doooomed music reviews & junk blog

snowed-n PODCAST

2010-03-12T07:27:00.001-05:00

crazyfromthesnow
icystew: i see snow

56:41

ace frehley
snowblind

xtc
i sit in the snow

scritti politti
snow in sun

? you should know by now?

the cure
snow in summer

?

???

andy partridge
it's snowing angels

?

?

andy partridge
papersnow

?

nine horses

xtc
snowman

DOWNLOAD HERE

sterf

2009-12-31T15:33:00.001-05:00

TOP 2000s
Scritti Politti - White Bread Brown Beer
M.I.A. - Kala
Beastie Boys - To the Five Boroughs
Jesu - Conqueror
Nine Horses
Tracey Thorn
Simply Red - Stay
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Daysleepers
Duran Duran - Astronaut
Jack Dangers - Hello Friends
King Crimson - Construkction of Light

CONTENDERS, DEPENDING ON WHAT THEY DO NEXT, ie great releases but could still go tits-up
Fleet Foxes
Amy Winehouse - Back in Black
Ting Tings

STARTED STRONG, WENT TITS-UP
Doves
Editors
Sigur Ros

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS piles of wank
THE CURE
XTC
THE DAMNED
CELTIC FROST - Monotheist was useless, it was overcooked & didn't rock

i want bass!

2008-11-20T09:43:00.000-05:00

nice, someone uploaded a soundboard bootleg of the cocteau twins concert at the newport in columbus from 1985 which was featured in that youtube clip. hot diggity gott damnation, if the recording is half as hottttttt as the 3/4 profile shot of liz fraser doing her thang onstage was, then we's in for a fuck-treat of large proportions. NEATO MOSQUITO. i love the internet.

---

ztt, one of the raddest (& still intriguing) record labels from the 80s, has been uploading tons of vintage-but-still-brand-new-to-most-of-the-world music videos to their youtube station.

radd3st by far is the stack of 808 state jointz, which illustrate how ahead of their game the group & the label were. which still rock the house & still get thine arsez moving & still make ya think. not content with merely moving arsez, 808 wuz/is the thinking mans' bit of dancefloor crumpet, or some shit.

808 State "Lift"

i want bass!

crimson plus peruvian shoegaze

2008-11-13T11:02:00.001-05:00

finally listened to the King Crimson gig in chicago from august 2008, their first run with the addition of gavin harrison on drums. the lineup is very odd & it probably shouldn't have been so shocking that the mix of the show was mostly drums. two drummers! & gavin harrison is the double bass maestro so there's quite a bit of that for the first time in king crimson. i'm not sure how i feel about it, to be honest.

the setlist was entirely golden oldies, which were mostly merely adequate. adrian belew's voice sounded a bit rough in some spots.... but hearing 'sleepless' in the set for the first time in forever was interesting. also interesting that even though tony levin is the only bassist in the current lineup, and 'sleepless' was his iconic bass riff, it was mostly absent from the live version. hmmmmmm. 'three of a perfect pair' is always cool. 'neurotica' kind of half cool, half annoying, same with 'thela hun ginjeet.' didn't care for 'frame by frame' at ALL! 'indiscipline' was mostly pointless since the dynamics were kind of flattened out by either the nonstop drum solos or the 'powerful eq' setting on my car stereo, not sure which. but now i am curious to reinvestigate the band Porcupine Tree since gavin harrison is in king crimson.

ALSO:
random search on 'shoegaze' & this 2008 joint by Resplandor came up, produced by Robin Guthrie. a peruvian (it says here) shoegaze band that formed in early 1996. y'know, we should've all formed a peruvian shoegaze band in early 1996. anyway, Resplandor is nice but it's not instant/permachub like The Daysleepers was/were/is/always will be.

Here's another Resplandor track, live, with bigboy Guthrie sitting in (playing a Fender Jazzmaster guitar, very nice!).

tooth house and eau ate

2008-11-09T09:06:00.001-05:00

TOP ALBUMS OF 2008
Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
The Daysleepers - Drowned in a Sea of Sound
Wedding Present - El Rey
Jesu - Why Are We Not Perfect
The Cure - 4:13 Dream

TOP OLD ALBUM DISCOVERIES OF 2008
Scritti Politti - White Bread, Brown Beer
Wedding Present - discography
Wheat - Hope and Adams
Red House Painters - Old Ramon

TOP ALBUMS THAT SHOULDA SHOULDA BEEN IN 2008
Irreligion - Summer Exhumation EP
Devilcake - Halloween Binge live DVD/boxset
The Verdant Spiral - Organick
Drone Forest - mega:drone
Samarkand - live DVD/boxset

maybe next year, eh.

cocteau twins link action

2008-10-25T09:17:00.000-05:00

this is just weird!

cocteau twins receive an award, october 2008
someone on the cocteau forum said robin looks like he was in a duffle bag & liz looks like queen victoria's sister

this is just weird!

cocteau twins on channel 10, wbns at the newport, 1985.

newer robin guthrie blog

several songs by the literal offspring of cocteau twins

yawning fawnboy

2008-09-30T09:24:00.003-05:00

POINTLESS YOUTUBERY OF A FAWNING FANBOY
LICK this, the 1996 video by Red House Painters for their cover of the Cars song "All Mixed Up."

holy crap! I just watched it again & I know I just said holy crap but holy fucking crap, man! This video has it all. An extremely hot chick and an even hotter song! Damnation she's fine! Gott damn! etc.

Just noticed this ancient clip of XTC "this is pop" on a tv show introduced by Peter Cook. & naturally at the end he gets the band's name wrong. Hah.

& holy feack, why have I never even heard of this before?!??!!? it's a sickeningly literal music video for the stunningly pretentious, stunningly great, neil peart crossed with a pagan ritual in a library or something. Icicle Works "Love is a Wonderful Colour,"

I swallowed hard and listened, intently resigned
beside the glow
--
reality finds you fumbling for reason
when the chance comes round

etc.

& holy shit, I also didn't know this existed. a live clip of the awesome "Reaping the Richest Harvest", which features some nice over the shoulder camera work so ya's can see my man Chris Sharrock beating the living tits off his drums. HOLY SHIT!!!!! obviously you'll have to try to disregard the singer Ian McNabb who was already beginning to lose the plot by this point, sporting as he does a brown fringe jacket & a headset mic. Very ill-advised.

will i
subsequently fumble
through the reasons to be gained......

but then check out the bassist giving hell to the roto-toms in mid song

(clearly, the less said about this the better. and this. after that first album it all went pear-shaped.)

but gasp "as the dragonfly flies" live! in the pissing rain. Korgs in the rain, surely a great album title

------

Here's Prefab Sprout taking the piss out of The Boss with "Cars & Girls".

---
MIRANDA SEX GARDEN
I don't know why I thought to look this up, but there it is. The remix, anyway. The original was only like 90 seconds.

Here's a much better song, from those 2-3 years when they & everyone else in the world sounded like Levitation. Good times!

speaking of which, Levitation "Nadine" music video, another blueprint for my current preferred vision of dark, organic pop, check out the chick & that fucking horn part has always given my chub a chub. rock on! & the drumming, oh the drumming. Dave Francolini is like a caveman (ie savage, brutal) scientist behind the kit. I'm tellin' ya. This song is only 90 seconds & it KICKS FUCKING ASS!!!!! even though it came 8-10 years after the good icicle works shit it still seems v similar to me for whatever reason. same vibe, same spirit, if that's not too ghey a word to use.

enjoyment

2008-09-27T09:31:00.002-05:00

the past few mornings have given me a chance to digest some musics & to even recreate certain aspects myself. yesterday in the car i jammed like fuck to the Sundays, obviously, i finally got all 3 of their albums in mp3 form & had them on random play. sweet. add to that the 2008 stuff so far from the Cure, which includes new singles & a couple of remixes. i like the songs themselves a lot but at least one of the remixes sucks. today, this morning, i was back to the 'nu-misc' folder on the mp3 cd & fell in ear-love with the two songs by Windsor For The Derby. me neither. shit was pretty righteous this morning, they hit me with some old school dirgeyness but they added old style xtc drums & wires so it was just weird enough to make me go HOLY hot BAD F-WORD! there was another song in the nu-misc folder, i forget who it's by, but it sounded like Swans crossed with Beach Boys. It was power dirge, then a breakdown, then a 4-part a capella thing. It was weird. ... that was also Windsor For The Derby. So, well done, them.

ghouly halloween muzak

2008-09-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

last night on the ghouly halloween muzak at work, my ears exploded to the tones of....... one of the last songs i'd ever expect to hear at work, "shadow of love" by the Damned!

followed 90 min later by "lullaby" by the Cure.

if only they coulda worked in some xtc & kiss it would've been the best muzak set evar.

2008-09-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

jesu "why are we not perfect" ep is fucking excellent. i'm almost positive that ole justin k broadrick fleshyjesu got himself a old casio sk-5 toy sampler like mine. the way he uses loops & the loops he's using sound very familiar. plus there's this telltale xylophone tone. hah. i guess we'll know for sure if his next album features dog barking, laser machine gun & bongo hi/bongo lo. the new ep is full-on my bloody valentine worship, which is allllllllllll right with me. my bloody valentine meets red house painters. very obscure for most of the world, very bonerific for myself & my earholes.

it could be sweet, like a long forgotten dream

2008-09-11T09:45:00.001-05:00

yep, heard portishead "it could be sweet" on the muzak at work this morning. outrageous! in addition to hearing that one cocteau twins song numerous times at work..uhhhh, i think it's the one on 'heaven or las vegas' that comes after 'iceblink luck'.

i didn't care for "Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music" funny BBC radio show till the later episodes, which included many Morrissey jokes (& jokes about sad obsessive Smiths fans) & many many funny rock songs, including the one about being trapped in the airport, 'vodka & toblerone'. which, yeah. hey, there ya go. it's no 'cereal & beer' but it'll do.

Still crushing hard on the happy songs on "skylarking", the 3 good songs on "nonsvch", & maybe 1 song from "wasp star". the rest....not so much. Colin Moulding songs don't make sense to me lately. & "mummer" had eluded me completely till this very morning. when I was reminded of the Andy Partridge interview when he talked about Steve Nye, who they got in to produce "Mummer" after hearing his work with the band Japan. "Mummer" is just a slow, depressing album overall for some reason to me. Even the last half of "Skylarking" just seems doom-laden.

Gimme the happy, gimme "Dear Madam Barnum" 50x in a row, please!!!!!!!

blagger's fact

2008-08-19T09:53:00.001-05:00

the Blagger's Guide destroyed me yesterday when he did the Blagger's Guide to New Romantics, ie Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet.

He said that Japan used the New Romantic genre to go from being a third rate Roxy Music cover band to being "a sort of gay Talking Heads" which then he cued up "Visions of China" & it really did sound like a sort of gay Talking Heads.

Hahahahahhahahahahaaa! Greatest show ever.

bearsuit nearby

2008-08-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

hmm, Bearsuit will be in philly oct 14 & cleveland the 16th. They made that funny, kick-ass song "foxyboxer" that still sounds great in the car. Dunno if it would be worth driving for 2 hours in each direction to see/hear/witness, but maybe. No.

never underestimate the power of punch from a foxyboxer.
what?
oh yeah.
what?
oh yeah. etc

they're kind of like the Ting Tings but with two chicks & a dude & another dude.

---

watched the movie 'smart people' last night. it wasn't bad but i thought it would be better for some reason. it was funny that pretty much all the action in the entire thing takes place over the closing credits. very clever.

oh yeah & clearly i approve & was practically yelling at the tv when the main dude had a william carlos williams book under his arm & was starting to recite 'the red wheelbarrow' to sarah jessica parker.

this week has been all about reconnecting with my heroes, reaffirming my ongoing lust for cathy dennis & the mindblowing poetry of william carlos williams.

i'll say it again, learning about wcw & imagist poetry in high school definitely changed my life. the fact that there was a lesson that included poetry that was literally a note on a guy's refrigerator to his wife, apologizing for eating all the fruit. it was a punk rock moment, it was a moment for me that said ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS IS A FUNNY MOTHERFUCKER & IT DOESN'T TAKE A GENIUS TO RECOGNIZE. Anything could be art, art could be anything.

So much depends
upon a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens

it rocked me in 1988, it rocks me now.

---

speaking of 1988, i'm up to the middle of season 2 of 'it's garry shandling's show'. it's half funny half stupid half retarded.

and also in the car listening to the history of uk dance music, they just came up to the part in 1988 when acid house came together. the early acid house shit is still cool when it's just a super dark bass synth line and a kick drum.

the dragons - "here come the roses"

2008-08-04T10:05:00.001-05:00

i think i'm seriously in love with cathy dennis. i might've had a dream about her. i need to get a grip, she's one of the richest women in the uk for fakc's sake.
---

TV
Had to force myself to watch the 'peter serafinowicz show' after the first episode was so godawfully dull. I'm so glad I did, every other episode of that show is literally incredible. It's so fucking funny. Serafinowicz was the mastermind behind 'look around you' (the greatest show you've never seen), also he was the voice of darth maul and uhhhh if you saw 'shaun of the dead' he played the dickhead housemate. Anyway.... his sketch show was on BBC last year & I didn't care for it at the time, but when I finally watched the other episodes over the weekend it had me gasping with laughter. The Star Wars sketches are amazing (like the love interest for darth vader). And his Beatles impressions are so amazingly bad-ass, he does this whole thing like 'let it be' except it's about taking a dump. awesome.

and the BBN news-reader... that one killed me instantly... hah.

nevermind.

---

MOVIES
over the weekend i watched 'the wackness', which is about a guy in nyc graduating from high school in july 1994 & the girl he dates blah blah blah. ben kingsley is in it. it's a good movie, i don't know why or how you'd ever see it but check the shit out.

the bit when the main dude is staring at his dream girl on the beach & they played jane's addiction 'up the beach' had me THIS CLOSE to welling up.

well done, hollywood. gold star.

---

MUSIc
Yes. There's this band called The Dragons that includes former members of Levitation, whom I might've mentioned before. Their brand of meaty alternative rock, driven by the still KICK-ASS drumming by Dave Francolini, is currently all I can listen to when I'm at home.

Well, them and Cathy Dennis. I fuckin' love me some Cathy.

---

jesu - sun day: TUNE!!!!!

2008-08-01T11:11:00.000-05:00

finished listening to 'the blagger's guide' in the car, easily the best show about music maybe ever. i said no one else would like it but me & then the last 4 eps were 'the blagger's guide to the classics', all about classical music. which i know jack fuck about! so it was cool AND i think a couple of you might actually enjoy it. the funniest bit to me was the audience members yelling 'tune' at one of the composers. that's a funny thing that happens in real life at clubs & elsewhere in england when a good song comes on. people yell TUNE! that has always cracked me up, so to hear it in a sketch about classical composers... well... well done, david quantick.

started listening to an almost identical program, 'paul morley's guide to musical genres', which was a six part series covering recent musical developments such as 'twee', uhhh 'glitch', and 'emo'. paul morley is usually one of my favorite people, since he was a music journo in the 80s, uhhhh was responsible for a lot of the non-musical aspects of frankie goes to hollywood, he was the non-musician in Art Of Noise, i usually agree with everything he says. but his series, after listening to 'blagger's guide' is just......annoying. it's not funny and worst of all it doesn't even explain why something like 'emo' exists now, let alone defining what it actually is. so i've just been getting increasingly annoyed... but... then... he saved the best for last, the final episode of the series is called 'perfect pop' & it's kicking my ass. he uncovers a lot of opinions & tries to get to the heart of what perfect pop is & without getting too specific, kind of rekindled my interest (however briefly) in the possibilities of music-making. where this will lead (nowhere, probably) remains to be seen. or heard. or not. probably not.

----

watched 'emotional arithmetic' last night, a moody doomer of a film, kind of almost on a 'schindler's list' kind of tip. but not. the music was pretty fucking awesome and the scenery - eastern canada in autumn - was gorgeous. it kind of continued the mental/internal/creative wellspring i was pondering from the 'perfect pop' show earlier & just thinking about how music, coupled with images, can have still have so much impact. the movie was quite depressing in many ways, i'm not sure if i'd recommend it or watch it again. but it was also beautiful and mature in its way.

---

quick postscript to the paul morley thing, after writing the above, i heard the conclusion of the perfect pop episode (accidentally typo'ed 'perfect poop' there, shoulda left it), which included an absolutely astonishing interview with CATHY DENNIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! who cowrote kylie's big 2001 comeback hit, which paul morley hinted might be his favorite pop song ever. I've never heard Cathy Dennis talk about music before. Her voice, her giggle, her tone, the things she talks about, she's incredible. I'm in re-lust with Cathy Dennis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! w00t.

BLLLLLLLLLLLLLAGGER'S FFFFFFFFACT!

2008-07-27T11:18:00.001-05:00

i've been totally enjoying 'the blagger's guide', the bbc radio comedy-documentary-whatever series by david quantick. it's all about different genres and artists and it cracks my shit up every time. quantick is an awesome comedy writer plus he's also a music journo, in fact he was the one whose review of a certain indie band in the 1980s caused a band to changes its name to Pop Will Eat Itself. there are awesome sketches about captain beefheart, nick drake, syd barrett, and totally informational bits about reggae, the band Love, etc. & apart from a few glaringly obvious incorrect things (like saying KISS is from Detroit), I agree with everything he says! quantick's descriptions of the music & the musicians, his critical 'voice' reminds me of my own. He's even shouty & screamy in the same way I would've been when I was writing music reviews all the time. NICE!

you broke my heart at the funplex, yes you did

2008-07-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

i love some of the songs on the new b-52's album, i can't help it.

'juliet of the spirits' is just amazing.

a couple of the songs are too campy and/or stupid but overall, holy shit what an album. great sounds, great songs, totally modern. great songs!!!!!!!!!!

toe jam + citizen kane

2008-07-06T11:26:00.001-05:00

I just read about David Byrne's track with The Brighton Port Authority - with him, Norman Cook and Dizzee Rascal. The song "toe jam" is on the Myspace, I declare it to be the funky-fcuk jam o the day! You should read about David Byrne's lyric writing method before checking out the track. Be warned, it IS on a loop. I listened to it like 6x in a row earlier. I'm like 'damn, david byrne is dropping a lot of f-bombs today, isn't he'. But it was all the same song. Dizzee Rascal is an odd choice for a third member of their group but whatever.

Is that Iggy Pop singing on the second BPA track? Nice. This is what pop music should sound like. "He's Frank". I like one other Iggy Pop song, it's called "Candy" and what's-her-name from the B-52's co-sings it.

Third BPA track is not so hot. But no matter.

There's a super rad video for "toe jam", you have to check this shit out.

nice to see Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim making an appearance toward the end, with the biggest knob yet.

