Jason Falkner established his pop credentials as guitarist with the briefly fashionable San Francisco-based Jellyfish. He brings a similar musical sensibility to Author Unknown, balancing 1980s American new wave and 1960s British pop while dispensing with the spangled flares and silly hats his former group favored. Such modesty is his solo debut´s greatest strength and weakness. Falkner is a capable singer and a proficient songsmith, and the better moments here, such as "I Go Astray" and "She Goes to Bed," evoke fond recollections of the first Smithereens album. Unfortunately, too much of the rest of the record errs on the side of earnestness. A little of the gaudy exuberance of Jellyfish´s "The King Is Half Undressed," for example, would have been welcome.