The Combine Pilots are a good band, solid musicians all, and Wayne Noyce can sing, so I wish I could agree with the title of Wayne Noyce & the Combine Pilots' CD. But, unfortunately, it's not all good. It's not all bad, either. It's mostly just OK. The CD is competent, well-produced and provides a good showcase of where the band is at this moment.

And where they are is in need of a good songwriter and an imaginative producer. For example, "Sunglasses & Seatbelts" is about a girl who goes to L.A., gets disillusioned and comes home again, while "Rear View Mirror" is a breakup song. We've got love songs, tributes to good love, complaints about love gone bad and, while you can't say the songs are bad, what you can say is that the Nashville machine pumps out hundreds of songs like these every day: competent, skilled and instantly familiar.

Listening to Wayne Noyce & the Combine Pilots, I kept wondering who they were, what their own unique identity was. I kept searching for the touch of magic that would set them apart from dozens of other regional country-rock bands. I'm sure the spark of orginality is in there but so far it hasn't emerged.

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