This is NOT a Dane Cook comedy album. It is a modern rock sampler.

That is really what you need to know about this project. I expected that, as one of the most popular comics working today, Cook would have included some of his more famous or newer bits into this project, interspersed with music from the Tourgasm.

I expected wrong. This is a sampler of 12 rock songs, alternated with very short snippets of dialogue from the tour. They are not comedy bits; they are like jokey asides, or phone calls, or stuff like Cook pouring water on a fellow comedian's taxes and saying "This is not Taxgasm." Har har.

Now, I do enjoy Cook very much. He brought a working man's sensibility to the business, starting a following on MySpace and growing it from there. Anyone who saw his special on HBO last year can attest to how popular he has become and how funny he is, which is why this project is such a letdown.

So with the "comedy" bits thrown out, the listener is left with a dozen rock songs, some of which are quite good, including My Rich Friends' "Everything You Wanted" and Truepenny's "Straight To Video." Tandemoro turns in a chilled-out tune called "The Movers & The Shakers" that sounds a little bit like Sugar Ray and Sublime meet the Violent Femmes, while "Don't Lie Down" by Jealousy Curve updates the Stone Temple Pilots for the My Chemical Romance crowd.

Ride the Blinds goes back in time for a bluesy classic rock sound on "Got To Get It," which sounds almost like the early Stones, and it's a relief to hear bands still using this music for inspiration. I'm so grateful to hear a series of guitar solos in sone song, I dare to call this the best song on here. The Black Angles even use a harmonica (!) in what sounds like a Stooges throwback song in "Bloodhounds On My Trail;" it's better than Mateo Denali's rather boring ska/reggae mix "What I Give" or ColdFusion's "On My Own," which is generic nu-metal that has been done to death.

The set closes, after Cook's tribute to his fans, with the instrumental and mandolin-driven "First Lullaby" by The Angel/Devil, lending an air of hope to the proceedings. But it's not enough to salvage what feels like a superfinger given to Cook fans by Rhino. As a comedy/Dane Cook album or a snapshot of the Tourgasm, this is a miserable failure. But as a sampler of up and coming rock bands, it's actually quite a good listen. Shame on Rhino, though, for not marketing it as such.

Rating: C

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