* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> , * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> , * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> , * <i> Running on Empty</i> : AIRY ‘N’ EERIE

* * “MIRAGE.” Meat Puppets. SST. Solid ‘n’ spacey. This fourth LP from the Arizona-based trio sports a suitably original sound found somewhere between the insane side of Neil Young and the sane side of R.E.M. “Mirage” sustains this splendidly off-balance mood throughout and contains not a single song likely to be re-recorded at any time in the future.

Nevertheless, the Meat Puppets’ patented brand of neo-country rock remains as warm as a psilocybin sunrise: airy ‘n’ eerie, parched ‘n’ archly humorous as Curt Kirkwood’s gleeful go-kart-ride-through-hell guitar solo on “Liquefied”--a journey to the center of the mind that’s the album’s lone throwback to the band’s hard-core beginnings.

Although a list of additional, more representative highlights would include the title track, the flash ‘n’ filigree fretwork on the instant classic (just add water) “I Am a Machine” and the folky, funky, almost Zeppelinesque “Leaves,” the album’s major drawback is the way-back placement of Derrick Bostrom’s drums in the mix, a move that virtually guarantees the Meats no more than alternative radio $ucce$$. As if anyone who makes an album this out-in-the-tumbleweeds really cares about that.