---

I've been meaning to watch Citizen Kane for a while now. My first attempt ended in failure when the file took a shart in the DVD player. So a replacement file was quickly procured. I saved the file to a 2gb jump drive & crossed my fingers when I plugged it into the DVD player. Success! I'd like to see Citizen Kane with subtitles because a lot of the dialog is garbled. Or like 3 people will be talking at the same time.
---

Stereo MC's's music has aged very well & their dude still programs some of the funkiest shiooo ever. They make nice choons and their beats are lithe. Find "Gringo" & agree.

jane child - here not there

2008-06-30T11:29:00.001-05:00

listened to jane child's second album again last night. it's hotttt & it's exactly the album i would've made in 1993, in some parallel universe where all my ideas actually worked. hell, even her piano ballad in 5, i mean who hasn't fantasized about writing a sad song in odd time. okay, just me then. the album is a strange one, the first song rocks, the second song is a commerical-sounding pop song. the third song rocks, the fourth song is an even more commerical pop song with a better chorus & awesome bass line. it's that kind of thing. i would've wanted my work to straddle the line between art & commerce exactly that way.

jane child's publishing company was called Radical Dichotomy, which even sounds like my 'label' at the time, 'Bizarre Depiction'. Right?

making flippy floppy

2008-06-16T11:37:00.001-05:00

I watched 'lars and the real girl' yesterday. In the party scene it featured two songs that have been stuck in my head ever since, 'genius of love' by Tom Tom Club (which was the Talking Heads rhythm section plus Adrian Belew - this song was also used by Mariah Carey a few years ago, yuck) and.... Talking Heads - "This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)". I've been on a pretty big Talking Heads kick lately anyway & this song especially just creeps up on me. The whole thing is so propulsive, you can't help but bust a move when it's playing & I'm still not sure why. It's not especially funky or anything on its own.

& its use in the movie was very cool. I mean, I'D certainly want to go to a party where people are dancing to a Talking Heads record from 1983!

I couldn't have enjoyed the Talking Heads in the 80s, they were too ubiquitous! & seemed to be played out & all the discussion of David Byrne was mostly pointless to my KISS, Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P. addled pre-teen brain. But now of course my mind has caught up with my genitalia in terms of music taste. So Talking Heads songs are occasionally a revelation now.

---

meanwhile, 'lars and the real girl' itself wasn't bad. I do resent it when an entire movie is summed up in its title. It was annoying to know beforehand that Lars would be getting a Real Girl, etc. Y'know, it kinda kills the mystery!

Same thing with 'tristan and isolde', which for its first half is two different stories taking place on separate sides of the Irish Sea. Gosh, I wonder, will they hook up, do you think? Tristan in England, Isolde in Ireland... I didn't bother watching the second half, because...who cares!

Dear Whoever Makes Movies, Don't give away the whole movie in the title, pleasethanksokaybye.

'lars' wasn't really funny, exactly. It was about a guy who went a little mental. It was quite dark & european looking.

---

New B-52's album sounds very old school. I approve. Live drums, synths, GUITARS. Wow, guitars. People still use those?!?!

Wow, looks like they're on the Astralwerks label now, that's insane. Astralwerks had Chemical Brothers, Future Sound of London, um, a bunch of cool ambient compilations in the early 90s. Good job, the B-52's. "Juliet of the Spirits" is definitely not "Love Shack". Are all the songs about movies?

---

Also, I finally finished reading Salman Rushdie's "shalimar the clown". What an ending! I'm still not sure what happened. Sweet book. I already started his "the ground beneath her feet".

Jesu "Silver" + interview at Amoeba Records

2008-01-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

Jesu "Silver" + interview

love for l0ve dance & y@t-kh@

2007-12-12T08:29:00.000-05:00

Love Dance is my new gorgeously wimpy pop rock favorite. This is the weakest, milkiest, wussiest shit I've heard in a long time & it's great. I was going to say IT ROCKS! but it really doesn't rock, which is why it rocks. Good luck finding any info about them though.

Love Dance site
Love Dance "Losing Faith" MP3

I'm also perhaps late in finally checking out Yat-Kha, the 'punk rock' Tuvan throat singers. They are certainly unique, how could they not be. Their songs are strange & beguiling. They're not really punk rock, almost more like Nick Cave or something.

Yat-Kha Myspace
Yat Kha live in Berlin Youtube

And this was before I knew they also played classic rock covers like Motorhead's "Orgasmatron" and "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles" by Captain Beefheart.

I LIKE GRIME

2007-12-09T10:08:00.000-05:00

What is this sound some earthlings call grime and/or dub-step? Is the bass always this ear-ticklingly good? It sounds like slow, British hiphop but with few concessions to overt melodies. Kind of a brooding vibe but good to nod the head to. I think I like it. It definitely sounds best at loud volumes, so probably best on headphones for me.

----------------
Now playing: Skream - Bahl Fwd
via FoxyTunes

FEEL IT COMING

2007-12-07T09:35:00.000-05:00

I just hooked up the record player for the first time in forever. I'm playing the first the first record off the shelf I could grab. Great.

Deep Purple "Perfect Strangers" / "Knocking at you Back Door" 7". I bought it the first time we went to England, I was 13 at the time & the Deep Purple 'perfect strangers' album was everywhere. I tended to believe the hype. This actually isn't bad, this little Deep Purple record. The only two songs of theirs that I'm conversant with. I watched an old BBC 'rock history' thing about Deep Purple a couple of weeks ago. I think I'd like some of their early early stuff, like the late 60s when everyone sounded like an echo of the Beatles. Like the first Bee Gees album, I LOVE that mofo.

The lyrics to "Knocking at your Back Door" were embarassing to me at 13 & still cringeworthy. Looking at the cover of this record, these fat, balding, ANCIENT sweating british guys whose names mean nothing to me. It never seemed clever. But the riffs are okay & the grooves still get the job done all right.

Now I'm tempted to pull a Darrin & listen to every single record I have. Hey, it might just happen, especially since I only have..... um... well, less than 100 records anyway. Hell, I could crack that out in a weekend. Not really. Although...

IN PRAISE OF THE OCEAN BLUE'S "CERULEAN"

2007-10-31T08:24:00.000-05:00

It's not unheard of for me to find an album I like in the car and play it endlessly for days, weeks, up to a month. This era's album is Cerulean by The Ocean Blue.

I should hate The Ocean Blue. I can't adequately explain why I don't. Cerulean rocks the house, it's so clean and the playing is so great. All the songs are catchy & inventive and the lyrics aren't the usual 'oh baby' crap.

Not that I approve necessarily of lyrics like "a pocket full of poseys, she's my marigold". In fact I might still have to deliver the only beatdown of my life if I ever meet the singer of The Ocean Blue.

It goes like this. I think it was 1990, Dave B. conned me into going to the Newport to see John Wesley Harding, The Ocean Blue and The Mighty Lemon Drops. Usually I (like many people, I bet) did whatever Dave suggested. Without really knowing why, I guess he just was good at pushing me around in a good way.

I wasn't a fan of any of the bands before the gig, though I believe one of my early penfiends had sent me a dub of some Mighty Lemon Drops material which I liked okay but wasn't crazy about.

Let's see, the gig. John Wesley Harding was great at capturing the moment but nothing more than that. It was just him with an acoustic guitar, very ironically, very knowingly, very Britishly "here I am with my acoustic guitar". He had a witty song about Live Aid that was actually kind of shocking to me because I'd never considered Live Aid to be anything but... y'know, a force for good. And here was Wes kind of funnily poking holes in it. Nice one!

Then came The Ocean Blue, who was likely touring on their first album. The one with "Drifting, Falling" which is still one of their greatest moments. What blew me away about them was how there were no distorted guitars, no Marshall stacks (this might've been one of the few non metal shows I went to at that point) & yet they were strangely powerful. Wimpily powerful? The singer, with his awful awful stringy blond bowl cut hairdo. That's all I remember about their show, his stupid hair.

The Mighty Lemon Drops, no lie, went totally over my head. I get into 'em now because I understand what they're about. But at the gig there was no chance! It was more information than I could process. I remember them playing very enthusiastically and being bombarded by g0th girls in the balcony with .... wait for it..... lemon drop candy.

Spring 1991 and The Ocean Blue releases Cerulean. It blew me away then and it still blows me away. The production, the album cover, the songs, it's all so great. Horribly cheesy in more than one spot, embarassingly pretentious, but ya know... that's a small price to pay for spine tingley goodness. And that's also a small price to pay for being able to enjoy something so much that isn't King Diamond.

----------------
Now playing: Nine Horses - Money For All (Version)
via FoxyTunes

a lover loves

2007-05-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

first impressions of new musicks:

Editors - An End Has a Start - lovely continuation of the first album, though a trifle Coldplay in spots.
Ulrich Schnauss - remixes EP - I've only heard the Robin Guthrie mix so far, but so far so f'ing good.
Shout Out Louds - new - nice, nice, fun
Scott Walker - discography - um, wow? I doubt I'll listen to anything other than the 1967 album more than once.
Motocade - EP - mostly very very good, plus the F word
Hey Hey My My - new - only heard one song but cool so far & funny band name
Officer Kicks - new - not bad indie rock
Southerly - I've heard one good & one annoying song so far.

14 YEARS LATER, SEEFEEL IS STILL GORGEOUS

2007-05-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Pitchfork just reminded me of how frickin' hotttttttttttt & still unique the group Seefeel is/was/always will be. Thankie-hankie to thee, Pitchfork, for pointing me to these.

Seefeel Myspace

Seefeel site

Seefeel - Industrious live

SEMI ANNUAL YOUTUBE FUN

2007-04-18T17:31:00.000-05:00

Well, fun for ME at any rate.

BLUE NILE - Tinseltown in the Rain

David Sylvian (w/Tweaker) - Linoleum

THE ICICLE WORKS - As the Dragonfly Flies

PREFAB SPROUT - Faron Young

2007-04-11T17:16:00.000-05:00

DEVO HIT PARADER FEBRUARY 1982

2007-04-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

celtic frost hit parader october 1985

2007-03-27T07:33:00.000-05:00

transfigure

2007-03-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

ARCHIVE
Take My Head
I'm kinda on the fence with most of this female-fronted pop rock groove whatever album. It's quiet in spots, I like that. It rocks out in other spots, which is fine. It just feels kinda gimmicky or something. Like "Woman," "I'm a woman/you're a man."... I don't know. But I do like like like the uppy groove "Love in Summer," which is a uni-chord jam that crescendos with synths & everything else.

BUCKETHEAD
Pepper's Ghost
Hey, it's Buckethead's fortieth new album today. Obviously it rules.

BASIA BULAT
Oh My Darling
I only grabbed this 'cause her name reminded me of the band Beirut. But, this ain't that, exactly. She does share some soundground with them bwahs but this her own deal. Although, um, I guess they both do do kind of old-timey other-worldly folk-tunery, using old-timey etc instrumentation like strings and acoustic everything. And liberal use of handclaps, just like, wow... Beirut. So maybe I was right after all.
Basia Bulat Myspace

DE-PHAZZ
Days of Twang
This is one of those groups/artists that, once discovered, makes you/me slap your/my head & cry "where have you been all my/your life?" It's possibly banal groove electronica. Formerly known as 'dance music'. Whenever I start to think that there will never be another new album of this type of music that I like as much as the class of 1997-98 (early Fatboy Slim, Propellerheads, Daft Punk), along comes De-phazz to straighten me out. So, thanks for that. I can still get down when I need to. "Rock 'n' Roll Dude" almost sounds like Theeee Art of Noise & their old "Peter Gunn" thing. Nice. Nice, it's all nice.

HEAVINESS
Heaviness
Using My Bloody Valentine "Loveless" worship as a starting point, this-here album is fwacking gwargeous. I mean, look at the blueprint, y'can't go wrong there. "Not Yet" is the dancey moody swoony swoopy opener. Unapologetically MBV-mad. The dude's voice even sounds like Kevin Shields. "Saddest Colour": yep, more of the same. "Your Velvet Wrapping," "How You Avoid the Sugartraps," down through "Touchlast." Sexy, right down to the lo-fi flute samples!
Heaviness Myspace

JESU
Conqueror
Seriously, I might never stop listening to this wonderful wonderful beautiful gorgeous album. Sigh. Conqueror, will you gay-marry me? "Stanlow" is so awesome.

NINE HORSES
Money for All
Y'know, I've been listening to this for so long, I forget that it's still 'new'. Obviously anything that's Touched By The Hand of David Sylvian is bound to be fucking excellent. This release has a few new tracks and a few in-house remixes by Nine Horser Burnt Friedman. And I think that's Stina Nordenstam singing on "Birds Sing for their Lives." If it's not her, it's someone doing an uncanny impression of her. Which does seem to be today's theme, after all. Fun fact: the Nine Horses song "The Banality of Evil" is apparently featured in the newest Jim Carrey movie, 23. Playing over the end credits. How's that for some weird-ass shit. Um, getting back to this EP or whatever it is, it's just fucking fucking great. The first mix of "Get the Hell Out" sounds like old old Skinny Puppy or even first-album Nine Inch Nails laying down an old Wax Trax type-o-groove. And Sylvian has never sounded more accessible. I'd be okay with this one quietly going platinum. Em, yeah right. In another universe.

fan-made video for "Atom and Cell" from the first Nine Horses album, Snow Borne Sorrow

SIMPLY RED
Stay
Dude, I've loved Simply Red since their first album. And in the mid/late 1980s, when I should've been listening to, I don't know, the Smiths or Morrissey or Joy Division, I was exploring (& later colonizing) my Smooth Jazz Side. Sort of. I've actually heard the new Simply Red single "So Not Over You" on the local smooth jazz radio station a few times, which is a strange thing for me to say. But, hey. We live in the present. The new track almost almost sounds like Mick Hucknall goes full circle. After the last couple of albums of up-to-the-minute pop music tricks & traps & techniques like mash-up (that one song used a whole ole Hall & Oates track), the new one is mostly just a full band. It's almost like a return to the disco, funk, soul band side of things. I always like his songwriting too. What can I say, I'm a fan.

Simply Red- Oh! What a Girl!

SKINNY PUPPY
Mythmaker
More ass-shakin', head-scratchin' than life-changin'. But you'll have that & as usual, it's probably more my fault than theirs. It's cool. It rocks, certainly, more than most of the rest of their trax. I just wish they'd been this accessible back in the day. The catchiness is wasted on me now.

2007-03-16T07:08:00.000-05:00

2007-03-13T08:46:00.000-05:00

PORTISHEAD FEB 2007

2007-03-08T08:42:00.001-05:00

THAAAAAAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!

Portishead - Wandering Star (February 2007)

and you get yours

2007-02-18T07:40:00.000-05:00

SWITCHES
Switches
Nice bouncy indie guitar rock with XTC overtones. Dime a dozen these days but still nice.

AMY WINEHOUSE
Back to Black
This must be the US release. Look, I was the last person who ever expected to become an Amy Winehouse after her pissy, annoying appearance on 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks'. So this is like a double treat. The whole album is genre bending, something for everyone but in a good way, Portishead style soul pop. Type of thing. Which I may have already said. And, again, I may regret saying this, but, yeah, this album is the shit.

THE RAKES
Ten New Messages
At first glance, more not-bad indie guitar rock with XTC overtones. Um, XTC plus Interpol. Of course I've had that feeling before and it just added up to the Killers.

CUT CITY
Exit Decades
More Interpol-ish mopey guitar indie rock. Which is usually my favorite kind. The singer is copping serious amounts of Interpol up in here. Good thing? Bad thing? Indifferent thing?

JESU
Conqueror
Dear Jesu's latest album, 'Conqueror', Have I told you lately I love you?

THE CLOSE
Sun, Burn
I lose interest now.

Beat Dis

2007-01-26T07:58:00.000-05:00

Music videos are now superfluous. VH1 Classic reminds me that it wasn't always this way. And that in certain cases, the music video is still intrinsically linked to many many songs of bygone days.

Yep, I'm old.

RJD2
The Third Hand
Homeboy goes Beastie Boys & I'm guessing he's playing all the instruments & singing all the parts. Y'know, it's like someone said to him: dude, why don't you sample your OWN SHIT this time? I'm guessing it's him on drums because most folks wouldn't opt for a floor-tom-and-double-kick pattern on the opening track of a non heavy metal album. If the songwriting is good enough, this album might even have more legs than RJ's usual beat-fuckery. Or whatever his usual deal is. I only heard his other shit last week for the first time. & hell yes I'm jealous of him, it should've been me to break out of Columbus with my humorous beats & antics. And I can play the drums.

X-CLAN
Return from Mecca
Man, it just ain't the same without the dude saying "sissy". I think he died in the past couple of years or something. Someone else says "sissy" and it's close but it's just not the same. "Voodoo" features RBX & this is the first time I've heard him in a long time. This album is nice & modern. So many of the dudes from the early 1990s can't hang in the present sense. But X-Clan does.

CONSEQUENCES
Consequences
"Parasite" opens with what I'm calling The Coldplay Maneuver. I'm not hip on Coldplay enough to say what song that rhythm originated in, but it's been a meme in modern music for like the past five years. Kinda like you had yer Madchester drum beat in the early 1990s. The singer sounds like Thurston Moore if he grew up listening to Mandy Moore.

BABY SWEETCORN
New Low
Um, aggressively wimpy pop rock with clean guitars. Even though it rubs me the wrong way on first listen, I'll probably end up liking it. Due to, yeah, the clean piano & general wimpiness. Unless they get really popular, in which case, I've never heard 'em before.

DO THE UNDO
Do the Undo
More aggressively wimpy pop that's so smarmy up front that I'll probably have to play it several times with the lights off just to get through it. Or, like, wearing sunglasses or something. It might be cool as crap, I don't know. How's that for a pointless review.

+++++

Now watch one of my favorite & most obscure bands of the early 1990s, since it's all about the early 1990s today, Levitation.

Levitation - Against Nature (live)

Levitation - Bedlam (live)

And Ultramarine - Happy Land (featuring Robert Wyatt) just for fun. Even though it's one of my least favorite Ultramarine tracks.

We Can Never See the Sunrise

2007-01-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

DIAL A PEOM POETS

JESU
Conqueror
Well, as I've already gushed here, this newest Jesu album thing is perhaps the greatest Justin Broadrick product since... well, ever. Since Godflesh's "Slateman," certainly, in 1991. That song magically transformed music by pivoting between ethereal beauty and crushing doom riffs. It was pretty, heavy, mean, nasty, gorgeous, confusing. Sigh. It's still a classic, and genuinely unique. Flash forward 16 years and countless side projects of varying quality. Broadrick is in the big leagues with Conqueror. The title track sounds like My Bloody Valentine and Ride simultaneously playing a Black Sabbath song. Or something. And Red House Painters. It's THEEEE album of 2006 for me. Anchored but floating. See, this thing is so good that I lose all powers of description. It's Justin Broadrick back on the cutting edge, combining styles and sounds that have never come together in such a moving manner. Clean guitars mingle with samples & loops & textures & fuck it's blissed. "Weightless & Horizontal" is correct!!!! Oh yeah & there's no screaming. Whooot.

THE VINYL SKYWAY
From Telegraph Hill
Hm, Beach Boy-y, Beatley, Kink-y jangly indierock meh. Not offensive but impossible to get psyched about.

6PM
Far From Perfect
Indie electronica. Guitars replaced & replicated & remanded by synths & software processing. Kind of like Kings of Convenience crossed with Linkin Park. Scary & probably not necessary. But also oddly intriguing.

fun: David Gilmour feat David Bowie - Arnold Layne (live)

Cool, now do "Candy & a Currant Bun."

Holy Dread!

2007-01-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

BIT O MUSE-SACK I MIGHTA MISSED OTHERWISE:

mm, tickety boo

DO THE UNDO
Do the Undo
Hmm, not bad indie guitar rock. Lots of shorter songs (ca. 3 minutes) as opposed to 10 grand epics. Y'know. Interpol meets T. Rex or something.

