Screw this Malkmus hoo-ha: Buffalo Tom are rock's greatest slackers. Where the leading lights of the indie rock nation have to affect an air of triumphant boredom so they can conceal their true colors as solo-ridden guitar-god aspirants Buffalo Tom: 1) named themselves after their drummer and Neil Young's first band because it'd have been too much trouble to come up with anything really new; 2) played assorted variations on the strummy post-pop that filled collegiate airwaves throughout the 1980s because innovation is overrated; and 3) wrote sharply observed conversational lyrics because it was too hard to be obscure.

Score one for the losers. The band's albums, of course, were spotty affairs at best-- noise-tune gems riddled with poorly thought-out throwaways. But when distilled to their "hits," they're actually revealed to be a mighty, mighty singles band. A-Sides arranges the songs by tone rather than chronology, and not surprisingly, ends up as their greatest album.

Singer, guitarist and principle songwriter Bill Janovitz isn't abashed about his influences on these tracks. In the liner notes, he cops to the Stones' ballads, Dinosaur, Hüsker Dü and... Aerosmith. From the classic rock side, the band learned how to demonstrate soul and use an acoustic guitar, while picking up the concept of gain-to-11 distortion from their more contemporary ascendants.

The best songs on A-Sides play that tension perfectly. "I'm Allowed" builds from bluesy, haunted verses into ragged-throated blare. Despite the liner notes' anxiety about the song, Buffalo Tom's early epic "Larry" masses countryish strumming and punkish fury. And even a baldly imitative sketch like "Birdbrain" works, thanks to its wealth of powerful hooks. Unlike their better-respected peers and descendents, the band was unafraid of the obvious guilty pleasure, instead exploiting their innate melodic smarts and direct approach to bring it all home.

The most pleasant surprise here is the consistency. Where watching the slow, sorry flameout of Dinosaur or Hüsker's too-quick self-destruct was saddening and obvious, a late-date Buffalo Tom single like "Summer" rings with just as much sincerity and care as the tentative classic "Taillights Fade." Because the band, completely unconcerned about coolness or timeliness or complexity, is willing to give up the goods over and over again, the Tom-ist agenda remains as fresh today as it was ten years ago.

-Sam Eccleston