"It's not our job to sell records," states soft-spoken Lit front man A. Jay Popoff. "Our job is to write good songs and kick butt live. If we're not doing that we've failed."

On their new self-titled fourth CD, this quartet has not only done their job ? they might just be due a promotion. They've delivered a stellar 13-song disc, full of personal, passionate and diverse songs, without a thought to trends. Of course, Lit can't seem to stop selling records either, starting the wining streak with 1999's major-label debut, A Place In The Sun, yielding the smash singles "My Own Worst Enemy," which held the #1 position for three months, and received a Billboard Music Award for the biggest Modern Rock Song of 1999, "Ziplock" (#11) and "Miserable," which was among the top 10 most played songs of 2000 and featured Pamela Anderson in the video. Two other CDs, 1997's Tripping the Light Fantastic, and 2001's Atomic, which spawned another top 10 hit with "Lipstick & Bruises," platinum sales, world tours and videos as clever as the band's witty lyrics cemented Lit's deserved success. Circa 2004, with the release of Lit and the first single "Looks Like They Were Right," the band has broken from the past in nearly every way.

The Orange County, California-based lineup of A. Jay on vocals, Jeremy on guitars, Kevin Baldes on bass, and Allen Shellenberger on drums, together nearly 15 years, have in their own manner, begun anew with Lit. Now on Nitrus/DRT/Dirty Martini Recordings after a productive stint with RCA, the band produced Lit themselves, and did it, to paraphrase Sinatra, "their way," as Jeremy explains: "We went back to our warehouse in Anaheim, feeling free, jamming, for the reasons we started playing in the first place. No deadlines, no expectations, and no one polluting the process; just getting together to have fun and write songs. That said, this record is a little more serious than our others," furthers the axeman. With songs like "Bulletproof," about a friend who committed suicide, and "Lullaby," a song written for his son, "there's not whole lot of ?tongue-in-cheek going' on."

The new disc possesses everything that made and makes Lit great. From the bouncy musicality and self-directed jab that is "Looks Like They Were Right," to the heaviness and major choruses of "Too Fast For A U Turn," to the irresistible, musically innocent "Forever Begins Right Now," with it's musical nod to Elvis Costello, Lit have created a musical and lyrical time capsule of their past couple years.

As the band reflects on Lit and what went into the making of the album, it's clear they dug deep without coming too close to the bottom. "This business can chew you up and spit you out, and it's all a matter of how you come out on the other side," muses Jeremy. "Sometimes you come out on the other side stronger , and ready to kickbutt. In a way, any hardships of the last few years brought the band closer together, because although we never questioned the future of the band, it gave us a chance to rethink the process." And though Lit ends with the sorrowfully inspired "Bulletproof," the song and CD itself ends with rousing hope (and a nod to Cheap Trick), as the band intones "here we are/we're all right."

And in Lit's case they're better than all right.