Do the Undo MySpace

ROBYN HITCHCOCK
Ole' Tarantula
Look, another fucking Robyn Hitchcock album, his 634th this week. I mean, I love me some Robyn Hitchcock & all, but fuck dude. I can't keep up. Look, mate, you had me with "Birds in Perspex" back in, what was it, 1849? Good tune, good time. It's all fairly interchangable since then, to me at least. This new album is the first one I've been interested in for a long time, due to Robyn cowriting with Andy Partridge in 2006. One result is included....the predictably wonderful (wonderfully predictable) "'Cause It's Love (Saint Parallelogram)." The rest of the album is... well, if you've heard one album by old Hitchypoo, you've heard them all.

lick :Robyn Hitchcock - 'Cause It's Love (Saint Parallelogram)

PSAPP
The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
I don't know when this album came out but it's still nuuuuuuu to me. So, I say... licky-licky tech fuckery with hawt female vocals. With choons. Songs, I mean. Not just beats. "Hi" is as good a starting point as any. It's like Tom Waits reborn on synths & sung by a hottie. Mm, slam dunk. "King of You" is no slouch & neither is the rest of this sexay alboom.

Psapp - The Words

THE FOUNTAIN
Original Soundtrack
KRONOS QUARTET and MOGWAI
Em, the music was written by Clint Mansell (ex Pop Will Eat Itself) and is performed by Kronos Quartet & Mogwai, who play, uhhhhhh....Sigur Ros stylee. ie, simultaneously. It's quite dark, with a few longer pieces chucked in for good measure. It's nice. And I'll probably never see the film either.

Jesu

2007-01-10T07:03:00.000-05:00

Greatest song ever of the moment:

Jesu - Mother Earth

the way to there

2007-01-01T07:53:00.001-05:00

AU REVOIR SIMONE
The Bird of Music

Strong, peppy, Stereolablike mechapop with lite female vocals - actually lite female everything.. Plus they named themselves after a scene in 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure'. Nice nice nice. I like "The Lucky One" and "A Violent Yet Flammable World."

Au Revoir Simone - Hurricanes

Au Revoir Simone - Through the Backyards

2006

2006-12-14T07:37:00.000-05:00

Shock latecoming hit album of the year:
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Also dig/dug
The Isles
The Changes
Beirut

teardrops on fire

2006-10-01T14:31:00.000-05:00

Now THIS is a music blog.

Spinning Belinda

2006-09-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

You were right to doubt my now-decade-long obsession with Prefab Sprout. Look here for yourself. Prefab Sprout fucking rules.

Prefab Sprout - The Golden Calf

Songs I Never Get Tired Of, Part Two

2006-09-01T08:58:00.000-05:00

Icicle Works - Cauldron of Love

fukuoka

2006-09-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

747s
Zampano
Rockin melodic rock action but the singer, yeesh, goes for a strangely late 70s Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds kind of 'my baby did this, my baby did that' tack. Which. "Missed that Sun" is uptempo and multifaceted. So, an improvement. But the singing is still kind of sideburnsy. Like, the stuff that was on Top of the Pops in 1976/77 just as punk was kicking off.

AA SOUND SYSTEM
Laissez-Faire
"I Don't Get You at All" is like Tom Petty meets Fleetwood Mac. "Laissez-Faire" goes for a synthy post-Madonna glitchy folktronic angle. Not bad.

COLOURFAST
Walk
Trendy early 1980s guitar band action, you know the sort. Sons of sons of sons of Interpol. Which is fine by me, really.

EDENBRIDGE
The Grand Design
Queen meets Mercyful Fate and Ace of Base. And John Tesh. Roxette meets Dream Theater.

ELECTRIC SIX
Switzerland
The singer has been studying at the Tom Waits school of vocal gymnastics. The music is cheesy and fun rock. Almost like Turbonegro or Lordi, especially "There's Something Very Wrong With Us So Let's Go Out Tonight." "Germans in Mexico" is funny too. And "I Wish this Song Was Louder" is great.

MILLBURN
Well Well Well
Not unlike Colourfast without the gloom. I'm not sure if the sly/sardonic vocal style of Millburn will win out in the end. At the moment it's a tie. Yes, there is a competition. "Showroom" adds a bit of a DEVO vibe. "the book that you read is upside down." Okay, add some vintage Morrissey lyrics to that as well.

ROMAN NUMERALS
Roman Numerals
Wow, cool. Cure, Clash, Chameleons, the Jam. "The Rule of V" is simultaneously bleak and accessible. That's not an easy combination to pull off. Well done, them.

SOUNDPOOL
On High
Ooh, now yer talkin': retro Lush/Jesus & Mary Chain/My Bloody Valentine early 1990s shoegazey throwback. My second favorite kind. "On High" is full-on MBV homage. Not particularly distinguished in the originality stakes but as I keep saying here, originality is overrated and outmoded anyway. Plus nearly impossible. Soundpool is super hot. Even the little 30 second bits between the songs are super dreamy and gwargeous. I'll definitely be revisiting this honey of an album.

M. WARD
Post-War
Hm, going from a band (Soundpool) that sounds like a 4AD Records tribute act to M. Ward, who actually is on 4AD now. Quite a difference. I know Ward is their (and many other peoples') latest and greatst but this shit just bores me. Him and the Mountain Goats both, I'm just not feeling it. "Poison Cup" is mildly epic in scope, starting with voice & acoustic guitar and building into a small orchestral deal. His voice doesn't really do much within the song. Maybe that's the way he does it. "To Go Home" is uptempo rock band action. The ascending piano bit, yes, is very nice. Okay, this track is more to my liking. His voice has a kind of Tom Waits roughness that I think I'm starting to appreciate. "Right in the Head" is a shuffly acoustic thing. The lyrics.. "I hope he's right in the head." "I lived with many ghosts when I was younger." Hm. So, there's a bit of depth here after all. I still don't like Mountain Goats.

THE RAPTURE
Pieces of the People We Love
Aw yeah. A funky version of early Human League, OMD, Gary Numan. Which means analog synths going 'psssheeww' whenever possible, live drums, live guitars. "Don Gon Do It" is the anthem of the hour. Hereabouts. Althought "First Gear" is cool too.

THE VICTORIAN ENGLISH GENTLEMENS CLUB
The Victorian English Gentlemens Club
"The Tales of Hermit Mark," um, moody indie rock action with a goofy high pitched guy. And surprise turn of female vocalities on the chorus. Which really blows the whole thing wide open. The songs have a kind of nervous, infectious energy. Making them equally doomy and danceable. Nice.

THE CHANGES
Today is Tonight
Um. Split Enz meets Men At Work. If I was feeling less generous I'd add Coldplay to the mix. But seriously. There's a bit of Devo in there. That guy's fucking voice sounds just like Neil Finn. Sweet. "When I Wake" is cool. "Water of the Gods" too. "Modern Love" is not a David Bowie cover. But it could be.

THE PROBLEM
The Problem
The inveitable american take on modern uptempo indie rock. Um.

THE SOUNDS
Dying to Say this to You
Fun female vocals, blip synths, live bass, guitar & drums. Strokes meet Cyndi Lauper. Cool.

one piece short of legoland

2006-08-31T09:42:00.000-05:00

Oh No Ono "Yes" is a fun, full-on 1980s throwback. The songs are so fucking catchy and I'm ready to invent a few dances after one listen. And the lyrics are appropriately awesome. Like in the... wow, almost Gary Numan meets ELO meets Supertramp "Ba Ba Baba Ba Ba Well Anyway."

DEPECHE MODE live at Rock am Ring 2006
A very disappointing performance, I felt. Dave Gahan must be back on the smack because he's just annoying onstage, slipping into an apparent impression of the cockney nutjob character from The Mighty Boosh every so often. Um, crossed with Ozzy circa the early 1980s. My man needs to go into rehab, get with a vocal coach and get with someone about developing a stage presence. I tried to look away but it didn't work, I could still hear him. He was way off pitch for most of the show. Martin Gore fared only slightly better, but he would pretty much have to in comparison. The stage itself was neato enough but the fake UFO wraparound things on the keyboard risers pretty much hid away any other elements of human musical activity. And I'm actually a proponent of electronic music. I personally have no problem with bands that use live sequences onstage. The drummer was, um, wow. Really good but I don't think ideally suited for that type of music. Or, what I assume the type of music is. Electronic? And what does Andrew Fletcher do exactly? The song selection was boring. And the new arrangements of some of the old stuff were, um, god, like nu-metal. Distorted power chord guitar.... even if it is Martin Gore playing it, it still ruins the effect. Ah yes, except for "I Feel You," which of course has been covered by many euro death metal bands. Their one chance to rock the fuck out and what did they do? They did nothing. The chorus was the same volume & intensity as the verse, bleh. And the filming, I have a beef and a half with the gimmicky, clever filming. I just want to see the band and the stage. Two things I never want to see are super slow motion closeups of sections of the lighting rig and more than a couple of audience shots. This fucker was almost 50/50 audience and band in spots. So, fuck that. This video is good for what it is. Unfortunately, just like Motley Crue's set at Rock am Ring last summer, it just highlights the many flaws.

Songs I Never Get Tired Of, Part One

2006-08-24T11:31:00.000-05:00

Aztec Camera - Oblivious

Well Thought Out Twinkles

2006-08-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

ICE-T
Rhino Hi-Five
Um. Five Ice-T classics, no really, classics, together at last on one modern EP. Serving what purpose I have no idea. Surely an Ice-T greatest hits compilation would be longer than five tracks. "Rhyme Pays" sounds more LL Cool J than I remember. It still sounds raw. "Soul on Ice" is a great little narrative thing...."I'm Your Pusher," obviously. "Shut Up, Be Happy" is a strange pick since it's just a mashup of Black Sabbath and Jello Biafra. "O.G. Original Gangster" in 1991 should've been the beginning of a string of great rap albums. Unfortunately it was pretty much the end. Body Count happened the following year and of course he hasn't done anything musically worth a shit since.

IRON MAIDEN
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Do I dare? I skipped the last Maiden album but I really enjoyed Brave New World. "Different World" is a nice headbanging take on the idea of, um, having an open mind about other peoples' points of view. I'd love to see an audience singing about how much they respect other cultures, for example. "These Colours Don't Run" is apparently about american military types with flags tattooed on their asses. "It's the same in every country". God, I love this album already. "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" is about Bruce Dickinson growing up with the threat of nuclear war looming. Musically it has nice dynamics. And on and on. It's a political Iron Maiden record. Fortunately for me I happen to agree with their stances. Metal titans and politics don't usually go together. But I like this so far.

IRVING
Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers
Lengthy titles are usually a predictor of bad things musically. Not always. "The Gentle Preservation of Chidlrens' Minds" is modern alternative rockery. "She's Not Shy" too. Two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums. Three note singer dude. It reminds me of Interpol but without the ghoulish bombast. For better or worse.

KOOP
Koop Islands
"Koop Island Blues" reminds me of Lovage. ie electronic swing with h0tt female vox. "Come to Me" is more of the same, cheesy swingy music with syrupy singing. Not bad for what it is, whatever that means.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS
Carnavas
"Well Thought Out Twinkles" is cool & melodic modern rock with kind of a 70s throwback guitar melody. Engagingly uptempo but not necessarily happy alt rock guitar trax. It must be good if I can't think of anything else.

TOKYO POLICE CLUB
A Lesson in Crime EP
What I love about "Cheer it On" is that it just sounds like the stupidest fucking thing in the world until the chorus hits. By which time, forget about it. It rules. They remind me of the Strokes and everyone else, sure. But still. Who cares. Originality is overrated & outmoded.

THE VEILS
Nux Vomica
Moody, screamy rock. Wiv acoustick guitars an that. Extra large. The lyrics have Morrisseyish aspirations, I reckon. "Advice for Young Mothers To Be." What else could it be.

NICKY WIRE
I Killed the Zeitgeist
Um, moody screamy rock wiv electrick guitars an' that. Rubbish on purpose, only is it. On purpose, I mean. Obviously it's rubbish. Just listen to his singing voice.

and everything's all right

2006-08-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

TALK TALK
Life's What You Make It

You, Me, No We Won't Back Down

2006-08-21T14:23:00.000-05:00

Useless first impressions of the new Paul Stanley album Live to Win.

Most of the songs sound like new Bon Jovi.

Guitar drones on most songs.

Every lead sounds like Bruce Kulick.

In previous decades, this just would've been a new KISS album. I still don't see why it's his solo deal. Whatever.

I don't hate it. Maybe I haven't listened closely enough. Ha.

Noise and anger in controlled doses.

No, seriously, why isn't this just a KISS album.

It'll be out around Halloween, apparently.

& yes, I know he looks like Cher.

you stutter when you sleep

2006-08-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

Holy shit, this SoulWhirlingSomewhere album is the greatest thing I've ever heard. It's exactly - no, really, exactly - what I've wanted to do musically for my whole life. It has beats, dark moods, jazzy chords, slow tempi, great vocals & melodies. I'm in love..

It's called Please Sennd Help, it was released on Projekt in 2001. Certainly evocative of late-period Idaho. Gorgeous, sensitive, evocative. Headphones & moping suggested. You provide the wind & rain.

Sigh.

SoulWhirlingSomewhere - The Wedding
SoulWhirlingSomewhere - Aileron
SoulWhirlingSomewhere - I Give Up. Goodbye.

hold you like a dog

2006-08-17T07:56:00.000-05:00

Why were all CDs from the 1980s mastered so quietly? Pump up the gottdamn volume already. Howard Jones & Dale Bozzio albums most recently sent me diving for the volume control.

Whereas the latest two Cure reissues sound AWESOME. If you add all the b-sides from Join the Dots, you get the, like, total package. I love all that shit so much, it's like religion to me. In 1987 I stopped liking KISS & started liking XTC, the Cure & the Damned. It gives me a soul-boner to revisit the oldies on occasion. The live version of "Fight" lets you hear the fine detail of Boris's drumming. What a great song, why don't they play shit like this now.

There was also a 2-CD retrospective of the Damned's two prolific years on the Stiff Records label. Which, the first two albums are my personal least favorites. A lot of people only like the first two. Ha.

New Lamb of God, sure. It's pretty smoothed out from what I remember of their early stuff. Some of it sounds like black metal.

Downloading now: Tom Waits's set at House of Blues in Cleveland, the same night we saw him in Akron. Everyone is still freaking out about the House of Blues set he played, apparently it was the best of the tour & maybe his best ever. I wouldn't know. To this day I still couldn't name a Tom Waits song if my life depended on it. I like him & his music quite a lot, I just don't know anything about it. Until now, anyway. My Tom Waits phase starts now. And since 300+ people have already downloaded the show from dimeadozen, my download speeds are impressively hovering around 500 kB/s. I'm pretty sure that the Cleveland taper was the guy who sat in the row behind us in Akron. Although it's possible someone else made the 8-hour drive from New Jersey, I suppose.

Uploading now: R@TT! I got this 1997 DVD in a trade last year. I loved the first three Ratt albums, so it's fun to check this shit out, from long after the glory days. The site I'm uploading to is mostly, um, Van Halen, Dokken, hard rocky type 80s metal. Which is cool is measured doses. Also what I like about this Ratt show is you can see Warren DeMartini playing all the guitar parts by himself. His playing is awesome, the chords & fills & riffs he came up with are almost like Voivod. & it's no wonder I could never figure out shit like "You're in Love". I'd have a hard time with it even now. Warren's solos are so melodic. I don't take it for granted now.

gettin' there

2006-08-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

We went to Akron last night to see Tom Waits. The show sold out in something like 10 minutes, amid several TicketMaster fuckups. (It was probably TicketMaster's fault, let's assume they just fucked up again) When Michael ordered the tickets, the first pair he pulled were flagged for international will call only & it wouldn't let him type a US address. So he had to release the tix & pull two more, which of course were much farther back. But at least they were, like, in there at all. Fortunately we weren't in the majority of people who had to pick up their tix at the will call.

No opening act. The place was packed, obviously. Jim Jarmusch was there, maybe he was trying to slip in through the side door, undetected, but it didn't work. Everyone spotted him. He's easy to notice!

The show started late since most of the audients were still picking up their tickets at the 8pm showtime. Eventually the band took the stage around 8:30.

Everything about the show was powerful and simple. Kind of deceptively simple. The dramatic white curtain at the back of the stage, the simple but awesome lighting. The songs! The playing! The musicians! It was great. I could literally find no fault.

Waits is a super cool motherfucker. A super macho gruff-voiced cartoon character. And funny too. He said he was surprised to hear that the show sold out in ten minutes. He wondered why it took so long. And he mentioned going to the Goodyear museum since every time something good happened to him, he saw a Goodyear blimp. First time he held up a gas station, he looked up & saw a blimp. I guess you had to be there.

The guy in the row behind us was talking about dimeadozen.org. See, I'm not the only one who fucking loves that site. The tapers have been out in force for most of this tour so I'll be shocked & disappointed if my wispy greying afro doesn't wind up blocking someone's shot.

That's the funny thing about Dimeadozen... I think that people are actually starting to expect that every concert they've ever attended will now magically appear there.

who are making their return, shortly

2006-07-31T09:42:00.000-05:00

I downloaded an album by Sabbat after Dani Filth dedicated a song to them on whatever DVD of theirs I just watched. "Hosanna in Excelsis"...it's clear that young Dani has been studying the vocal techniques on display. He sounds just like the Sabbat guy. Go figure.

Sabbat - Do Dark Horses Dream of Nightmares

Slayer - Disciple (live on Henry Rollins Show)

One Hell of a Lot of Us

2006-07-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

ADRIAN BELEW: nicest guy in rock
Watching him entertain and engage a small but intense audience on the Pittsburgh 1999 DVD was a pleasure. The man is a master of handling not only the quiet, meek fans during the numerous (and surprisingly fun) question-and-answer sessions, but the obnoxious, loud, presumably drunk dude who yells a lot. He makes them all feel welcome. Musically, Adrian is truly amazing, especially during his party piece "Three of a Perfect Pair." Great show!

gorgeous reminders of the Michael Brook/Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan collaboration

2006-07-11T09:26:00.000-05:00

I CAN SEE YOU

2006-06-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

After watching this program with increasing excitement last night:

BBC - ROCK FAMILY TREES: Birmingham Beat

only* guitar driven pop music from the late 1960s sounds right to my ears. Fortunately there's a ton of albums uploaded in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1960s group today. Such as "Around" by the previously unheard band Grapefruit.

Roy Wood is my new hero. Clearly, he pioneered everything good in rock music - makeup, stupid rock and roll songs, animal costumes.

Even Jeff Lynne came off sounding much better than I remember. ELO? Seriously? EL fucking O? The Move is fucking excellent. Wizzard was more of a laugh, but still very good.

Wizzard - See My Baby Jive

Paul and Gene have acknowledged stealing "Fire Brigade" for the early KISS track "Firehouse". They attempted to repay their hero Roy Wood by having Wizzard open for them on tour. which didn't go so well. Also Andy Partridge openly admitted to ganking "Blackberry Way" wholesale for the Dukes of Stratosphear track "Collideascope."

This version: holy fucking crap, it's guitar, bass and drums! Only! Imagine making that much of a song with just guitar, bass and drums!!! I said imagine, whore!

I was hoping the documentary would cover Brummie land during the 1970s as well. I mean, I could never figure out why Bev Bevan was in fucking Black Sabbath in the early 80s. Well, hell, he's from Birmingham. Plus he was a pop star in the Move wasn't he.

*well, and Alan Parsons Project, Ratt and Apparat. Mountain "Climbing."

I WANT EVERRYTHING

2006-06-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

they say cancer is nothing to sneeze at. But your secondhand smoke tickles my sinuses. I can't help it.

If you like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, listen to Neko Case.

