The Frisk's second album sounds like the East Bay, California, band has been listening to a lot of early Redd Kross and Circle Jerks albums: a similar blend of snotty but entertaining humor, semi-ironic hard rock riffing, and conceptual giggles prevails here. Songs like "Meat's Meat and a Man's Gotta Eat" and the snarky but rocking "Down By the Beautiful Bay" have killer choruses, and the gleefully self-mythologizing "We Are the Frisk" is the best song of its type since "This Is Radio Clash." Best of all are the four numbered songs called "Demand," four minute-long solo tracks on which each member of the band gets to indulge his goofy experimental side, like a miniaturized version of the four Kiss solo albums. Silly but occasionally surprisingly pointed -- "Small Town Myopia" and "Survey Says" have the jaundiced edge of the early Clash -- Audio Ransom Note is entirely entertaining. ~ Stewart Mason