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Making good retro-rock is difficult; there's a fine line between wearing your influences on your sleeve and simply being unoriginal hacks. The sadly departed Jayhawks managed it with a flourish, creating a country-rock jangle that paid homage to Neil Young and Tom Petty while forging a modern sound that earned them much-deserved college credibility. Crossed Wire try to pull this off too, and end up sounding like a bunch of guys trying really hard to sound like Neil Young and Tom Petty.

That's not to say "Arrival Time" is a complete loss. The stripped-down sensibility and classic rock production yield a few semi-gems: "Winter Song" is wonderfully weepy, and "Empty Page" shows great pop-songwriting instincts. Most of all, the album closer, "Secret," is a wistfully sentimental tune with genuine personality.

Unfortunately, most of the album is bogged down in a morass of tired clichés and recycled hooks, never evolving from its all-too-obvious roots. You're left shaking your head after virtually every song, wondering which moldy '70s nugget was slightly reworked to avoid copyright infringement.

Sure, you could pick up "Arrival Time" and hear how some visionless throwbacks somehow managed to get a record contract. Then again, if there's still a radio station that hasn't been reformatted to "alternative," you could check that out instead. It's wonderful when new bands haven't forgotten their roots, but they need some new branches, too.