& uh-oh, I don't hate the Christina Aguilera song "ain't no other man". Maybe this is just a remix or something... Hopefully.

And can anyone tell me the difference between Revolting Cocks and Ministry? I'm sure there must be one. The new RevCo is also, like, a partial Lard reunion since Jello Biafra vocalizes on the one about viagra. Timely.

Lita Ford on the Surreal Life. Best rumor in years.

Usenet has been on fire this week. First I find two Bohren and Club der Gore albums I've been lusting after for aeons, then, then, then, finally, unbelievably, Keith Tippett's Centipede!!!! I've wanted to hear this stuff since reading about it in the King Crimson bio five years ago. Septober Energy from 1971.

BANANARAMA
DRAMA
Um, this just sounds like Kylie and every other tech pop princess blah. In a bad way. I guess I prefer music that sounds like it sounds like something teenage girls would like. But this is just something teenage girls would like. Popular ones. "Venus" remixed for the fifty billionth time. "Look on the Floor" sounds like Madonna, big time. Crossed with Olivia Newton John. No, wait, that makes it seem cool.

BIOTRON SHELF
33 MINUTES NORTH
The great thing about Usenet is anyone can upload anything. If they upload it to enough groups, maybe someone will bite. You never know. Biotron Shelf may have perpetrated just such product placement. So, it's pleasant enough sort of minimalist electronic stuff. Blips & gurgles off in the distance. Reverbed to shite and back. Not offensive. "She Gave Me Dark Thoughts" is a nice title.

DE LA SOUL
THE IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
I liked "Three Feet High and Rising". No, I loved it. It was such a pleasant response to NWA, Ice-T, etc. But they never lived up to it, in my estimation. They don't suck but they're not as good as they were in 1988. I guess you could say the same about most of us. Is 'Butta Verses' a Busta Rhymes dis? Ooh, dishy. I'll try this thing again later but right now it's not knocking my nuts.

DIGITAL SAMSARA
DIGITAL SAMSARA
Multi culti ambient electronic noodling.

READ 'EM AND WEEP

2006-06-21T11:12:00.000-05:00

Thursday was the half-anticipated/half-dreaded Zappa Plays Zappa show in Detroit. Michael Bill bought tix for us months ago... I have to be in a very specific mood to listen to Zappa & another very specific mood to want to sit in a hot black car for 4 hours. Etc. You get the idea, just me being a baby as usual.

We left at 2pm in my car. He brought his 40 gig ipod since he was in charge of entertainment for the drive. We got to the venue... in Auburn Hills, actually... around 6:30pm or so. We killed a few minutes with light dinner across the street. & eventually wandered in to the smallish amphitheater. I wasn't planning on buying a shirt, but when I found myself with cash in hand & saw a dark green one with ZOMBY WOOF in big yellow letters, I had to go for it. Eek. So now I'm Zappa Shirt Guy. I guess.

The place was packed with douchebags of all generations. Parents & kids. Lots of kids. Too many fucking kids. The show started with a long video of Frank & The Boys from I don't know what year. Then Dweezil etc wandered onto the stage & it was off to the races.

The show was surprisingly entertaining. I only knew a few songs but it was still enjoyable. Terry Bozzio was the first special guest they brought out. He was the highlight for me. "Punky's Whips" is hilarious. And he's such a good drummer. And very, um, fun to watch. His drumming... wow. The dude is a monster. He only played a few songs, which was a strange thing to do. Maybe Dweezil didn't want the superstar guests to pull focus from Frank's Music? Because, seriously, when Steve Vai came out, the whole place went ballistic. We listened to "Flex-able" on the way there, so I was kind of in the Vai zone already anyway. He was energetic & entertaining too but I dug Bozzio more. Um. The whole band was very very good obviously. I liked "Florentine Pogen". "Let's Make the Water Turn Black". Even though it was a big ghosty love-in for the long-dead Frank Zappa, this concert didn't feel like necrophilia until the bit where the band simulated jamming with him via the video screen. That was stupid & it was the only thing that reminded me of Natalie Cole singing a duet with her long dead daddy.

I'll take Dweezil's hairstyle too, please. I'm already halfway there.

The drive home took substantially longer because I made MCB drive. I drove maybe like 2 miles onto the freeway & it was instantly obvious that I just couldn't do it. So I took an exit & we made a pit-stop at White Castle. And spent the next hour trying to get back onto the fucking freeway! I got home at 4:30am. EUGH.

Our seats were waaaay over on Vai's side, so we're not in this amazing clip of Terry Bozzio....

BLOOD BRUISE

2006-06-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

This shoulda been my year for concerts, but it somehow isn't. I dunno why. I already missed Thomas Dolby in Cleveland. Celtic Frost will be in Cleveland & Cincinnati, as will Gary Numan. And Venom will be in Cleveland. Hm.

Archival recording playlist
Thomas Dolby - Boston 1988, FM broadcast. Whoooooo-weeeeee! nus.
Zappa Plays Zappa - first three shows. Trying to get my ears in shape for the Detroit show next week.
Sunday All Over The World (billed as Fripp And Fripp) - spring 1989. Lots of stuff I've never heard before. Twenty songs in 70 minutes. Very nice. I miss this band. I miss futuristic progressive pop.

I'm already repeating myself here in my little micro music summaries.

Mello

2006-06-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

BBC Radio 4
Sampledelica - History of the Mellotron
28 minutes
128k MP3
25.7MB

download

Good:
Moloko - Day for Night
String Quartet Tribute to Slayer

IT'S ALL AROUND YOU

2006-06-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

DALMINJO
ONE DAY YOU'LL DANCE FOR ME TOKYO
Swoonful dancetronica. "Wouldn't Wanna Go Without You" is already the sad-hop anthem of the summer, occupying a similar bandwidth to M.I.A.'s "Sunshowers" last year. You know the one. It's gorgeous like Jazzanova. Oh my god, and "There is a Light that Never Goes Out", easily the greatest Smiths cover, possibly the greatest cover version of anything, ever. Up there with DE-VO's "Satisfaction", surely. This thing sounds like a sad old disco hit, crusty around the edges, slightly surly.

Overall, fucking awesome.

One Measured Exposure

2006-05-26T09:11:00.001-05:00

Thomas Dolby
Windpower live video
Cleveland, OH
May 10, 2006

Damn it. I should've been at this show! Cleveland is as close as the tour came to me. Windpower has long been a favorite, so it's with mixed feelings that I watched this clip. He begins the song a capella & sounds horribly out of tune for some reason. He strains to get the notes out. Once the music kicks in, the song is in freefall, basically remixed on the fly. Verses, choruses, other bits, coming in rapid succession but not necessarily where they belong. I like the one man band idea but unfortunately it just boils down to karaoke. It's not all bad, though. Many aspects of the original are retained and despite everything, it's good to see Thomas Dolby in action. I love the fact that he makes things like this available

download - Thomas Dolby Windpower

Slow

2006-05-22T10:49:00.000-05:00

SLOW MUSIC
05-11-2006
*thud*

30 second pause

*thud*

29 second pause

*thud*

28 second pause

etc.

Then! A slowly building drone that could be.... anything. Synth? Guitar? Guitar synth?

*atonal zing*

*slams head on keyboard*

*floor tom roll*

*frippertronic drone*

*cymbal roll*

Upright bass riffs. melodic percussion.

In other words, the sound of many musicians not playing together.

I CAN TASTE THE HATE

2006-05-19T09:58:00.000-05:00

DREAMS OF DAMNATION
EPIC TALES OF VENGEANCE
Heavy as shit brutal death metal, thankfully with no concessions to vocal melodies. "Kill for Peace"! "Eaters of the Dead"!!!

FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY
ARTIFICIAL SOLDIER
I was just thinking about these guys yesterday. In making yet another typically lazy comparison, I think. I like the breakbeats on "Unleashed" & "Buried Alive".

HEAD CONTROL SYSTEM
EPIC TALES OF VENGEANCE
Strange combination of Nine Inch Nails, Nickelback and Disturbed? They just call this rock music now. You kids today and your Marilyn Manson. In my day, rock music was Billy Squier, Pat Benatar, Rick Springfield.

RICHARD H KIRK
ENTERING VALHALLA, VOL 2 (VIRTUAL LITE)
Very cool blippy & bassy um light dance music? I think the derisive term would be chillout music. But, y'know. Before that it was called ambient techno, maybe that's more apt.

UWE RECKZEH
POINT NORTH
Pleasantly spacey & ambient Hearts Of Space type shit. I can find no quarrel with this hour of quietly uplifting moods & melodies.

OUR RELATIONSHIP WAS BUILT ON LIES

2006-05-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

Car music today:
V/A - Big Band Remixed And Reinvented
Thievery Corporation - The Doors - Strange Days

1. Dirty Pretty Things - B.U.R.M.A (3:18)
2. In Strict Confidence - Promised Land (5:40)
3. King Biscuit Time - C I Am 15 (3:21)
4. Pascal Feos - Out Of My Head (4:11)
5. Patrick Lee - For My Piano Teacher (4:56)
6. Strange Attractor - Simulacra (5:27)
7. Sufjan Stevens - No Man's Land (4:45)
8. Raman Beats - Monsoon (Lazy Mix) (5:07)
9. Triangle Sun - Beautiful (3:55)
10. The Outfield - Long Walk Back (from Nowhere) (4:28)
11. Headphone - sublime parade reworked (3:16)

ANGEL THEORY
RE-POSSESSION
Dark synth pop. The guy's voice reminds me of... Cyberaktif. Or old Front Line Assembly. And Skinny Puppy.

APARTMENT 213
CLEVELAND POWER VIOLENCE
16 songs in 30 minutes. Ultra grind! And it reminds me of Spazz, which is a high compliment indeed. All hail the return of the four second song. "After School 38 Special". Ha.

DANIELSON
SHIPS
That name. I already hate this band. Flaming Lips, Built To Spill. Not as bad as it could've been.

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
WATERLOO TO ANYWHERE
Hello my new favorite new British band of the week. I love you more than anyone else this week. Sadly, the love affair will end before the CD. Although "You Fucking Love It" is a great song any day of the week.

EDENBRIDGE
THE GRAND DESIGN
Dream Theater crossed with Queen. No shit. Fucking hilarious.

FIRE IN THE ATTIC
I'LL BEAT YOU CITY
Big budget death metal emo. Just like I knew it would be. Look at the band name, look at the album title. Sucky fucking suck suck.

GLEDHILL
CONSTELLATIONS
Weird. Country guitar pop rock with all the comforts of home. No, um, I mean it sounds like Wilco crossed with Linkin Park. Epic synths & pianos at every turn. Hm. Not fun. Not cool. Close, but no.

HEADPHONE
TWO STORIES HIGH
Quietly jazzy layered clicktronica. & triphop, innit.

IN STRICT CONFIDENCE
EXILE PARADISE
Wow, kick-ass, dark synth pop. Depeche Mode meets Ace of Base, in a good way.

JEWEL
GOODBYE ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Y'know, I've never heard a Jewel album before. Owing largely to my own survival instincts. This just sounds like country to me. Now I know.

KILLING MACHINE
METALMORPHOSIS
Musically... Mercyful Fate. Vocally...Bruce Dickinson.

KING BISCUIT TIME
BLACK GOLD
I guess there's a reason it reminds me of Beta Band.

KMFDM
RUCK ZUCK EP
I forget the last time I heard these guys. This ain't bad, big buncha remixes. Whatever happened to good, angry electronica anyway? Oh yeah, Trent Reznor.

KUTLESS
HEARTS OF THE INNOCENT
Disturbed, or Godsmack. Or Mudvayne. Same thing.

PATRICK LEE
TWELVE TUSK PIANO
Holy shit, this rules. Funky, jazzy, sample-based, um, songs? The beats are large & AWESOME. And it's loungey like Thievery Corp. I like the fact that there are no vocals. NICE!

MAD MAX
NIGHT OF WHITE ROCK
Is that guy taking the piss with the singing? The music is detuned, in-your-face riff rock. Then the singer comes in. I can't even describe the guy's voice. It's really high & wimpy. Oh, I know - the guy from Prefab Sprout. Who I love. But he'd be useless fronting Iron Maiden.

MAINSTAY
WELL MEANING FICTION
Linkin Park crossed with Coldplay.

NORMA JEAN
O GOD THE AFTERMATH
Screamy, Pantera-style hardcore riff metal. Wow, they really sound like Pantera to me. Norma Jean is a dead ringer. And? There's no lame emo action anywhere.

OTHLIA
CONTINENTS
Yelling, movie soundtrack-type orchestral thingamajigs. Prettiness, quietness, loudness, sound effects.

THE OUTFIELD
ANY TIME NOW
Good god, is this The Outfield from the 80s? This sounds like new U2 or something. If it's them, then I give them credit for updating their sound. If it's not, then, maybe they should renew the copyright on their name. Whatever it is, it's very good 80s style guitar driven pop rock. "Long Walk Back (from Nowhere)" sounds like vintage The Outfield. I didn't realize I liked them the first time around. But, yeah. Surprisingly cool.

PAN AMERICAN
FOR WAITING, FOR CHASING
Clicky, fucked-up, antimusic. In a good way.

PASCAL FEOS
SYNAPTIC
Cool, fun, modern, instrumental, danceable electronica. Like who? Like no other. Melodic, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay minimalistic. "Ausklang" is the shit. But every track rules.

RAISON D'ETRE
METAMORPHYSES
An hour of gradually shifting live ambience. Metallic percussion, loud drones. Etc. Heavily reverbed. Occasionally building to a crescendo. Occasionally just laying there in a Steve Roach-like pile of hmsh.

SECTION A
PARALLEL LIVES
Melodic heavy metal. Iron Maiden meets Foreigner. Not bad at all.

SERAPIS
SERAPIS
Death metal, cool. Okay, now I'm just waiting for the emo part to kick in. "Shatner Mask" - there it is.

SOFIAN ROUGE
MEDITERRANEAN EXCURISION
Utter ripoff of the first Enigma album, right down to the sexy voiced female spoken word intro and the fucking beat on the first proper song. & instead of gregorian chant you get a sort of middle eastern inflected dude going at it. It's...... not bad, I guess. It's just derivative as fuck! So cheeky!

STARKWEATHER
CROATOAN
Oh my god, no. "Slither" started out so strong! Slow doom death metal dirge with black metal vocals. And then it turned a corner & a clean voiced guy starts singing about emotions. Fucking fuck. So close. I didn't see that one coming at all.

SUFJAN STEVENS
THE AVALANCHE
I keep seeing this guy's name everywhere. Heavily embellished singer songwriter deal. Is it good, is it bad. There's too much happening for a first listen. It doesn't suck outright, I'll say that.

HAWKSLEY WORKMAN
TREEFUL OF STARLING
Unlike Hawksley Workman, whose sonic blueprint is strangely repellent.

SPIRIT OF THE FOREST

2006-05-17T09:57:00.000-05:00

Wow, a rubbish charity single/video from 1989. Andy Partridge shows up immediately. Wait for the chorus to see Colin Moulding.

The song is horrible, which is why this is probably the first time you're hearing it.

GONNA BE THERE

2006-05-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

ABOMINATOR
THE ETERNAL CONFLAGRATION
Scary black thrash grind metal. My favorite kind.

AKMUSIQUE
LA VIE DU LOUNGE
Mellow trip hop to full on jazz to, I don't know, techno pop. Interesting gamut.

AVENUE BLUE
NIGHTLIFE
Smooth jazz.

BOARDS OF CANADA
TRANS CANADA HIGHWAY
Slowly unfolding, melodic, textural electronica. Cool beats & production. I like "Dayvan Cowboy" and "Skyliner".

THE CHANNELS
THE CHANNELS
Occasionally acceptable big-budget wimpy indie rock.

KEEP OF KALESSIN
ARMADA
Progressive, epic death metal with an equal preponderance of synths and blastbeats. "The Black Uncharted" sounds like Voivod. Now I'm confused.

THE KILAMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE
Sweet, dark, full band improv. Portishead plus Talk Talk. Or, Sianspheric. Same thing, no? Very cool.

PERSUADER
WHEN EDEN BURNS
Super melodic death metal. Clean, melodic vocals. Very confusing.

PHARAOH
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Dope prorgressive-ish metal. With lots of long instrumental parts. The singer's voice doesn't grate either, which is rare in this genre. This genre we call Iron Maiden.

RED WINE
THE END
A band I've never heard, covering a bunch of metal/hard rock classic tracks that I've never heard. Well, I've heard the Dio & Megadeth songs at some point.

ROGUE TRADERS
HERE COME THE DRUMS
Um, kinda guitar-driven top forty pop music? "Voodoo Child" samples Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up".

RON SEXSMITH
TIME BEING
Elliott Smith? Or, if I'm feeling generous, Neil Finn? Type of thing? Singer songwriter thing.

SKYE
MIND HOW YOU GO
Slow/mopey pop music. Sounds like one of the Spice Girls with PMS.

STRANGE ATTRACTOR
EVERYTHING IS CLOSER
Kick ass trip hop. In bulk.

TACOA
FENG SHUI
Groovin' electronica along the lines of ole Deep Forest. ie beats plus indigenous music.

VOIVOD
KATORZ
It was sad when Piggy died. I've loved Voivod since the 80s. I don't care for Jasonic's involvement, but the 2003 self-titled Voivod album was excellent. 30 seconds into "The Getaway", this is already different. Let me listen to this mofo 50x & I'll get back to you. "The X-stream" is fucking excellent, I can say that much. But the front cover art isn't very amazing, is it.

THE WAKE
DEATH-A-HOLIC
Obviously not The Wake (UK) on Factory Records nor Cleopatra Records's The Wake from Columbus Ohio. This one is an Opeth-y death metal band.

SCOTT WALKER
THE DRIFT
Fucking weird. How did this guy become famous again? The music is experimental, possibly improvised. The vocals, um, highly poetic recitations? With occasional melodic passages.

LET

2006-05-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

AFX
CHOSEN LORDS
More squitchy twitchy anti dance smleaugh from the main man of squitchy twitchy anti dance smleaugh. Me likey "PWSteal.Ldpinch.D", remind me to shout that one out at his next gig.

ALIEN VAMPIRES
EVIL GENERATION
Dark electro. All synthetic. The riffs might've originated on guitar, maybe not. The vocals sound like Dani Filth. And with trax like "I Fuck Nuns", "Fake Blod is For Cunt", the influence seems apparent. "Satanic Propaganda (SNTF Rising)" even takes the fun out of devil worship.

HERB ALPERT'S TIJUANA BRASS
WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS REWHIPPED
Allstar remix project that would've been much cooler about ten years ago. Still, this could've turned out much worse.

Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung
DOMESTIC WILDLIFE
The first song is like experimental orchestral jazz classical progressive rock. "Rabbit Eye Movement" is a gorgeous piece of orchestra... pop? Track three sounds very much like the middle eight of "21st Century Schizoid Man" for woodwinds, bass and drumset. Pretty cool.

CAMP
ICONOGRAPHY
Weird. Dance music beats, new wave guitars & keyboards. Disco basslines. And fey, disaffected vocals. I didn't mean it was weird. I should've said SWEET. "If I Were a Cat".

THE COMMERCIAL HIPPIES
IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT
Nine tracks that merge into one long hour of dull trance.

DATACH'I
SHOCK DIAMONDS
Weird-ass noises treated rhythmically. Quite a few of them. But not a beat or melody in sight.

DESTYNATION
RISING UP
Wow. Judas Priest crossed with Foreigner.

DRAGON LORD
THROUGH THE TIME
Um. Pass. Man, I wish these guys were kidding.

