he "shred" craze in the '80s caused a backlash with a lot of guitarists in the '90s. With the arrival of non-technical, noise mongers such as Nirvana's Kurt Cobain or Green Day's Billy Joe, suddenly it was cool to suck at the guitar. Well, just about as fast as Yngwie Malmsteen can whip off a self gratifying arpeggio, music fans are swinging back to the sounds of people who can actually play. Enter Tonic. On their Polydor Records debut Lemon Parade, lead guitarist Jeff Russo and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Emerson Hart nail a perfectly happy medium between the respective schools of shred and noise. There's plenty of alterna-rock angst going on here, but a definite Zeppelin influence is also apparent, as is a more poppy early '80s side, maybe a little like The Cars. The record starts out strong with "Open Up Your Eyes," the hard hitting single. The moody and acoustic groove-laden track "If You Could Only See" is definitely this reviewer's favorite track, as it caused an immediate craving for repeated listening. From a guitarist's point of view, what is interesting about Tonic is that Hart plays a piezo pickup Chet Atkins SST almost exclusively. But he runs it through mega distortion compliments of several cascading preamps. He also uses a lot of weird tunings. I listened really hard, curious as to how such a unorthodox approach might sound. Truthfully, there are so many cool guitar textures weaving in and out of the mix, that's it's hard to recognize. It all just sounds like great guitar rock to me. Anyway, when you pop in Lemon Parade for the first time, go to "Thick," the seventh track. As the curiously Robert Plant-like vocal melody floats in through the speakers, you can face the houses of the holy and pray to the hammer of the gods in thanks for relief from grunge.