YOU'LL BE THE SORTER

So... when did this Syd Barrett documentary DVD come out again? Is it even out in the states? Hm. They might've snuck it out when I wasn't looking. It was 48 minutes of pure dopeness, in 5.1 surround sound. I was kind of afraid they were gonna 'go there'. Y'know, track down Ole Syd & jab a mic under his nose & scare the fuck out of him. So I'm glad they didn't. Very relieved. The extras were cool but had nothing to do with Syd as such. David Gilmour seems like a likable enough fellow, Roger Waters too. I just can't fucking stand listening to anything they did without Syd. I have issues, yes. Yes. Clearly. But, having Gilmour explain the genesis of "Wish You Were Here" while strumming an acoustic is as close as I'll ever get to appreciating that era of music. The rest - Syd fucking rocks. I've never seen most of the old footage of him. And the interview with him talking about why they played so loudly was coolness too. I'm going to check out the Nick Drake doc next.

What else. I'm very fucking psyched that Thomas Dolby and Celtic Frost will both be touring this year & playing semi-close to me. It'll still be at least a 2 hour drive but...beyond worth it. I've loved Dolby since 83 and Frost since 85, bought all of their records, etc etc etc, and haven't seen either in concert before. Last summer I saw DEVO & KISS. This will be a nice continuation of that. And hopefully next summer I'll see XTC and.... Levitation?



ATREYU
A DEATH GRIP ON YESTERDAY
Modern melodic metal. Downtuned, chugging riffs, vocals like Opeth/Lamb of God - ie tuneless fake screaming - alternated with big choruses and 'clean' vocals. Okay I guess for what it is. I like the ingredients but I don't like the cake.

CAROLINE
MURMURS
"Bicycle" = slow orchestral swells & reversed piano hits. And twee little female vocatilities. Doesn't build up much past that beyond a mucked-with drum thing. Which, hey, this is just like a bland version of Mum. I object. "Pink & Black" = more of the same only it builds up into something resembling a pop song with lots of soncially-perfect backing vocals. "Sunrise" continues the metaphor. I mean you could certainly do worse than ripping off Mum, but I guess I'd still rather just listen to the original if all they're going to do is smooth everything out.

BRIGHTWOOD
THE LOVE ANTIDOTE EP
How do I keep getting this shit? I guess this would be American emo? With Radiohead/Flaming Lips style shifts in dynamics. The vocal harmonies, eugh. Then the syncopated death-metal chugging large chord bit kicks in. Lyrics about never falling in love again & a kind of ballad-y vibe across the board. Ooh, so original. Quiet synthy verses and large, chugged-out choruses. Again - nice ingredients, foul cake.


CHICK COREA
THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE
Seriously? Me & Chick both went to Berklee. And yet, to this day, I don't think I've ever listened to any of his music outside of my jazz history class. I don't have anything against it - unlike, say, Louis Armstrong or Billie Holiday, who both get on my nerves. So. How to describe this. "Three Ghouls Part 1" is 90 seconds of fleeing piano/flute themes with drum and maybe bass counterpoint. See, I used a big word there because I'm trying to look cool. "Three Ghouls Part 2", another organ/keyboard melody with drumming behind it. And percussion. "Three Ghouls Part 3" gets a little funkier. I dunno, I'm not saying this is 'timeless', exactly, but it could've come out at any point in the last 35 years. Nor 'classic' because I don't know what that would even entail. I'm just saying this isn't horrible. "City of Brass" sounds like some hand cymbals and tabla along with the unison piano/synth/organ/flute melodies. Sweet pentatonics. Another big word. This might be an around the world in 80 minutes kind of thing, noting titles like "Moseb the Executioner" parts 1-3 (part 3 is fun-keh!), "Flight from Karoof" parts 1-2, "Arabian Nights" in 2 parts, etc. And I've already used too many words. Maybe a nice companion to the Salman Rushdie book of your choice. Tough pick, I don't know what my choice would be. I like them all.

CASSETTE
WELCOME BACK TO EARTH
Starts with thee old test tones from a late 1980s EMI audio cassette before the music. Then...slight little acoustic guitar & dude singing. Until the loud bit kicks in. But it's still only piano, acoustic guitar, drums and bass gweetar. So it's not like it's a wall of destruction or anything. More like yer Coldplay, yer David Gray, yer lame & wimpy corporate rock with forced indie overtones. And a cover of "Pump it Up" at the end.