ENDRONE
THE SINS WITHIN
Detuned boy band emo death metal.

ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW
BEFORE THE BLEEDING SUN
Melodic, orchestral black metal with catchy choruses. That can't be.

FANNY
SHOEBOMB HURRICANE
There's a Venetian Snares remix on the end. Need I say more?

JACK JOHNSON
CURIOUS GEORGE
Dull, offensive, Santana-esque acoustic guitar driven Top 40. And it's cheesy.

TIM KOCH
FAENA
This guy operates solely in the realm of the snarky song title. All 17 trax are steeped in snark. Musically, it's instrumental electronica of various descriptions. My favorite, "Seven Ate Nine" has a nice drum groove over melodic synth stuffing. Tim Koch, a subtle & palatable version of Aphex Twinkie.

LOSCIL
PLUME
Now THAT's what I call subtleatmosphericambientronica. Now I'm getting misty-eyed for the old days of Future Sound Of London. Awww.

MEDIAEVAL BAEBES & MARTIN PHIPPS
THE VIRGIN QUEEN
If this is a soundtrack, the movie sounds awesome. You know the Baebes's deal already.

NARNIA
ENTER THE GATE
If you have to be a Euro power metal band with keyboards, and no one is suggesting you do, I guess you could do worse than this. Bruce Dickinson-worship vocals, Maidenish riffs. The only wildcard on the first cut is the wildly inappropriate Journey (ca. 1981) keyboards. Which I like. Recommended for Iron Maiden fans who always wished Jonathan Cain would've joined.

OAKENFOLD
A LIVELY MIND
Semi-terrible stadium dance hitz. Maybe I expected more from Oakie cokey. But I don't know why.

SAMBASSADEUR
COASTAL AFFAIRS EP
Oh my god, musically, "Kate" gets it so right it's right. Acoustic guitar, bloppy bass, wispy female singing. Kind of like Magnetic Fields meets the Cure and/or New Order. Highly melodic.
All four tracks are like that. Fucking excellent!

SEPULTURA
DANTE XXI
I've never been a fan. I wrote them off as latecomers to the death metal game in the early 1990s. So fuck knows what their records sound like. This one is pretty brutal in spots. "Dark Wood of Error" has nice meaty riffs. ""City of Dis" starts like Celtic Frost, then thrashes out for a bit. Then it's kind of groovy. "Repeating the Horror" has a decent melodic element. Is
"Still Flame" a bonus track? It sounds like a heavy metal Portishead cover.

SPEKTR
THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
I know Cronos likes to refer to Venom's music (often mid-song) as 'black fucking metal', but I think this is real black fucking metal. It's scary, there are no grooves, you can hear keyboards in the distance, the drums are recorded & mixed strangely, and the vocals are terrifying. Plus, "The Violent Stink of Twitching Terror." Hands down. Black fucking metal!!

THIEVERY CORPORATION
VERSIONS
This shit is fucking awesome. 18 songs, give or take, are given the full Thievererrey biz. And, put it this way, my two favorite songs are their Versions of trax by the Doors and Sarah McLachlan. I know, I know. Shit is DOPE! Soundtrack of the century. The Fear of Pop cut is cool, as are Herb Alpert and Gilbertos Astrud and Bebel. WICK'd!

retouch

2006-05-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

ASMODEUS
IMPERIUM DAMNATUM
Yay scary black metal. Brutal, terrifying, gorgeous. Those blastbeats are dramatic! "On the Inflammatory March." And it's cool that they saved the ghouly sound effects intro piece for the end.

ATTACKER
THE UNKNOWN
Good god, that voice. It sounds like the dude from Overkill in the 80s. Like, high, melodic & untrained. That's how it sounds anyway. The music is kind of like Overkill too. Adequate, non-fluffy, heavy metal. It's not thrash & it's not glam.

KENNETH BAGER
FRAMENTS FROM A SPACE CADET
With all those guest vocalists, this sounds like a mellow/dub version of the Junkie XL albums of recent vintage.

FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER & PETER DUIMELINKS
FFLUX
Monotonous/minimalistic electronica that practically isn't even there. Shit is quiet, repetetive & of almost no use to me as a listener! So there!

D.A.D.
SCARE YOURSELF
The first song reminds me of Nirvana. The second one reminds me of Foo Fighters. None remind me of Probot though, so I can't call them Grohl-ites. So, I dunno, melodic hard rock with a hint of alternativeness?

DNA
KICK ME UP
Generic instrumental trance.

FILUR
INTO THE WASTELAND
Awwwwwwww yeah. The first song is downtempo electronica with awesome vocals from the hawt hawt hawtie Stina Nordenstam. The second is uptempo & just as rad. "Avoid Disgrace" adds dude-vox. "Kid Retouch". "What I Long", is that the one with the Gus Gus singer female? It's nice too. "Right Said Frog", "Boredom Threshold". This album is the undisputed springtime jam!

HIM
PEOPLES
Potentially neato downtempo jazzy loungey dance rock thing. Then again "In These Times" strays a bit too close to Santana ground for my liking.

HOWE GELB
'SNO ANGEL LIKE YOU
Guitar, singing, drums, weirdness. Lots of weirdness.

IDLE SONS
SIXTEEN SEASONS
Emo punk pop rock.

LAURA MICHELLE KELLY
THE STORM INSIDE
It's just confusing that this otherwise nondescript young female singer songwriter piano pop album opens with a gorgeous cover of Nick Drake's "Riverman".

MADS LANGER
ATTENTION PLEASE
Who's this guy singing these generic pop songs. Nevermind, don't answer. Turns out I don't care.

NORTHAUNT
HORIZONS
Ooooh, ghoulyambience.

OPPOSITE8
HARD ENOUGH
Pleasant enough dance music.

PALACE
BLACK SUN
Wow, who else writes songs called "Women In Leather" in this day and age, I ask you. I have to give this one points just for that. Melodic power metal. I'm reminded of Pretty Maids. Aw, but "Rock Soldiers" isn't a Frehley's Comet cover. Darn.

PET SHOP BOYS
FUNDAMENTAL
I liked "West End Girls" when it came out because I heard it all over London the first time I went there. I was 13. Since then the only other thing I liked was the first Electronic single. The technology may be updated but it's still just synth pop, innit.

PORTUGAL THE MAN
WAITER: "YOU VULTURES!"
All that punctuation on the album title. I already hate this band. Song titles so snarky I'm not even going to bother relating ("Horse Warming Party"). Offputting combination of indie pop, prog rock & big budget emo. Bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh. Puke all over myself.

SHINJUKU THIEF
DEVOLUTION
Strangely-mixed uh, sonic experimentation. Some quite gruesome.

SILENT CIVILIAN
REBIRTH OF THE TEMPLE
Melodic progressive death metal. With screechy AND clean vocals. Something for everyone but me.

SNAKE EYE
RITUAL INSTINCTS
"Queen of the Night". Hm. This is hard rockin', high pitched voice hard rock metal stuff. The singing is okay, it reminds me of the fake band on the movie Rock Star.

STEREO FUSE
ALL THAT REMAINS
Fucking boring modern emo grunge. And the vocals are almost like country.

TIGER BABY
NOISE AROUND ME
Awesome band name (only Spider Baby could be better), great dance synth pop, hot-voiced female vocalist, fun songs. Soundtrack of the summer. Almost. Top five anyway.

URSULA 1000
HERE COMES TOMORROW
NOW yer talkin'. FUN dance pop big beat. & it's funky.

CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSSWOLFF
LEECH
Sounds like he spent the first 2.5 minutes trying to plug in the synth. Track two, 20 minutes of almost nothing. Track three, loops of clicks & static. Track four, 12.5 minutes of... even less. Heavily reverbed drum hits every 30 seconds or so.

RECOGNIZE

2006-05-02T07:37:00.000-05:00

BENGA
NEWSTEP
Melodic & electronic, like a nu version of 808 State. Sort of. Maybe not quite that melodic. "Zombie Jig". "Dubstep Dreams".

HOOBASTANK
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
I've always hated this band despite never hearing them. No band called Hoobastank could be worth a god damn, I don't care who they get to do what. My premonitions were correct, this is indeed worthless pop poop rock. And can I just register a general complaint while I'm here about military imagery in rock songs? The ole hup two three four kind of thing? Because it's bogus & it makes my skin crawl.

MESRINE
JACK IS DEAD
50 song grindcore, um, concept album? About serial killers and... the Simpsons? The longest track is still under three minutes. Sound quality ranges from clean to disgusting! As well it should. "Andrew Cunanan"...."Apu".... "Skinner pt 2".

MOTORJESUS
DEATHRIDER
Melodic Euro power metal pop rock. The choruses sound like Nickelback.

KERRANG PRESENTS
REMASTER OF PUPPETS
Full length tribute album by 'today's hottest metal artists'. Machine Head tunes down, so their "Battery" intro already sounds different. Otherwise, yeah. It is what it is. Hm, covering an entire album, what a concept. I've never heard of Mendeed or Fightstar, but the rest are what passes for household names in the world of metal these days. Dude, Bullet For My Valentine's whiny singer sounds like a fucking tool. Chimaira (original band name there, well done)'s dude takes the opposite approach - tuneless death metal screeching - & sounds just as toolish. Funeral For A Friend too, with "Damage, Inc". Meh.

PAUL SIMON
SURPRISE
Good god, it sounds like Sonic Youth at the beginning. That's weird. Did I cue up the wrong thing? The highest compliment I can pay this is to say that it doesn't sound like Paul Simon. I've never been down with the little man. Though I was confused when Chevy Chase was in that one video, because he was still funny & hadn't turned into a puppet of elective cosmetic surgery yet. I might even listen to "How Can You Live in the Northeast" again. "Everything About it is a Love Song" goes drum & bass, yes, ten years too late. Better late than never, I suppose. Not bad for a fossil. Or, I've just lost my fucking mind.

SONIC YOUTH
RATHER RIPPED
I lost track of these guys after 'Goo', so I don't know what else to say beyond it sounds like Sonic Youth. Opener "Reena" is a clean-tone exploration. Upbeat & sorta jangly. But still moody & unique. "Incinerate" has clean guitars too. Is that how they do it now? Nice. "Sleepin Around" - there's the scuzz. Is Kim Gordon singing more? Cool album. I don't know what I expected, but this shit is cool.

DEAR

2006-04-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

the string quartet tribute to secondhand stupidity

people I sort of know

RICHARD BUTLER
RICHARD BUTLER
He should've called it Dick Butler. Har. Hardy har. Now, what differentiates this from Psychedelic Furs or Love Spit Love, I do not know. But it's not bad at all, it reminds me of Ian McCulloch's solo albums back in the day.

CARPATHIAN FOREST
FUCK YOU ALL!!!
Dude, yes. This is AWESOME! Unapolgetically raw & brutal death thrash. "Submit to Satan!!!". Do you know, I think I might do now. "Start Up the Incinerator (Here Comes Another Useless Fool)". "Shut Up, There's No Excuse to Live". Awesome.

CRAIG DAVID
THE STORY GOES
I hate this guy. Pre-digested R&B pop. And "Thief in the Night" isn't a KISS cover. That would've been cool, a crappy pop cover of an obscure Gene Simmons song from the 1987 album 'Crazy Nights'. But no.

THE DIVINE COMEDY
VICTORY FOR THE COMIC MUSE
On the one hand, I love everything they did on 'Father Ted'. On the other, a big bunch of smug, lame, fake big-band. The jury is still out on this batch. But I can already tell you it's no "My Lovely Horse".

FLEETING JOYS
DESPONDENT TRANSPONDER
Wow, they don't make 'em like this anymore, do they. It's so rare that any new music reminds me of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Idaho. AWww. I'mma just soak this one up now. Fucking gorgeous! & "Young Girls' Fangs". Nice.

GORELORD
NORWEGIAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE - THE FINAL CUT
Piano ballads? What do you reckon? "Dying or Dreaming" starts with someone firing up a chainsaw. Then it's.... wow. Brutal death metal. Sweet syncopation & fingers crossed, no wimpy fucking clean vocals. AW yeah. That bit was almost like Meshuggah, but not quite.

HEAD AUTOMATICA
POPAGANDA
Ick. Just, ick. I can't even explain why. American guitar pop rock emo horseshit? With the now-requisite snarky song titles. Which I'm not going to spell out.

KORN
LIVE & RARE
Is this even a real album? I don't know. Y'know, Korn is one of those bands that I've always avoided because their music seemed stupid, their image seemed stupid & their fucking fans were inbred retards. I guess the music isn't horrible, but I also don't see what the big deal is.

PHOENIX
IT'S NEVER BEEN LIKE THAT
Unamazing indie rock.

Q MAGAZINE BEST OF 86-06
Artists I've never heard covering songs I've never heard. Fascinating.

RADIO 4
ENEMIES LIKE THIS
More Strokes/Interpol/Editors babies. Welcome aboard, lads.

REBEL MEETS REBEL
REBEL MEETS REBEL
Too bad I can't stand this shit, I think this guy just lives up the street. Pantera is fine but this just underlines how big of a deal the lead vocals are & how much they can change the whole vibe of what would otherwise be a normal metal album. & a decent one at that.

THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS
DON'T YOU FAKE IT
These pop punk emo metal pop bands just seem to fall out of the sky fully formed. I don't get it. This shit makes me feel old, especially since I haven't heard a single thing in the whole 'movement' that I want to hear a second time. Is it me?

THE RIVERBOAT GAMBLERS
TO THE CONFUSION OF OUR ENEMIES
Damn, I really wanted to like this. The music is pretty cool, but the singing & vocal melodies are on the wrong side of pop punk.

STORM OF CAPRICORN & PARANOIA INDUCTA
JAMA (split album)
Storm of Capricorn = droney dark ambients (plural).
Paranoia Inducta = droney euro folk with dark ambients (plural) in the back. Neat.

THURSDAY
A CITY BY THE LIGHT DIVIDED
This week's Interpol/Editors offspring. For the most part. Too bad the prefab emo choruses suck so bad. The quiet parts are sweet.

TOOL
10,000 DAYS
When did Tool get so popular? Headlining this year's Download festival, along with the likes of Guns N Roses and Metallica? I had no idea. You Tool-tools are really protective aren't you. Bunch of deranged c0ck monkeys. Nah, I think it's just stoner music. & Pink Floyd isn't making albums anymore. & some people need music to take drugs to, don't they. Rush. Cool that they're bringing big words like "Vicarious" to their escapist, drug-taking fan base.

KANYE WEST
LATE ORCHESTRATION
Is this a joke? I've never heard anything else of his. Live & with an orchestra. I thought only washed-up heavy metal bands did the Live Symphony thing. Strangely, I don't hate this.

INSIDE

2006-04-28T07:22:00.000-05:00

AS FAST AS
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DAMNED
Open letter to Garth Brooks & The Offspring, more like. Let's leave The Damned out of it, shall we?

BEAUTIFUL SOUTH
SUPERBI
Has this band always been country? No, that can't be. Their early videos weren't nearly this dire. Is this shit popular in England? I'm really confused by this album. But, not, like, enough to look up any of this stuff. You do it for me. & I don't know what these guys are playing at, but country music is not cool in any context, ever. "Manchester" isn't country, it's a bit Smiths, innit. Is Paul Leave The Heat-on's Morrissey impression intentional? "There is Song" is back to the country. All right. Fuck this shit. "Never Lost a Chicken to a Fox" sounds like Primal Scream doing a Mel Tillis cover.

BORIS
PINK
Some things are impossible not to love. I fear Boris is one of them. Skudge rowk. Fudge Tunnel times Tad plus the Nuge. In a good way.

EVERY MOVE A PICTURE
HEART WEAPON
That's well weapon. Sounds like the guitarist from A Flock of Seagulls with Duran Duran's rhythm section, the keyboard chick in the Billy Idol video and.... some dude singing. It's not bad. I expected the worst with that horrible band name.

FLUTTR EFFECT
SWALLOWS AND SPARROWS
"Tarantula" is mostly ambient layering of female vocals... followed by cello? & vibes beneath some Tori Amos-ish emoting. "Transmission" too. "Swallows and Sparrows" sounds like a lost Enya/Lisa Gerrard jam, in a bad way. I mean, ehhhhhhh, it's not horrible.

GNARLS BARKLEY
ST ELSEWHERE
Kinda stupid, kinda funny, fun to listen to. Filling the void left by Outkast. Hip hop soul kinda thing with samples & big beats. "Crazy", obviously, if you're outside the US. I don't know if this thing was even released here. Maybe it's a delayed reaction. Couple of doomy ballads. It's fun.

LACUNA COIL
KARMACODE
10-15 years ago I would've been thrilled to know that metal, goth and synth pop would someday merge and take over the world. Too bad the reality is so fucking boring.

LAMBCHOP
THE DECLINE OF COUNTRY AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Good god, cool it with the snarky titles already. And I say that as a snarky fanatic. "Soaky in the Pooper" opens. Nice name for a ballad. "Two Kittens Don't Make a Puppy"... "Moody Fucker'.... "Loretta Lung".... "I Can Hardly Spell My Name". "Playboy, the Shit". "Two Kittens" starts with a long, effected, layered solo saxophone thing, followed by a little big-beat. So, Flaming Lips, yes, obviously.

PANZER AG
YOUR WORLD IS BURNING
Marilyn Manson. Big time.

SNOG VS. THE FAECAL JUGGERNAUT OF MASS CULTURE
SYNTHETIC MELODIES OF RESISTANCE
I have low expectations of post-everything dark synth pop, since the majority of today's practitioners favor stale style over substance. Not so with Snog, et al. They have gurgling synths & choons in equal measure. So, yay. "Crash Crash" fits nicely in a mixtape situation.

STAINLESS
TWO FACES
High voiced indie rocker dude. The music is bleahy indie rock too. They merge and.... nothing. Not a thing.

THE TERRIBLE TWOS
IF YOU EVER SEE AN OWL
Whoever said it was time for a Toad The Wet Sprocket revival should be forced to listen to this horseshit forever & ever & ever & ever. It sucks when dudes attempt to dabble in Bjorkish cuteness with songs about bugs, numbers, dinosaurs, math & chocolate milk. It just doesn't work. At all. In any context.

KIDBEATS

2006-04-26T10:51:00.000-05:00

ARDITI
DESTINY OF IRON 7"
Mm, sounds like a lame Dead Can Dance sample played on a cheesy little Casio SK-5 for ten minutes.

BIRD SHOW
LIGHTNING GHOST
Straaaaaaange. Highly experimental folky songage. With the oddest sonic additions! I'm telling you. I can't describe this shit, but I like it very very much.

CELTIC FROST
MONOTHEIST
follow-up: I haven't made much progress with this beast. It's so dark that it's impossible for me to listen to very often.

DANIETO
Contemplación De La Vida Inerte
Likably tuneful & clicky blipboptronica. Now get the hell outta here!

DICTAPHONE
VERTIGO II
Y'know, I don't think the name of this project is a coincidence. This thing sounds like it was recorded through someone's ass & then processed heavily later. Which is a cool working process but a real bitch to have to listen to.

FILM SCHOOL
FILM SCHOOL
This week's entry into the moody 1980s guitar pop rock stakes. & another winner. Octavey guitar always wins with me.

FORWARD, RUSSIA!
GIVE ME A WALL
A more extroverted entry in the moody 1980s guitar pop rock category. & another winner. Fake Simon Le Bon vocals often win with me.

MANITOU
DEADLOCK
I wonder if they got their name from the Venom song in the 1980s. If so, cool. Too bad they sound more like Europe than Venom.

