Various Artists: We're A Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

The frightening prospect of setting leather-jacketed men spinning in their graves hangs over this tribute collection.

And it certainly embraces the dearly departed status of Joey and Dee Dee Ramone with curious relish, from the ghoulish trademark cover art of Rob Zombie (who with Johnny Ramone produced this album) to the liner notes by Number One fan Stephen King.

The horrorscribe gets in with the retaliation first about tribute albums saying such affairs are usually just an occasion for recording artists to cover songs they could not have thought up in their wildest dreams.

But that, in fact, is the odd charm of the better parts of this. It doesn't start with a "1-2-3-4" three-chord roar, but Red Hot Chili Peppers bending Havana Affair into their own sinewy style. Down the end, Tom Waits' version of Return of Jackie & Judy is pure death-rattle'n'roll.

Along the way U2 show they can do a song in under three minutes with a pouty Beat on the Brat, while American unknowns Rooney out-U2 them on a ponderous Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.

Metallica offer a grunting garage-barrage on 53rd & 3rd, while Cali-punk outfits Green Day, Rancid and the Offspring quickstep through predictably fuzzy takes on Outsider, Sheena is a Punk Rocker, and I Wanna be Sedated respectively.

Tribute-album tart Chrissie Hynde finds the sensitive underside to Something to Believe in, while Shirley Manson and Garbage's I Just Wanna Have Something to Do sounds like what might have happened had Debbie Harry subbed for Joey at New York's CBGB club one night back in 1977.

Eddie Vedder and backers Zeke, who sound suspiciously like Pearl Jam, offer up two covers (one a bonus track) with I Believe in Miracles and Daytime Dilemma, the earnest latter of the pair unintentionally posing the question: Gee, who died?

Marilyn Manson drags The KKK Took My Baby Away into his Hollywood wax museum of tacky terror. But funnier still is team captain Zombies' industrial-glam take Blitzkrieg Bop (hey, whatever did happen to that Andrew WK guy?) and Kiss asking Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? with extended tongue nowhere near cheek.

Some tracks are indeed enough to invoke those post-mortem subterranean rpms, but mostly We're a Happy Family entertains and salutes in equal measure, with its valiant attempts at tapping into the group's fundamentals: simple tunes, ferocious energy, high volume.

Label: Columbia