Even the best multi-band compilations tend to take the listener on a bumpy ride through various styles, textures and volume levels.

		REGIME CHANGE CD RELEASE PARTY With: Vale and Year, Kevin Finn and the Skinks. Where: Garfield Artworks, Garfield/Friendship. When: 8 p.m. Friday. Admission: $5; all ages.

"Regime Change: Thirteen Tales From the Pennsylvania Southwest" is an exception to that rule, a record that can almost (almost) fool you into thinking it's one seamless album by a band with a number of talented frontmen.

"Regime Change" is the handiwork of producer Bill McAdams, proprietor of Teen Regime Records and guitarist for The Hi-Frequencies. It came partly out of his frustration with finding a studio with vintage analog equipment and "a real understanding of '60s production aesthetics." McAdams started constructing a home studio on his 25 acres in Ohio Township and would later venture into full-blown commercial facility.

First, though, he would experiment with some of his favorite local bands and, thus, "Regime Change" was forged. McAdams says the tone was set by his first two projects, the Neil Young-inspired faraway folk of Kevin Finn and a delicate acoustic song, in the Nick Drake vein, by Lonely Planet Boy.

Not all of "Regime Change" is in that mode, but this is clearly a Pittsburgh sound that's more indie-pop/indie-folk than anything else. It has the perfect opening: We're Wolves with its offbeat piece of Chamber (of Commerce) pop, "Welcome to the Childhood Home of Andy Warhol and Dan Marino."

It moves on to an A-list of acts like Vale and Year, the Hope-Harveys, Boxstep, the Working Poor and the Breakup Society, mostly turning down the volume and turning up the warmth on songs specially cut for this collection.

"One of my complaints with comps that come out, even back the '80s, is they don't hold together as an album," McAdams says. "You might buy it for a couple tracks you like, but you don't sit down and listen to it from start to finish, and it might not get you into the other bands."

The title of the record reflected a few of the songs, like Finn's "Gray Machinery" and Chris Cannon's Lennon-esque anti-war song "Battlefields." But, despite the name, we're not talking about anything resembling "Rock Against Bush."

"The songs, they don't have any kind of common thread, they just work together," McAdams says. "I worked with the sequencing to make sure it wasn't too jarring. I would say that it is a diverse group of bands, and we're taking that diverse group of bands and finding commonality."

Teen Regime celebrates "Regime Change" with a CD release party Friday at Garfield Artworks.