind, you might mistake singer and guitarist (and band namesake) Ben Burnley's voice for that of one of his contemporaries, but Burnley at least avoids god-knobbing and overemoting -- sins of which the late Creed was guilty. The band's 2002 debut, Saturate, was as perfect as this genre gets, but last year's We Are Not Alone upset the balance by sacrificing much of the innate hookiness for increased weight and darkness, making the new cuts more difficult to digest.
