Stranger Than Fiction
Bad Religion, one of the last bands you'd expect to join the ranks of  major-label rockers, makes the leap from its own Epitaph Records to Atlantic for  its eighth album,Stranger Than Fiction. The quintet doesn't compromise  its integrity or its aesthetics, delivering its familiar Ramones-style pop songs  at crash-and-burn tempos and continuing to rail against business as usual in  corporate America. (The band's social critiques have always been a cut above the  average hardcore punk's, as befits a group led by a vocalist pursuing his PhD at  Cornell.) Especially effective is the opening track, "Incomplete,"  which features guest guitar by Wayne Kramer of the MC5.--Jim DeRogatis