DEV2.0
DEV2.0
Weeeeellll, here's the one I've all been waiting for. I guess. DEVO outsources its own tribute act in the form of a Disney-sponsored kiddie group. How will the cynicism, sarcasm and even innuendo come across (geddit) when played by pre-teens? It doesn't sound like a recipe for success, exactly, does it. And yet this thing features the first new DEVO songs in about 250 years. Might as well cue this sombitch up. Do any of these kids know what they're doing? Will they remember this shit in 10 years? Will anyone? Is this just the latest failed attempt for DEVO to recontextualize itself in a current, modern format (ie - CD-Rom! Video game! Laser Disc! Probably a few 8-tracks in there as well!)? I mean, I grew up listening to "Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth," and look at me now. Note-perfect DEVO covers, then. The drumming does sound like a little kid playing. But everything else is fine. The girl singing? Hm. On the one hand I can just enjoy the different-but-sameness of this whole ordeal, but on the other hand it's just weird. And frankly pointless. DEVO albums are already perfection. "Peek a Boo" sounds like an actual kid's song in this context. Is that the idea? "Boy U Want"? Ah, they changed the lyrics. Okay. "Uncontrollable Urge" in unchanged. And frankly weird. But now it's about a 'snack attack'. Then the big news of the album, "Cyclops" and "The Winner". The first one is a v. nice death/doom synth riff. About a nerd at school with one eye? That's not very nice! Ha. I'd still rather hear Mark singing here. "The Winner" sounds vintage, like an outtake from 'Freedom of Choice'. Maybe it is, who knows. Nice. Too bad about the little girl singing. "Girl U Want" is the bonus track. Okay. & hopefully Jihad Jerry & The Evildoers will have a full album out soon. The preview trax on the web are inconclusive.


COWBOY MOUTH
VOODOO SHOPPE
Um, this is confusing. It's corporate 'punk rock', which should set off warning bells somewhere. The dude's voice is low enough that he's obviously not 20 years old anymore. I thought this kind of music was for and by upper middle class kids. Last fall when I was in Canada & had nothing to do but go to the mall every day for a week, this is the kind of shit I heard in all the music stores.

CATACOMBS
IN THE DEPTHS OF R'LYEH
Now yer talkin'. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMAAAAAHHHGHGHGHHGHHHH!! The title track opens this joint and it's slow as fuck. The vocalist growls like crazy. Which gets annoying pretty quickly. His tuneless wheeze subtracts from the gloriousness of the oppressiveness of the darkness of the blackness, y'know? "Dead Dripping City" = 16 min of the same. And is that a drum machine? If so, I retract most of what I just said. With a different singer this might be godly. As it is it's just kinda stale. Which is a pity because I love good doom.


ENNIO MORRICONE
LOVE THEMES
Uhm. I don't know shit about any of this. I know even less about movies. It sounds like love themes from movies. There ya go.

DISMEMBER
THE GOD THAT NEVER WAS
Okay. I kind of speak this language. Brutal death metal with vocals you can almost understand. American death metal with good production. Which doesn't always add up, y'know. Sometimes it should be brutal & unpleasant. Not all smoothed-out. I'm not sure about the...double tracked vocals, where the guy seems to be finishing his own sentences every other verse. Or is that just his style? I don't know. They slow it down a few times toward the end. Eh. I can take it or leave it.

FOG
LUST
Generic instrumental techno dance trance booty music. At least they don't fuck it up by employing a shitty vocalist. "Under Pressure" = not a Bowie/Queen cover. Or even a Vanilla Ice cover.

GOLGOTHA
ICARUS EP
Half an hour of darkly quiet atmospherics. The "orchid mix featuring Ildiko" adds acoustic guitar and out-of-tune dude singing. It adds while detracting. "Icarus Fallen" is 8 min of ghoulish, trancey atmospherics. With hand percussion. It sounds like the end of a pow-wow. "Icarus Law" is back to the shitty singer. But the worst is saved for the end. A dude singing like he thinks he's Brendan Perry or even the guy from Eden. But he sounds like Don Knotts (RIP).