ORTHODOX
GRAN PODER
Hm, doom, lovely doom. Four songs clocking in at just under an hour. Sounds like quite a bit of improv happening as well. Which would explain a few things.

PATH OF RESISTANCE
CAN'T STOP THE TRUTH
The album opens with a wall of gweetar feedback. Aw, how cute. How fucking old school in this day & age. Then a hardcore metal punk polka thrash beat just like we useta do in the 1980s.

PHAROAH
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Melodic metal that is HIGHLY derivative of Iron Maiden. To the extreme! Maybe a little Judas Priest on top, just to blur the lines.

REFLEXION
OUT OF THE DARK
Big budget Euro power metal.

REKID
MADE IN MENORCA
Likeably tuneful epic bliptronica with nods to the 1980s. Which is a nice touch. "Arp"!

SNOW PATROL
EYES OPEN
Never heard 'em before, so I guess I better pay attention. Semi experimental indie pop rock. I can't tell if it rules or sucks ass at this point. Which doesn't mean a thing.

THIRD FLOOR STORY
LONELY CITY
Big budget wimpy indie rock. I think the frailty & smallness of the songs is betrayed by this obnoxiously shiny production. As a bunch of 4-track demos, this album would probably rule.

WANTS

2006-04-17T11:05:00.000-05:00

ADEM
LOVE AND OTHER PLANETS
Wilco.

GWYN ASHTON
PROHIBITION
Pentatonic blues rock that just sounds like dumbed-down Stevie Ray Vaughan at times.

ATREYU
A DEATHGRIP ON YESTERDAY
Death metal music with Journey/Foreigner vocals.

DAEDALUS
DENIES THE DAYS DEMISE
Non-horrible electronic dancery sing songery. Samples, loops, tunes.

DISMANTLED
STANDARD ISSUE
Dark synth pop.

ERIC GADD
ERIC GADD
Soul, r&b, pop with the F word.

EVANS BLUE
THE MELODY AND THE ENERGETIC NATURE OF VOLUME
The sentence-length album title should be a clue that whiteboywhininess abounds. Encased in hard rock riffs though it may be.

GODSMACK
LIVIN' IN SIN
Radio friendly dark pop metal. Which they practically invented.

GOTAN PROJECT
LUNATICO
Smooth & jazzy grooves. Lyrics en Espanol. It's cool & I like the accordion. If that's an accordion.

HAMMER BROS
THE VITALITY
Screamy slow hardcore metal. With a Cro-mags cover at the end. So I don't think they're bullshitting ya here.

HOMEBREW
SMOKE & MIRRORS
Full on blues. Horn section, everything.

I AM ROBOT AND PROUD
THE ELECTRICITY IN YOUR HOUSE WANTS TO SING
Sweet-ass electronica that's more fun to listen to than write about!

LAS KETCHUP
UN BLODYMARY
Latin pop.

LIVE
SONGS FROM BLACK MOUNTAIN
Dude, I fucking hate this band. To me they've always symbolized everything that's wrong with alternative rock music. Bland fucking songs & the singer has the most annoying voice I've ever heard. This shit pile is no exception.

PSYCHOBITCH
ELECTROLICIOUS
Euro tech dance pop with metallic guitars & overtones. "Go Pussy Go". Next wave Lords of Acid?

SCARLET
THIS WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO FALL APART
The sentence-length album title should be a clue that whiteboywhininess abounds. Encased in progressive death metal riffs though it may be.

ERIC STECKEL BAND
HAVANA
Live blues band. The singer sounds about 15, maybe he is.

US BOMBS
WE ARE THE PROBLEM
Boppy pop punk with a wheezy old dude on the mic. Uptempo songs about weighty social topics. "Tonight" is the piano/acoustic ballad. Green Day had a piano/acoustic ballad, didn't they.

groan

2006-04-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

Motley Crue - Rock am Ring 2005

I grabbed this video really out of morbid curiosity. I haven't been a fan since the mid 80s but after seeing the setlist for their most recent tours, I recognized quite a few song titles. Plus it was online so it's not like there was any kind of risk involved. The show? Yeesh. I think they've always been pretty rough live, but this show was really ragged. Poor Mick Mars! That's all I can say. I don't know how he's still able to play guitar. But he is. Tommy Lee's drumming is still the star attraction as far as I'm concerned. Vince Neil just sucks. Nikki Sixx is a fuckin' cheese. And in 2005 they really weren't doing any justice to their legacy.

I don't know, I've seen Billy Idol's set from the same festival & he was much better. Weird.

ANGELS AND AIRWAVES
WE DON'T NEED TO WHISPER
Crap band name. Potentially crap album title. We're not off to a great start here, Angels And Airwaves. "Valkyrie Missile" opens & they may have invented a genre here. I don't know what you'd call it though. It's like trance guitar synth pop. Cross New Order, Underworld and U2. Very not bad. The singer's whiny emo voice removes any possibility of me wanting to hear this again though. And by the last song they just sound like Linkin Park playing Cure covers. Dire.

ANOUAR BRAHEM
LE VOYAGE DE SAHAR
Movie soundtrack? If not, then, finely detailed motifs using classical and French-sounding (whatever that means) instrumentation. Accordion, that's what that means. Moods, textures, weight.

AVANT
DIRECTOR
Pop R&B stuff. Why am I listening to this? "Grown Ass Man" is a good title for a song & a great title for a ballad! Well done him.

STAR

2006-04-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

Oh man, this new Jesu track is awesome. "Star". It takes the Justin Broadrick thang in a different, unexpected direction. This sombitch is seven mins & change of moody, uptempo, atonal jangle rock! Clean guitars & holy fuck he sings it totally clean. It's like "Slateman" back in the day. That was my first Godflesh track, I could probably tell you the exact date I heard it. I know it was in April 1991, on a train, in England. On my Walkman. & from a covermount Earache Records sampler cassette. So there. Impact! "Star" sounds like Broadrick doing Ride. Nah, the drum machine bit sounds like Killing Joke or something. Which is well within bounds. This track rules.

Jesu - "Star"

Boiyoiyoiyoing.

AROUND

2006-04-10T10:53:00.000-05:00

We got tickets for Zappa Plays Zappa in Detroit. I think it'll wind up pre-empting my other out of town concert plans for the summer. But it should be worth it. I'm no Zappaophile (or whatever the fanz call theyselves collectively) but I'm a casual fan. I know a couple of his albums. So it'll be cool to see live.

THE RADIO DEPT
PET GRIEF
Incredibly pleasant 80s inflected light & airy synth pop. That I like quite a lot apparently. "The Worst Taste in Music" is a good song title.

HEM
NO WORD FROM TOM
Pretty, country inflected, acoustic piano, violins, acoustic guitars, acoustic everything. Very traditional American songwriting type stuff. If Cowboy Junkies did a John Denver tribute.

KATAKLYSM
IN THE ARMS OF DEVASTATION
Brutal but melodic death metal. I wouldn't put it past them to use clean vocals though. It sounds like two singers. One has a lower scream growl & the other is higher, almost black metal-ish. Interesting counterpoint there. "The Road to Devastation" is the obligatory symphonic epic that rounds out the album.

BOB SINCLAIR
WESTERN DREAM
What a misleading set of titles. I wasn't expecting house music. Well done them. "Tennessee" sounds like Rinocerose with acoustic guitars. So, it's melodic & has nice beats. We may be on to something here. Or......not.

BUSTA RHYMES
PRELUDE TO THE BIG BANG EP
I loved the first few Busta albums. When he crammed about fifty million words into every verse. Now he just sounds like a hoarse version of everyone else. & his music was a lot crazier before. I wouldn't bother trying to blast this in my car. "Blow this Head Off" is cool, vocally, but the music is weak. The one with Sizzla might be cool. The tempos are too low. Get uptempo with it. & how many times is he going to use the apocalypse imagery. I wonder.

SAVES THE DAY
SOUND THE ALARM
Dude. When music is this formulaic I really need a stamp or something. It feels like they're just repeating everything that's ever been said & so maybe so should I. Whatever. Whiny new wavey pop punk with all the fun cooked out.

VAN HUNT
ON THE JUNGLE FLOOR
Technofied r&b. Slow jamz & everything.

PERPLEX
EXPRESSION
Dull, epic trance. I mean, it's probably fine in a club or on headphones or very loud in a car on the freeway late at night in the middle of the summer with all the windows open.

FROZEN MIST
FORESHADOWED
What the hell is this crap? And there's so much of it too. Okay. Weirdly sequenced drums & keys. Lame, badly recorded male & female vocals. And it just goes on forever. Or, I mean, it would if I hadn't already turned it off. Bleh, it just sounded so crap. Sorry, guys. I really am. I'm just not into it.

JOEY DEFRANCESCO
ORGANIC VIBES
Organ-ic Vibes, geddit? Because this album is a jazzy bunch of hammond organ/vibes/drum trio trax. And flute. Cool enough.

ORSON
BRIGHT IDEA
Proto-Charlatans? Nah. In spots, maybe. This just sounds like the UK Top 40 this week. In a bad way. David Gray meets Jamiroquoi meets Travis.

MONOTHEIST

2006-04-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

It's probably been about 19 years since I was this excited about a new Celtic Frost album. We've followed the public gestation of 'monotheist' for the last five years. So. Useless initial reactions. Listening on headphones. It's a sunny spring morning so I'll do my best to block out the pleasantness.

CELTIC FROST
MONOTHEIST

Progeny - holy fuck, it's the return of Hellhammer. Nice tempo drop there.

Ground - there's already been two demo versions kicking around, so I kinda know this one. Somewhat. This version is more brutal & straightforward. The demo has double-bass throughout. Not so here. And the guitar solo is far more ethereal. It was already pretty ghouly.

A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh - detuned clean guitar intro & high clean vocals sounds like Justin Broadrick's Jesu or Godflesh. The vibe continues when the spare drums & distorted bass kick in. Doom.

Drowning in Ashes - Pretty female vocals, distorted synth bass, ghouly guitar scratchings. Drums. Slow. Tom sings a monotone. Sounds like a corpulent duet.

Os Abysmi Vel Daath - Dark ambient feedback swells. Into another slow brutal chugger. A hua & the patented morbid Warrior voice. Sweet. Sounds like he's saying "and piss me off". Which is fine too.

Obscured - Slow, tribal drums & more Broadrick-ish guitar feedback strains. Then distorted bass & harmonized guitar join the drums. This is probably the bit that reminds people of Bauhaus. The drums kick in quietly & give it a bit of Godflesh too. Ah, & more female harmony vocals. The chorus sounds like My Dying Bride, sort of. Which is ass-backwards, I know. That's like saying Led Zeppelin sounds like Kingdom Come. Whatever. It's a gorgeous gothic doom ballad that builds & builds in scope until there's tympani & a smothering symphony.

My Domain Of Decay - Starts off with a slow chugging riff in swing time. & keeps going with it. I hate to keep beating on the Broadrick thing, but...

Ain Elohim - This'll be the uptempo thrasher then. Mostly.

Incantation Against - gregorian chanty vox with warbly female voice on top. Beautiful.

Synoagoga Satanae - Epic. Dark moodiness builds to a slow symphonic pace. Ooh, that doom break in the middle reminds me of Cathedral.

Winter (Requiem) - Pure symphonic darkness. Great way to end the album.

PAMPARIUS

2006-04-07T08:53:00.000-05:00

ARCTIC MONKEYS
WHO THE FUCK ARE ARCTIC MONKEYS EP
Amusing, snotty guitar pop. Tunes, swearing. I approve.

EDGEWATER
WE'RE NOT ROBOTS
Nice set-up with that album title. Because y'know obviously now I'm inclined to say that the rest of the title should've been 'but we might as well be'. So, thanks for that. What is this? Downtuned indie rock death metal. Ya get me? Remember when I used to say wake me up when death metal dudes & Cure fans discover each other? & how I used to think that would be a good thing.

D.A.D.
SCARE YOURSELF
Melodic hard rock pop.

DOG FASHION DISCO
ADULTERY
Emo metal. Did he just say the power of chrysler can help you? This stuff would rock way more without the obnoxiously over the top production. Okay, your record label spent a lot of money on this, I get it.

KIRA AND THE KINDRED SPIRITS
KIRA AND THE KINDRED SPIRITS
Is this the chick that was in Black Flag? She sounds young. Only joking. Singer songwriter type thing. You know what I'm getting at.

NARNIA
ENTER THE GATE
Enter the gate? High-pitched clean vocals over early 80s influenced keyboard pop metal. Got it? Journey crossed with, uh, Iron Maiden.

IAN GILLAN
His voice doesn't appear to have changed at all. Ever. Neat. I think this is the one where he redoes a bunch of his old stuff. "Trashed" is the only one I ever got into, thanks to the video being played on the first few runs of Dee Snider's Heavy Metal Mania on MTV back in...oh, 1804? Gillan was with Black Sabbath for about 14 seconds. Long enough to make a video for this song. Which also included the drummer from ELO if I'm not mistaken. And I'm not. Just as a sidebar, what's the point of a solo album that sounds exactly like the main band?

PAUL MOTIAN
GARDEN OF EDEN
Cool jazz lives. My Berklee teachers would be elated.

SKIN
FAKE CHEMICAL STATE
Quite basic pop rock with distorted guitars. The first song sounds like Jesus & Mary Chain. Maybe the whole thing is like that. It's pleasant enough.

THE VINES
VISION VALLEY
Damn, it sounds like these guys calmed down a bit. Maybe they finally got some pubes & slowed down. They useta be screamy guitar pop. Now they're just guitar pop.

SQUOOSH

2006-04-04T09:34:00.000-05:00

PIA FRAUS
NATURE HEART SOFTWARE
Mm, delectable isn't a word I often use to describe music. But: delectable. Kinda like Stereolab, only just a tiny bit darker. So, dark pink instead of neon fuschia. Shiny, weavy, intricate indie guitar pop with smooooooooooooooth female vocals. When 4AD useta be good they put out stuff like this all the time. Sigh.

LOBBY

2006-03-27T10:37:00.000-05:00

ANGERFIST
PISSIN RAZORBLADEZ
Isn't this what the 'bad' priest blasts on Father Ted?

BANAROO
AMAZING
Ace of fucking Base.

CAROLINE
CAROLINE
Ace of fucking Base.

ELTON D
GET POINTS EP
Dishy trance.

ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT
DERDANG DERDANG
How fucking original. Franz Ferdinand minus the White Stripes.

DRESDEN DOLLS
YES, VIRGINIA
Neato. Drums piano chick singer who sings like Morrissey.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH
FISHSCALE
I didn't realize they still made albums like this. Hm. Take out the skits & you'd probably have an EP.

I GOT YOU ON TAPE
I GOT YOU ON TAPE
Flaming Lips.

INVISIBLE SESSION
TO THE POWERFUL
Vocal jazz, eeuw.

IRON FIRE
REVENGE
Is it a full-album cover version of the KISS album of the same name? No? Then I don't care. Whoa, 80s style euro power metal, complete with high-voiced singer who goes "aaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaahhh!!!!!" It's weird that this style is still so prevalent.

LANTERNA
DESERT OCEAN
Talk Talk-y atmospheric instrumental rock music stuff thing.

MADS LANGER
ATTENTION PLEASE
Who's the gay dude with the famous dad singer songwriter whose name I can't recall right now? Him.

MAROON
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
Starts off solidly enough, with a brutal, chugging riff & scowly vocals. But then the guy's voice goes up in pitch. Guitar solo. Let's wait & see what happens here. "Wake Up in Hell" almost goes there with the melodic clean vocals, but not quite. So, I don't know.

MATES OF STATE
BRING IT BACK
Synthy, live drums, multiple vocalists. Might be cool. Might be a big pile of pretentious wank, it's too soon to tell.

O.S.I.
FREE
Not nearly as irritating as I assumed.

PEOPLE IN PLANES
AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
Weird. Bashy prog pop rock guitar ordeal. Ah: Built To Spill.

PINK
I'M NOT DEAD
Dude. Right on to the one about the president before it turns self-righteous. & she can sing. She's no Cathy Dennis but who is anymore.

THE ROGERS SISTERS
THE INVISIBLE DECK
Silly pop rock like, I don't know, the Killers or something.

ROSANNE CASH
BLACK CADILLAC
So, does she get a free car for using that album title?

SWEETBOX
ADDICTED
Sounds like Britney Spears to me. Like I fuckin' know.

T.I.
KING
Uh.

TALK DEMONIC
BEAT ROMANTIC
Weird-ass folktronica. With piles of live instruments - including banjo. Everything fucked-wit on a computer at some point.

THE STREETS
THE HARDEST WAY TO MAKE AN EASY LIVING
Probably a lot of fun to listen to. Once.

THE SWORD
AGE OF WINTERS
Jesus, that's heavy. The hundredth coming of doom. Sure, but still. That shit is heavy.

THE FEVER
MINOTAUR EP
Nice. Uptempo keyboard/drums/vocals 'weirdness'. It's not that weird, it is just pop music after all.

THE LIKE YOUNG
LAST SECRETS
The Doves without the choruses.

THE ZUTONS
TIRED OF HANGIN' AROUND
Filling the void left by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Trying to anyway.

TOTO
FALLING IN BETWEEN
Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa. Ha. Toto. This must be their metal record. How bizarre. Why even call it Toto then. Oh, wait: the Toto part of the song. That's really strange, talk about bipolar beef. "Taint Your World" sounds like old Van Halen. "Let it Go" sounds like old Toto. So...you figure it out. Or not, it is only Toto.

YAK BALLZ
SCIFENTOLOGY
Awwww, they're gonna get in trouble...

SOUND

2006-03-26T12:15:00.000-05:00

I think I really fuckin' dig The Sound. 'From the Lion's Mouth', 1981. Sounds like a new release. Adrian Borland, right? Killed himself. All that. I only know about him via Mark Burgess. & this album sounds like a cross between Chameleons & Comsat Angels. Which, to most people, those two bands are probably interchangable anyway. It's gloomy guitar rock. Probably adored by a select few oldtime crossover g0ths. Which woulda been me except I was never a g0th, was I. & now there's a whole strain of 'indie' 'alternative' bands that sound exactly like The Sound.

DEVICE

2006-03-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

ANDERS MANGA
LEFT OF AN ALL-TIME LOW
"This Circle" sure as hell sounds like "Head Like a Hole". "Empire of the Sun" sounds like some other Nine Inch Nails track that I can't place. Or even more recent Numan. Is this guy popular? This is kind of like aggressive synth pop trying to make a comeback, only it was never that popular to begin with.

BAND OF HORSES
EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME
The first song, "The First Song" begins prettily enough with piano, guitar, drums, bass, whatever. High voiced Perry Farrell clone on the mic. Not bad. Etc.

BE YOUR OWN PET
BE YOUR OWN PET
Short, snappy, aggressive guitar/drum pop songs. 15 tracks in 33 minutes. If it's a race, they will win. Foul moothed girl singer. Nice. Very nice. "We Will Vacation, You Can Be My Parasol". Sure, why the hell not. I mean, the guitar/drums thing is still hott, I guess. If it ever was. And some are convinced that it was. Though some of us are still unsure.

BLACKMORE'S NIGHT
VILLAGE LANTERNE
Sounds like ole Blackmore discovered Dead Can Dance, Evanescence and Riverdance on the same day. & got so excited he had to grow a moustache & form a band. Sure, okay. And blows the dust off "Street of Dreams" & even gets ole Joe Lynn Turner onboard.

