**1/2 Tsar

4

(Hollywood)

Tsar may play really loud guitars, but the LA-based band have as much in common with 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys as they do with Slade and the Sweet. After all, the LA-based foursome have pin-up good looks, and their songs are populist anthems that draw on the larger-than-life power of glam's rock-and-roll fantasy. "Calling All Destroyers," "I Don't Wanna Break Up," and "Kathy Fong Is the Bomb" feature that distinctive Mick Ronson-era David Bowie guitar sound, from the watery, sustained leads to the warm and thick rhythm tones. And they're packed with arena-ready choruses and chant-along breakdowns. "The Teen Wizards" is a glittery power ballad whose peaks bring to mind the glory days of Poison. "Ordinary Gurl" is the only real mistake -- it's simply too derivative of Bowie's "Major Tom," Duran Duran's "Ordinary World," and, well, the entire Oasis catalogue. And "Afraid, Pt. One & Pt. Two" raises too many spandex memories with its overload of strangled guitars and bland Zep-style riffage. But 4 isn't a bad start for a bunch of stardust upstarts.

-- Lorne Behrman

(Tsar open for Marvelous 3 and SR-71 this Wednesday, September 27, at Axis. Call 423-NEXT.)