How can a CD created to generate money for our (un)fair city’s plight be criticized? It would be safer to just give you reasons to purchase the Sounds Below Sea Level compilation of bands “representing 25-years of New Orleans underground music,” quoth the liner-notes. Egg Yolk Jubilee donates “Dozena Huevos,” one of its typically frisky, humorous, Zappa-esque compositions. The Zydepunks weigh-in with “A Fistful of Oysters,” a slow, instrumental gypsy waltz that soon bursts into a boisterous dance number. And piano/drums/female vocal duo, A Particularly Vicious Rumor, do their stripped-down Fiona Apple thing on “Everything”. But otherwise, the CD could have been billed as “25-years of angular guitar rock.” Barring One-Man-Machine’s loopy, detuned Negro spiritual/spoken-word piece “Chinatown” (which also revolves around guitar), Sounds Below Sea Level completely overlooks New Orleans’ weird electronic renaissance — Glorybee, Quintron, Ballzack, etc. — in favor of oldies by long-gone guitar bands. Quirky, hyper Lump sounds ancient alongside newbies the Other Planets, despite the striking similarities of the bands’ styles. Burnversion’s “D-Trane” was recorded well to begin with and holds up nicely against the Hazard County Girls’ interesting, Joan Jett meets Lush track “Sonic”, but other selections sound as if they were recorded directly off of vinyl 45s. It might have been better to replace the oldies with cuts by the many new bands that Katrina herself broke up. Still, there’s enough good guitar music here — Morning 40 Federation’s ubiquitous “Gotta Nickel” and Rotary Downs’ stoic, psychedelic, “Holiday Home” both put interesting production spins on well-worn forms — to make Sounds Below Sea Level more than just a good cause. For more info visit: http://nolacomp.tripod.com/.