HEADBANGER
EVIL NEVER DIES 12"
People still like this? I thought this shit never really caught on? It's.. aggressive techno with distorted everything and metallic overtones. Harsh, uptempo, 4-on-the-floor. Gabber? "Big MF Tits" just adds Andrew Dice Clay samples. It's monotonous and I've never seen anyone bang their heads to techno.

BROKEN FAMILY BAND
BALLS
Nice wacky lyrics. You zany corporate indie rockers are so fucking funny.

JEL
SOFT MONEY
Oooh, purdy. Beats! Weird samples, just like they useta do 'em. Freaked out synths and sexy fucking bass sounds. Hell yeah. I'm in. Who's she singin' on "All Around"? She sounds familiar. I like this.

KETTLES
KETTLES
10 seconds into the first song and it already sounds like a credit card commercial. I can't say it really redeems itself after that. Fucking emo queefs.

MINISTRY
RIO GRANDE BLOOD
I haven't gotten into Ministry since the 80s. The title track is first, it samples the prez to make him state the obvious about being a weapon. Then... it's yer old grampas and their patented electro-thrash. Riffs are good. Double-kick drum bit is good. Screaming chorus, sure, why not. Is "Senor Peligro" about the Dead Kennedys's drummer? Oh nice, sneaky 'mosh' part there. I mean that in the good way. Okay, this rules. And "Ass Clown" features an actual Dead Kennedys member, Jello Biafra. Which almost makes this a LARD reunion, dunnit. Just the one track. Good god, everything is distorted! "Kyber Pass" is the long slow ghouly one at the end. With the chick singer. Just like I remember, sort of. Almost.

NAKED TOURIST
MAD DIFFERENT METHODS
Mildly tedious techno/trance/dance with aggressiveness. Kind of like an hour-long Skinny Puppy remix.

SMACKY
SMACKY
Nice name. Too bad about the music = pointlessly by-the-book rock with absolutely nothing to call its own. Playing it straight, fine, but to the point of pointlessness. The song titles tell the story - 'Your Suicide', 'I Remember', 'Regret and Sympathy', played like fucking John Mellencamp or something. I mean, who the hell cares? Irredeemably faceless.



THE GATHERING
HOME
Not bad but not amazing. Reminds me of Garbage. Pop music.

THE KNIFE
SILENT SHOUT
Straightforward techno pop. Like a piss-take of the great synthetic pop music of the early 1980s. Or 'homage', whatever. Same thing. Oh, wait, there's a stupidly effected vocal track on "The Captain". Hm. "We Share Our Mother's Health" is cool pop like...shit, M.I.A. ! Nice. Don't forget, that was my summer jam last year. So is The Knife the summa scumma for the oh-sicks? Could be. Could be. Or maybe it's just so twee & obvious that it just grates. It's too soon to tell.

THE CHARLATANS
SIMPATICO
So, these guys are like the elder statesmen now aren't they. Hm. Strange to think that they're the only ones still running out of that awesome fucking pack of Madchester bands. The singer still sounds like the guy from the Stone Roses to me. Songs? These? These songs? I can't say they bear repeating. The first track reminds me of Richard Ashcroft. Ooh, the "NYC" one kicks in some Jamiroquoi disco shit. Which, I don't know. They probably think they sound like the Beastie Boys. And "For Your Entertainment" is the worst reggae parody I've heard in a long time. Egad. Oh wait, they do another with the closer, "Sunset and Vine". The rest just sounds like everything else in the UK top 40 - acoustic guitars, live drums, dark atmos and not a tune to be found.

THE LOVED ONES
KEEP YOUR HEART
Well, sure, why not end on a down note. "Suture Self" = good song title. Pity about the music. WORLD: ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING POP PUNK ALREADY.

THE DAMNED
MACHINE GUN ETIQUETTE
Hey, how did that get in there? This is how it should be done. Energy, spite, and tunes for miles. This is the only classic Damned album I still don't actually own, so some of these tracks are new to me. Like "These Hands". wow. So, my revised message to the world is this. Smoke up on "Love Song", "I Just Can't Be Happy Today," "Melody Lee," and "Anti Pope". Sure, it sounds like 34 cent White Castle fart, but that's why it fucking rules. After all, I got nothing against church, only the people who go there. Co-written by Sensible's brother. Fact.