CAEDMON'S CALL
In The Company Of Angels II: The World Will Sing
He mentions god in the first line, is this supposed to be a trick? It is.

CANNIBAL CORPSE
KILL
The song titles tell the whole story here. And I still love Cannibal Corpse even though I've never really listened to them & I don't know shit about them. I don't care. I just love the fact that they still exist on the same plane. "Five Nails through the Neck". "Submerged in Boiling Flesh". And you can't understand the singer, so that's even cooler with me.

CESIUM 137
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
I wonder what Caedmon's Call would say to the title of this album of ghey 4-on-the-floo trance pop.

DONALD FAGEN
MORPH THE CAT
'morph' the cat, huh. Seriously? I'm supposed to listen to 52 minutes centered on that concept. 'morph' the fucking cat? I liked that one song of Fagen's that was on MTV back in like 1982 that showed everyone running down to a fallout shelter in their backyard. "H Gang" kind of reminds me of that. I'm someone who was turned off Steely Dan & all their permutations forever by classic rock radio. So, sorry. 'morph' the cat. Dude.

DRYLINE
REACH FOR THE SURFACE
Consistently brutal, melodic death metal. I kept waiting for the wimpy clean vocals to kick in & ruin everything. Oh, wait. There they are. Fucking.

EMBRACE
THIS NEW DAY
Sounds like they wanna be U2 &/or Coldplay. ie big budget guitar piano drums poprock.

ENSLAVED
RUUN
Nicely melodic black metal. & the keyboardist uses a Hammond organ tone too in addition to the usual pipe organs & orchestra patches.

GOMEZ
HOW WE OPERATE
I don't know, it's not bad but it also just played for several minutes without making any impression whatsoever.

IN STRICT CONFIDENCE
WHERE SUN AND MOON UNITE EP
Genderly integrated synth pop from the old school of ....Xymox. Y'know, back when synth pop could still be a little dark without being morbid. That sounds like a compliment. I must be enjoying this. Even though if I tried to describe it I would say that the chix's voice sounds like Ace of Base. & at 54 minutes this is one long fucking EP. (though not the longest, I think Scorn might still hold the 'record' at 74 minutes).

KRISIUN
ASSASSINATION
Fucking shit, man! The opening riff to "Bloodcraft" sounds like a bunch of machine guns going off at the same time. For a long time. Nice. So it's like super prog death metal. I wonder why there isn't more of this kind of thing. 'snice. "Suicidal Savagery". I don't what that means. "Summon" = 49 seconds of bongos. Hell yes. This is what metal should be. Scary, tight as fuck and not a keyboard in sight. "Sweet Revenge" ... 'hello, victims'. Yeeeehaaghhghgh.

LITTLE WILLIES
LITTLE WILLIES
Okay, this is just fucking weird. "Roly Poly" sounds like Frank Zappa & Duane Allman playing the 'oh brother where art thou' soundtrack. Which means, yep, very annoying. "Lou Reed".

MARCEL COENEN
COLOUR JOURNEY
Ah, fake Yngwie/Satriani/Vai type shit. Dream Theater, that kind of thing. Hard rockin', but with better guitar solos & little prog bits scattered around the place. Not bad.

NERVE FILTER
LINEAR
Like an aggressive combination of Chemical Bros & Underworld? Orbital too. & new Skinny Puppy, but not so much. Dark dance music.

ROB ZOMBIE
EDUCATED HORSES
I think the last thing of Zombie's I heard was that 'deathride 69' or whateverthefuckitwas, in about 1892. Again, you'd know more about this than I do. His voice is waaaay out front. The songs are all kinda like you've heard 'em before somewhere but you can't place where. Marilyn Manson crossed with Cathedral.

SICK OF IT ALL
DEATH TO TYRANTS
Oh my god. "Machete" kix in all brutal as fuck. Distorted bass, screaming, blast beat fills. I betcha it slows down & he starts crooning any second now. Ha. Nah. I saw these guys opening for Napalm Death in 1991 or so. It struck me as odd that shorthaired dudes would ever want to rock so hard. & now of course everyone has short hair & everyone wants to rock this hard.

SO THEY SAY
ANTIDOTE FOR IRONY
I don't know, I think there's a fresh glut of bands with prepositional phrases for names & 'quirky' 'ironic' album titles. And I don't mean to sound like a fuckin' fossil, but they're pretty much interchangable, aren't they. And I'll give you a dollar if you can tell me how this band is any different from anything else that's out right now. It's like in the 80s there was a bunch of faceless hair metal. In the 90s it was meaningless grunge. Now...this.

STEREOLAB
FAB FOUR SUTURE
Well, it is Stereolab, so that should tell you something. No, that should tell you everything. Gorgeous experimental quirky sexy pop with female singing & synths & live everything. & still perfect sunny day music. "Excursions in 'oh, a-oh'".."Widow Weirdo".

TAPES 'N TAPES
THE LOON
Mm. Semi-involved alternapoprock. So I'll say Flaming Lips.

TEARS FOR FEARS
SECRET WORLD
10 live trax from the comeback tour & two new studio ones. I loathed the comeback album at first but calmed down & accepted its beauty eventually. Then I forgot about it completely. So I can revisit the trax with freshie ears. This is mostly 'greatest hits live' but they do a big batch of newer shit too. The studio stuff is in line with everything else. Beatle-y as dick.

BLOODHOUND
NOSFERATU
Wow, I didn't think this kind of thing existed anymore. Dark but cool hard rock metal. Euro, obviously. Kinda Maidenish & the singer sounds like Jeff Scott Soto or the other dude who sang on the early Yngwie albums.

TEARS OF ANGER
IN THE SHADOWS
Modern metaltronica. Maybe more on the Queensryche end of things. With the occasional downtuned riff. Oddly enjoyable.

DRUDKH
BLOOD IN OUR WELLS
Long songs, lots of screaming, badly-recorded drums. Borderline racist song titles. Must be brutal black metal then.

STEVE KAHN
THE GREEN FIELD
Fucking nice guitar/bass/drums jazz trio.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
THE GOODNIGHT MOON
I don't know, I think there's a fresh glut of bands with prepositional phrases for names & 'quirky' 'ironic' album titles. And I don't mean to sound like a fuckin' fossil, but they're pretty much interchangable, aren't they. And I'll give you a dollar if you can tell me how this band is any different from anything else that's out right now. It's like in the 80s there was a bunch of faceless hair metal. In the 90s it was meaningless grunge. Now...this.

THE LIVING END
STATE OF EMERGENCY
Fake Foo Fighters.

THE VINES
VISION VALLEY
Hm. Catchy & cacky riff-rock. "Futuretarded". And "Atmos", hey, they stole my word. Which I stole from Rik & Ade on 'Bottom'.

TRAIN
FOR ME IT'S YOU
Hasn't their record deal run out yet?

VAN MORRISON
PAY THE DEVIL
I've never had a Van Morrison phase. And I stand by that decision. I mean, isn't this guy known more for his songwriting than his country & western crooning? Does he think he's Lyle Lovett now?

VAARTINA
MIERO
Now you're talkin'. This shit is just weird. I love it. It reminds me of that Miranda Sex Garden EP when they came back as, like, a full band. That was the shit. Vaartina is the shit too. The vocals sound like the Bulgarian Women's Choir. Actually this sounds like a rock band version of Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares. So..fuck yeah.

VREID
PITCH BLACK BRIGADE
"Då Draumen Rakna" opens & it's just ungodly, brutal, deathly black metal. Hence my erecti0n. Yeah, I dig it.

WILDERNESS
VESSEL STATES
Squawky clean guitars, the singer sounds like he's kidding with his two-note range. Sounds like rock-band improv. So I'll say Tool.

WINTERS BANE
Redivivus
More of the euro hard rock metal guitar band stuff with the Maiden vocals. Not bad for what it is but I'd probably only listen to it to make fun of the singer.

ZYKLON
DISINTEGRATE
Hmm. It'd be ignorant for me to say that it sounds like Emperor, since this band includes Emperor peeps. But guess what.

SINKING

2006-03-15T17:29:00.000-05:00

God, I'm old. New music really is starting to sound just like noise to me.

AD VER SARY
INTERNATIONAL DARK SKIES
Slow, distorted, Nine Inch Nails type thing. Not industrial in the classic sense. Is it all instrumental? I don't hear any vocals.

IN FLAMES
COME CLARITY
Jesus, there are so many layers of guitar at the beginning that you can barely hear the snare drum. Wait, let me turn off the compression patch. Okay, now it just sounds like sing-songy ghey nu-death metal. It's not horrible. Wait, I take that back, the clean vocals are fucking disgusting. Which is a pity because the rough parts are forward-thinking.

GEORGE NOOKS
COME A LONG WAY
Big-bwah reggae, bwah. & look, I haven't mentioned Horace Andy once.

LONELY, DEAR
SOLOGNE
The singer sounds like Perry Farrell as a (voodoo) child. I'm usually a big fan of the quiet acoustic mopey end of things but this is so...like...self-conscious? That I just want to listen to Motorhead now. And deny ever owning an acoustic guitar.

MORRISSEY
RINGLEADER OF THE TORMENTERS
Okay, here we go. It sounds like Moz is jumping on the Reznor/Pixies/Nirvana quiet/loud/quiet thing about 100 years too late here. Ha. Nice one. And the second one is like Radiohead. Inevitable really. Is that better than fake rockabilly? Hmm. Let me ponder that for a minute. "Life is a Pigsty" is nice. Don't know about the rest.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS
YOU IN HONEY
Acoustic electronicaaacaca. With bizzzzzzling synths & foodle-y bass guitar line. Pop. I've certainly heard worse today.

SUICIDE COMMANDO
BIND TORTURE KILL
Holy fake Skinny Puppy. Or Front Line Assembly. But probably Skinny Puppy. Dude, if you do distorted vocals over a big swingy synth riff like "Assimilate", what do you expect me to say? But it's weird because other tracks are just, like, trance. So it's hard to say. And I can think of worse artists to rip off.

TANTO METRO & DEVONTE
MUSICALLY INCLINED
Oh no, this sounds like that Shaggy song. Straight dancehall reggae with a high-voiced r&b singer dude.

THE NEW AMSTERDAMS
STORY LIKE A SCAR
Wimpy-voiced big-budget 'indie' rock. Country overtones, slide guitar, cellos. Which makes it sound like American Music Club. But it taint.

FALLIN'

2006-03-13T11:55:00.000-05:00

The Nick Drake documentary was surprisingly cool. It's beautifully filmed & they do lots of really long, moody shots of things like his bedroom & a street in Tanworth-in-Arden. Actually that type of thing makes up about half of the 50-minute movie. The rest is interviews with his sister, Joe Boyd the producer, the guy who did the arrangements & the engineer. Oh & the photographer too. So, bit of talking, bit of moody filmwork, with, like, just the rhythm tracks of "At the Chime of a City Clock". Type of thing. Nice to see his grave at the end, just like I remember it. Actually it was sunny out on the day we were there, so all my pics are well-lit. Their shot was super-dark.

DISPARAGED
BLOOD SOURCE
"Contorsion"? Is that a word? Gotta love brutal death metal bands. Fuck it, just make up your own words, who cares. Tis more brutal & thrashy than average. Nice blastbeats. The vocals are audible. Good stuff. If a trifle generic. "Split in Half". Nice.

BLEEDING THROUGH
THE TRUTH
Um. More modern thrash/death. Ew, clean vocals. Next.

THE QUILL
IN TRIUMPH
Downtuned 80s style hard rock. Weird.

BREAKAWAY
MALAGA EP
It's like metal, then it's like wimpy wimpy emo. I feel like I need to make peace with this genre, I might really be missing out on some level. At this moment I don't see how that could be possible. I guess this is what I get for wondering what Ocean Blue would sound like as a metal band.

BULLWACKIE ALL-STARS
DUB UNLIMITED
No surprises here, just fucking excellent dub reggae.

DUDLEY PERKINS
EXPRESSIONS 2012 AU
The first song sounds like Busta Rhymes on a Sly Stone kick. From there it reminds me of Black Eyed Peas and Wyclef. Of course I am just fucking ignorant. And no, "Dear God" isn't an XTC cover. I'm not that fucking ignorant.

PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS
STEPFATHER
Puts me in the mind of Dub Pistols, the Roots & Jurassic 5. Did I already hear this one? I should make a list. Positive, intelligible hippyhoppy.

RADIOINACTIVE
SOUNDTRACK TO A BOOK
Fake Eminem. Wow.

THE KOOKS
INSIDE IN INSIDE OUT
Flavor of the moment in the UK? Or did I read that wrong? Acoustic guitar & Badly Drawn Boy type vocal melody on "Seaside". "See the World" starts like yer average Strokes/Interpol/whatever but kicks in nicely. The production is actually kind of cool, I don't know how to describe it. Everything sounds 2 dimensional. I might dig this until/unless it gets popular here. "Jackie Big Tits"!!! HAAAA! Yes. Fun title & tune.

Q-POINT
NOTHING ELSE
Fake jazz, Portishead, Massive Attack, Thomas Dolby, Sade, possibly homemade. Smooth jazz. Not bad for what it is but, y'know. Downtempo not quite jazz not quite electronic.

BEN HARPER
BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN
Two discs, do I have to write two reviews? His voice is annoying. Too bad everybody sounds like this now - acoustic guitar, orchestra, light drumming.

BLOF
UMOJA
I don't know where these guys are from, I just wanted to write 'blof'. They're big somewhere in Europe. And it's easy to see why.

CIGAR CYPHA
WORLDWIDE
I remember Mystikal.

ELLEN ALLIEN & APPARAT
ORCHESTRA OF BUBBLES
Damn. This is like techpopdanceOrbitalHawtin type shit but with her singing on it. Nice & epic too. Let's dance! Seriously.

MATMOS
THE ROSE HAS TEETH
Ow, my torso. I can't dance to that! And: Art Of Noise called, they want their fucking thing back.

EASE

2006-03-11T21:48:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhh shit ah shit ah shit ah shit.

I'm fucking trashed on pasta salad. Let's see how long I can keep this up.

BECK
GUEROLITO
I thought this shit came out last year. Now that Beck has been off the boil for long enough that no one cares anymore, he finally makes a return to form. "Ghost Range (E-Pro)" sounds like a delicious deli sandwich made of the Chemical Bros & Beastie Boys, back when both were still ill. Anybody can make a Beck record now. It's like there's no trick to it anymore. "Que Onda Guero" sounds like someone at his record label told him to make a record to appeal to Latin listeners & he just got it ass fucking backward. It's not bad, it's just... who gives a shit, ya know? "Girl" is the funky uptempo one. You sure this is new?

THE APPLESEED CAST
PEREGRINE
What a stupid fucking name for a band. These assholes better be fucking amazing. Too much quiet doodling up front. When it 'kicks in' it's not bad. Unless it ends up sounding like Coldplay. Nah, the vocals are buried. Cool. I approve then. Layers of shit. All kinds of activity here. Oh shit but the third track, everything is audible. Too bad. Bleh. Fucking emo fucks.

ALEXANDER KLAWS
ATTENTION
Big budget gay pop? "Stay" sounds like U2. Is this guy famous or something? What the hell is this shit?

DR DRE
THE DETOX EP
What? Who makes EPs? "Next Episode 2006"? Seriously, that's all these guys can come up with? Remember when Dre & Snoop were the pinnacle? They do.

MOONSPELL
MEMORIAL
The keyboard intro sounds like bad Christmas music. By Meatloaf. This is just weird. The music is kind of fruity, fiddly fake prog metal but the vocals are...wait for it... death metal growls. Weird. I assumed this was more of the same stupid shit as everything else. No, it's a breed unto itself.

THE FOLLOW
UP WITH THE SUN
Well, it has potential. The music is cool, dancey guitar/synth rock. The vocals aren't very cool though. I guess the music isn't that cool after all.

STARS IN COMA
MY SUNSHINE YEARS
The first track is called "Harmonizers" & it starts with a hacked melody & a pungent mid-fi beat. It could go either way at this point. "Give Up" is just indie rock band action. Fucking emo fucks. Nah, actually, "I Saw My Heart Passing By" reminds me of The Bats. So, call off the dogs.

8MM SKY
FINDERS KEEPERS
"We Do Not Even Shake Hands" is the first song. Quiet noodly rockage for thirty seconds. Then, thwap & we're in. The bass does a cool counterpoint thing. Nice. The guitar stuff is nice too. If this still reminds me of the M00nbabies next time I hear it, it'll be a winner.

SATYRICON
NOW, DIABOLICAL
I just watched a sweet black metal documentary & these guys were in it. Ha. This is cool & evil.

JOE SATRIANI
SUPER COLOSSAL
I've never listened to any of his records. I just hope he doesn't try to sing again on this one. It sounds like he's playing a guitar synth on the first song. Is that acceptable behavior for a guitar hero who isn't in King Crimson yet? Probably not. I'm sure it's just 60 tracks of guitar, all with slightly different EQ settings. "Just Like Lightnin'" is some fuckin' Bee Gees shit or something. What the hell.

MADDY PRIOR
ANOTHER MEMENTO
What the fuck. I've never even heard of Maddy Prior. This sounds like Helen Reddy or Anne Murray.

CUE THE DOVES
ARCHITECTURES OF THE ATMOSPHERE
"Majestic Twelve" is a cool moody opener, but "Sphere The Abyss" takes a wrong turn. What is this, emo math rock?

PLANET ASIA
THE SICKNESS
Do people buy this stuff? It sounds like a hiphop album made from all the pieces they cut off Michael Jackson.

SWAY
THIS IS MY DEMO
Um. Interesting hiphop. The dude must get paid by the word. The music is engaging. Might be cool.

DANIELE BALDELLI
COSMIC SOUND
This is like Yanni & Santana trying to make a techno album together. With their c0cks tied together, I don't know.

MOGWAI
MR BEAST
I should probably have a clue about these guys by now, eh. It's all instrumental? Aren't there a bunch of dudes in the band too? I don't fucking know. It's cool, I do know that.

NE-YO
IN MY OWN WORDS
Euch, hiphop soul singer rap r&b ordeal.

E-40
MY GHETTO REPORT CARD
Raw hiphop. And my subwoofer is all flabby now.

THE FOSTER WALKER COMPLEX
THE FOSTER WALKER COMPLEX
Dude. That guy's voice. No way. Is this country or Bon Jovi?

SOIL
TRUE SELF
Groove metal with choruses. Sounds like Disturbed and I hate Disturbed.

SILENT HERO
ALL THAT I HAVE
Metal? Those drums sound triggered as fuck. Either someone is the fucking Neil Peart of the drum machine or their real drummer played an electronic kit. Whatever, it sounds like Dave Lombardo on a beatbox. Not really. But still. It's not metal, it's that emo whiteboy crybaby horseshit.

THE BROKEN FAMILY BAND
BALLS
Good god, emo AND Coldplay at the same time.

BURIAL WITHIN
BURIAL WITHIN EP
Fucking christ, it's about time. Death metal!!! Woooghghghahghghh. Etc. "Of No Consequence" has several time changes. & 'tis brutal. Cool but I was still hoping for a Venom or Celtic Frost cover at the end. Maybe next time?

ATREYU
A DEATH-GRIP ON YESTERDAY
Aw man. This is the Hollywood version of death metal emo nonsense. I liked it better when death metal was the domain of the non-mall dwellers. Fuck.

KARATE HIGH SCHOOL
ARCADE ROCK
Um, the Offspring with a synth player.

