Reviews of two new releases   Various Artists An Ocean of Doubt: The Emo Diaries, Chapter Four Deep Elm You know it if you know: the Promise Ring, sensitive guys and indie chicks What the hell happened to emo? Brandishing guitars like scalpels, emocore operators like Rites of Spring, Fugazi and Thirty Ought Six once performed sonic open-heart surgery. Hitting real blood and guts, it was punk for thinking/feeling types, the "revenge of the sensitive." Somewhere between '88 and '98, however, dissonant post-harDCore was replaced by the whines of cardigan-wearing wimps who never got over Mary Beth Lemaître ignoring the notes they passed her in sophomore-year home-ec class. Emocore lived and died on the strength of its convictions; from the sound of albums like this compilation, "emo" has neither strength nor conviction. These boys are just power-pop prisses minus the power, pimply indie kids whose greatest life trauma was the death of their kittykat Jasper or their embarrassing performance or the time that bully knocked 'em down and stole their five-speed. So I guess it's not surprising just how blah the latest entry in the supposedly soul-baring Emo Diaries series is. Five Speed (what did I just tell you about the goddamn bike thing?) starts off tolerably, amping up a decently distorted anthem with melodic shouts and muscular chords. But from there, the album degenerates into jangle-and-cry juvenilia. You can practically see broken-heart doodles lining the margins of the lyric sheets. Moments of genuine pathos are outweighed by the tedium of hearing a dozen dorky white guys whimper to fellow collegians about their inability to get laid. Or maybe that explains the whole neo-emo shebang. Perchance it's a scam to help the lonesome lads pick up some semi-punk, ballchain necklace chicks. I definitely hope it works for 'em--that way they can stop making Velveeta-pop compilations like this one. Chin up, boys. John Graham     Various Artists Deep Roots 3: The Troutdale Poetry Experiment Self-released Of Related Interest: A Catcher in the Rye As a recovered teenage poetess, I hope that if God ever punishes me by sending me back to the Darwinian realm of secondary education, I end up in Chris Gragg's senior English class at Reynolds High School. For the third year running, Gragg's students have written lyrics, then handed them over to a fine and generally well-known legion of local musicians from a wide spectrum of genres. Sixteen songs make up Deep Roots 3, and like most projects involving a multitude of musicians, some are quite good. And others? Well--nice try, but no glory. The best of the bunch happens to be the first song on the album, the upbeat and Teenage Fanclubesque "Shaggyman," performed by Luther Russell. Other highlights include Pete Krebs' intimate delivery of "Every Smile," Fernando's spooky, waltzlike "Always Reminded" and the Redeemers' soulful "Taken for Granted." The majority of the songs sound very natural, as though the poet and the musician collaborated throughout the entire process. The wet-behind-the-ears poets should be pleased. As for the musicians, hell--they found a crop of folks to write the kind of questioning and affirming lyrics only young adults are truly capable of. Alyssa Isenstein