CHRISTINA ROSENVINGE
CONTINENTAL 62
"White Hole", you say? Mostly quiet & acoustic singer songwriter thang with a young-sounding, breathy female lead vocalist. And a dude singing harmonies on the choruses. "Jelly" seems cool. This might turn out to be a steaming pile of shit, but at least I could listen to it for 40 seconds at a time.

N@ZI UF0 C0MMANDER
STRANGE MONASTERIES
Coil-ish whispery experimental type thing. Not, like, music. Oh, and "Pioneer" goes for the ole hard-noize feedback wall of smeck just like we useta make in theee oldeeeee dayseeee.

TUGGED

2006-03-08T11:24:00.000-05:00

It's gonna be stop-the-presses time when I get my talons on the new Celtic Frost album. Hopefully it won't suck ass-sticks & I'll forget why I was so eager to hear it. Kinda like the new Venom. Celtic Frost hasn't released anything new in almost 14 years, if you count the new songs they did for the 'best of' album.

I'm checking my sources twice a day now. Eeeeh.

HIS NAME IS ALIVE
DETROLA
Wacky/arty (former) 4AD band from the midwest that I've just never gotten into. I think his excursions into gospel etc drove me away. & all the feedback & bullshit is just sabotage. "Introduction" is a dirge thing with octavey female vox on top. Cue applause. Is this live? "After I Leave U" starts with a distorted rhythm, then follows distorted, hacked pop song elements. Female voice = nice. I sort of like this but I don't know if I'd bother listening to it again. "I Thought I Saw" starts with blues rock guitar, followed by stabby piano chords & a loping lilt that recalls American top 40 music of the late 1970s. I don't know how else to say it. Nice, I guess. At least different. Well, except that everyone from Air to Beck has done this sound to death in the last 10 years. No matter. This is nice. Thumb up. Pop music nowadays is so perfect down to the last detail & it's good to hear so much humanity + good tunes.

YRKOON
UNHEALTHY OPERA
Well-produced death metal. Slightly arty with the chorus but the Euro overtones are nice. This is more yer brutal end & not so much yer pop end of the death spectrum. "From the Depths" starts with a long halftime riff but builds back up to blister-beat speed. "Avatar Ceremony" has some sweet-ass guitar harmonies in the riffs. And the guitar solos are melodic. Which is always nice.

MYSTIC CIRCLE
THE BLOODY PATH OF GOD
"Hellborn" starts with a slow, moody keyboard riffy bit. Then syncopation building into simply brutal, halftime Nordic death. That didn't make any sense, did it. The vocals are like Dimmu Borgir, maybe the whole thing is. "Church of Sacrifice" is more of the same. The drumming is cool. The keyboards might be a little fruity, but, whatever. Nice cover of Celtic Frost "Circle of the Tyrants". Which just makes me even more eager to hear the new Celtic Frost. I hope it doesn't suck. What were we talking about again?

AMATORY
DISCOVERY
"Don't Fuck With My Heart". HA! What the hell is this? It starts with a straight synth loop & drum/bass bit. Nice sample of a chick singing "la la la la, don't fuck with my heart". Then....whoosh, it's a death metal song. How did that happen? Double-kick drums, growling vocals. But the chorus kicks in & it's that groove again. My god. That rules. Song of the day. So far. Then "Ace of Spades" reconfigured as a brutal death metal track. Clearly, Amatory knows how to party. "Into the Fire" sounds like fun. Is this another cover? "Rock Baby" too.

ANTI-FLAG
FOR BLOOD AND EMPIRE
Uptempo punk rock. Unfortunate pop overtones. Please no.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS
SHOW YOUR BONES
Were these guys sort of popular at one point? Whatever. "Gold Lion" starts humbly with acoustic guitar & thwapped snare. Plus female singing. Nice falsetto "ooh oooh" thing. Sounds like the whole thing kind of leans that way. Maybe for those who miss No Doubt. "Turn Into" sounds like a cover of the Strokes, Killers, etc etc etc etc to infinity. ie every other band in the world right now.

WARRANT
BORN AGAIN
Oh my fucking god dude. I've always hated everything this band stood for. Their music, all the smiling in their fucking videos. Their lame lame sexism. I know that lots of musicians from this once-popular sonic genepool are still bitter about big bad grunge coming along & taking away their jobs. But seriously, fuck Warrant. So I guess I'm kind of reluctantly even letting this shit play while I type this. If I think about KISS while the first track plays, I can deal with it better. Jaime St James is the new singer. I think I liked Black & Blue at one point as a lad. Back to the action. Shockingly, this doesn't make me homicidal. It's just, like, harmless 1980s throwback hard rock. If Ratt made an album like this it would be a return to form. I'll try to cut these guys some slack. I just don't know if I can admit to that in public.

WILLIE NELSON
YOU DON'T KNOW ME: THE SONGS OF CINDY WALKER
What? I've never listened to Willie Nelson before. I assumed he was a big enough songwriter to not have to grovel like this at the feet of someone I've never heard of. Y'know what this sounds like? Fucking Willie Nelson. Now get out of my face.

VETO
THERE'S A BEAT IN ALL MACHINES
Uh. I like the poingy upper-register guitar or is it bass intro. But the singer dude could derail the whole thing before it even starts. Fortunately when the drums & bass kick in for real, they're arty & all over the place. It's not just stomping & clapping, for once. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If Gary Numan had made a prog album. "We Are Not Your Friends" sounds like a synthathetic ballad. Synthathetic, that's my new word. "You Are a Knife" is a cross between Radiohead & The Cars. "I Brought the BBQ" is another low-key synth-moper. I'll have to hear it again before I can say for sure but on the surface it seems pretty cool. So far.

BEYOND FEAR
BEYOND FEAR
Um. "Scream Machine" kicks off kinda Slayer-esquely. But then the singing comes in & sounds like fucking Geoff Tate. Oh my god. I think I knew subconsciously that this type of music was popular in other parts of the world. Because it just sounds like Lizzy Borden playing death metal to me.

DAVID GILMOUR
ON AN ISLAND
Well, "Castellorizon" certainly takes its time getting going. The whole thing is just a slow instrumental build-up. "On an Island" is slow & shuffly. Sounds like Pink Floyd on an XTC kick. That's XTC the band, not ecstasy the tablet. Or, Gilmour Does McCartney. & I guess I still don't know what differentiates a David Gilmour album from a Pink Floyd one. This is pleasant enough for what it is. And I've certainly heard worse solo albums by 1960s guys in the recent past.

THEATRE OF TRAGEDY
STORM
If Ace Of Base had been a black metal band. "Disintegration" = not a Cure cover.

THE SWORD
AGE OF WINTERS
So, the slow stoner doom (duo?) thing is here. Here it is in all its fat slow turgidity. Plus synths. So it must be cool. Detuned guitars & long long drum fills. I should love it.

THE ALPINE
ON FEEL TRIPS
"Box Office Band"...oh shit. The early 80s are back again. Is this Duran Duran or Styx? Or...REO Sheepwagon? Co-ed vocals? Or does that dude just a have a really really high chick-like voice? More questions than answers here, I'm afraid. "Don't Touch the China" = nice song title.

SWORN ENEMY
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Screamy well produced death metal hardcore. Like a smoothed out Lamb of God. Wait, smoothed-out lamb, isn't that what they use for gyro meat?

SWEETBOX
ADDICTED
God damn. Chick singer super commercial pop music. Nothing here is an accident. That's something else. I can't even compare this to anything, such is the void of my of knowledge on the subject of top 40 music.

SMOKIE
FROM THE HEART
Um, might be country. Sounds like fucking country.

SCARFACE
MY HOMIES PART 2
Unfortunately I missed Part 1, so I'm catching up now. I remember being interested in the first big Geto Boys album because it was banned before it was even released. Whitey was running scared but shit was for real. And it was a few months before I even heard it. & then it really did scare the fuck out of me. I still like that first album, didn't bother with any of the rest. The only names I recognize on the long line of guests here are equally OG. Hah. Like Ice Cube. I can't quantify why but this annoys me far less than most current hiphop. Good to hear Bushwick Bill still layin' it down. And shit.

PUBLIC ENEMY
REBIRTH OF A NATION
As much as I'm pulling for Chuck D & Flavor Flav to get down like they did in 1988-89, this isn't it. Too many concessions to today's pop charts. The best thing they could do now is either hang shit up for good or hire a bunch of young dudes who were heavily influenced by 'It Takes a Nation of Millions'. Like me. Fuck, I could make a more hyped track than this Geritol commercial. "Rise" is Flavor's spot & makes one backward concession with the squeeey horn hit. But, come on. Chuck's flow is on, but shit. The music is weak & pointless. And is there a hook? Hell no. This doesn't make me want to join a revolution.

PRINCE
3121
Revolution, get it? Nice lead-in there. You probably didn't even catch it. Okay, the last Prince album I heard was the one with "Alphabet Street". So, what the hell can I say about this? His drummer is on the cover of the most recent Berklee alumni mag. I didn't realize Prince stayed so busy. "Lolita" is the future grafted to the past. & I think "Black Sweat" is the big hit single at the mo. You know more about Prince than I do. It grooves & it doesn't suck.

PLACEBO
MEDS
How is this band so fucking popular? That guy's voice sucks ass! Remember the band Bush? How they were massive in the US & tiny at home in the UK. Well, this is the first thing I've heard by Placebo. And I fucking hate that guy's voice. There's no way.

OUT OUT
VIRTUAL SOUND IMAGES
Heavily layered electronic techno beat dance music. But not obnoxious. I have to stress that. "Forestry for the Thieves" and "Ampex, My Ampex" are the titles of the day.

SUMMONING
OATH BOUND
What is this, Lord Of The Rings metal? The orchestral shit is way louder than everything else. The drums sound like they're on top of a tiny mountain. The vocals rule though, raw classic black metal low-screechy. Oh, and 'fucking epic'.

BAL-SAGOTH
THE CTHONIC CHRONICLES
I'm ignorant so this just reminds me of Dimmu Borgir. Black metal with keyboards. It might be really cool.

MUDHONEY
UNDER A BILLION SUNS
Yep, that's pretty much what I remember them sounding like. Two guitars, bass, drums & vocals. Not bad but still nothing I'm going to bother with again.

JOEY MOE
MOETOWN
I feel about 70 now.

GARY NUMAN
JAGGED
What? I'm the biggest Numanoid I know, how come I didn't know about this until just now? Damn. Okay. Well, it sounds like a continuation of his work of the past few years. I like him, that's why I call it 'work'. "Halo" gives away the Nine Inch Nails influence. The whole album sounds dark & menacing. Just like 'Pure'. I'll definitely have to check this one again.

GARY MOORE
OLD NEW BALLADS BLUE
Fuck the blues, especially when played by affluent British white guys.

FITTA WARRI
SABABA VIBES
Modern dancehall reggae stuff. Interesting. Who knew. It kicks Public Enemy's ass.

YOU'LL BE THE SORTER

2006-03-03T10:57:00.000-05:00

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.

NEVER WILL

2006-02-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

Oh man, I watched a Jane's Addiction vid from Italian TV in 1990, it was amazing. I've literally never seen or heard anything live from that tour. & since it was on Italian TV, Perry could say MF as much as he wanted. Which was often. Similarly for the Red Hot Chili Peppers 1988 Europe documentary. Apart from seeing them at the Newport in 1987, I've never seen or heard any live stuff from that year. That was easily my favorite Chili Peppers era. Uplift Mofo Party Plan. The live stuff is incredible. Especially the soundcheck - Jack Irons does this marching band drum cadence thing that is literally unbelievable. I never knew anything about him as a drummer. I guess I still don't, apart from the fact that he's a MONSTER! And poor Hillel, who died right after that tour of a heroin overdose. They all look pretty coked-out (except Irons) too. Oh well. No chump love sucka! No chump love sucka! etc.
Rounded out the evening with Faith No More at Rock In Rio II, 1991. Very very nice nice. Apart from the endless & endlessly dull version of The Real Thing. Fuck that. They started off so strong too, with From Out Of Nowhere. What a great song that is. Still is. And I watched half of the Black Sabbath Paris 1970 video. Oh my. Oh my oh my. So dark. So menacing. Effortlessly brutal. & y'all can keep yer John Bonham, Bill Ward was the MAN.

PARTIAL

2006-02-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

utorrent is good except it hijacks the system pretty much. And everything else runs like an afterthought.

VENOM
METAL BLACK
New Venom sounds a lot like old old Venom. I actually liked the updated sound of Resurrection, the last studio album. The new one is a tiny bit retro in spots. But it still rules, obviously. & Mykusssessses's guitar playing sounds like Zakk Wylde or Dimebag. Lots of pulled harmonics & whammy pedal abuse. I approve.

Old school Venom all the way. Big riffs, double-bass drumming, screamalong choruses. And hailing Satanus. Venom has a high profile now that they're on Sanctuary & all the dudes my age in the early generations of extreme metal still wear Venom shirts. I'd wear one. "Assassin" is kind of a different strain of metal song. The lyrics sound like the brief to a rubbish first person shooter for the Playstation. Still, you gotta love Venom. & there's not a trace of black metal on this album, if that's what you're looking for.

TWISTED SYSTEM
CORE
"Stark Raver" might be all Star Wars samples, I don't know. ...Ah, yep. Well, Star Wars themed anyway. There's the Death Star theme? Techno style. Light sabers in the airrrrrahhh!! "Razor" is probably a similar pisstake, but to me it just sounds like straight trance. The whole album is four on the floor dance music. So there ya go. & "Beautiful People" is indeed a Marilyn Manson cover. I can say I saw that one coming. Because I did.

THE FOLD
THIS TOO SHALL PASS
Um, back when we had MTV most recently - six months ago? - this kind of crap was everywhere. Overproduced dude-singer pop rock with hard metal undertones. Which, that description just sounds like Poison. That's not this. "Going For My Lungs" has nice big chords but what they do with them is just vile. I can't listen to this crap, it makes me want to go to the mall.

David Fiuczynski/Dennis Chambers/Jeff Berlin/T. Lavitz
BOSTON T PARTY
Unabashed fusion. Fiuczynski is the only name I don't know out of this laundry list of fusionists. The first track, "D'funk'd" has kind of a jokey melody played on synth & guitar. The solos are of course where all the action is. With that synth, this could be some early 70s Moog shit happening. But it's snot. I don't know if it's good or bad but it didn't send me running out of the room. Even though many aspects are just downright cheesy.

ANECDOTAL

2006-02-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

fifty first impressions

PSYCROPTIC
Symbols of Failure
wcchchchchhcwoooogooaargghhheweeeaglauughghhghhehhehehhghgh!
wcchchchchhcwoooogooaargghhheweeeaglauughghhghhehhehehhghgh!!!
woooooooghahahhghghghghghhhh! death death die kill. "Alpha Breed" is ultra pinchcore death. The vocalist is indecipherable, which is at least amusing. The music is like Lamb Of God, but somehow more. It's just, jeesh. Violent but pretty. "Missionaries of a Future to Come" too. It's like a future mutant breed of death metal. The production is great, you can hear every single note. And every single vocal utterance, none of which is apparently in English? You could headbang to this, sure, but you'd never recover. HUGHAHAHHHH!!!!!!!! Death. Grind.

SUBTRACTIVELAD
Suture
Well, "Petals" is a gorgeous way to open an album. I feel refreshed now. The gorgeousness gives way to some laptop aphexiness with a fuggled bigbeat and superwoob synth pads & lines. Downright funkeh in spots. "Safety In Numbers" is back betwixt the pretties & the DSP freakage. "Twinge" = COOL. Full on u-ziq fakeout action. "Your Tattoo" is song title of the day so far. Ooh, "Embryonic Again" = even more gorgeous than the first one. So there.

GUNS N ROSES
Leaked Chinese Democracy demos
Might as well get this out of the way now. Look, I'm not a fan now & I never have been, though I was poised to ride their particular wave from the onset. I was there when they arose & a few of my stupider friends latched on. Like lice. Since then, what have they done that didn't suck? I can't think of anything. He hired Buckethead & Brain, that was cool. But will it make a difference? Buckethead was out as fast as he got hired too. Okay, here goes. "Better Demo Extended". Starts with lo-fi guitar & drum loop that...wow, could've come from a Buckethead record. The distorted guitars, drums & vox kick in at the same time. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard. The chords are actually kind of cool. It's a midtempo modern rocker. I'm surprised, frankly. But, again, what did I expect exactly. The sweep picking solo COULD be Buckethead. Like I fuckin' know. The track is only 2:06 but I didn't gouge my eyes out once. Next... "I.R.S. Demo". Acoustic & slide guitars, I did see that coming. But the lo-fi breakbeat, no. The beginning is like Cinderella with a beatbox. Haw. And that fuckface's signature voice singing over it. I guess this is more like what I guessed they'd sound like. Bleah. Slow midtempo hard rock. Bluesy. Whatever. "There Was a Time" starts with more mid-fi beats & piano. Oop, bit of backward guitar there. Uh-oh, is this the 'summer jam'? I applaud the use of beats, too bad it took so fucking long. No point in bleahing anymore, pretty soon you'll know more about this than me. The first one was okay but the others munch cack. Meaning that y'all will be going apeshit in a matter of weeks.

THE JAZZINVADERS
Up and Out
Well. Jazz, eh. At least with a song called "Bonga Bonga Jazz" you know what you're in for. This is almost like samba. "Go Ahead" is almost like samba. Do grownups dance to jazz? They could get their asses moving to this, properly placed. The whole album seems to groove, even the minor-key choons. Well done. "Licks and Brains" - uh-oh, second good song title of the day. Ew, female vocals on "Black". Vocal jazz = NO. Otherwise you could shake your jazz bootay to this whole thing for an hour.

THE DINING ROOMS
Versioni Particolari 2
Um. 75 minutes of groovy remixes. "Ocean" is coolly jazzy. Not sure about the female vocals but the music is awwwww-ite-plus. The whole thing has kind of latin, samba-ish undertones. & jazzy chord stabs. I know nothing about The Dining Rooms. Ah, but truth in song-titling reveals this to be a series of "Experiments in Ambient Soul". & it is. So, yeah. Nice. Loungey dance music.

VITAL REMAINS
Horrors of Hell
Where have I heard of Vital Remains before? "Of Pure Unholyness" opens with severely warped keyboards & treated spoken vocal sounds. Then: poooodge, slow/midtempo thrash death metal. Bluuuuuagh. More traditional in its deathly metallic stylings than I've heard today. The production isn't great but the playing & songwriting might be. "Nocturnal Blasphemy" sounds like, hell, an old Sodom track or something. Old Kreator. Oh, wait - "Vital Remains" the song. This must be a compilation of demos 'n' shit. Can I start again? No?

SINJON SMITH
One More Night
What the fuck is this, Fleetwood Mac? Ew, no. More generic than that. The production & playing are okay...no, wait, is that Stevie Nicks on "I'm Telling You"? Oh my god. Kill me now. Grody. Get this if you suck.

VANDEN PLAS
Christ.0
What is this, Christian industrial metal? Or is it, like, NOT Christian? I don't give a shit either way, I guess. The first track is flippy changey prog rock with all the trimmings. Then a ghey little breakdown. Oh, wait, that's the verse. I guess it's modern progressive rock after all. Okay. Now I get it. Sort of. Dream Theater lickers get over here now.

TORTURE KILLER
SWARM!
This is more like it. Midtempo death metal or something. The incessant guitar hammer-ons in the intro of the first song are really fucking annoying. I guess that's the idea. "Forever Dead" is the first proper song. Ah, too bad you can understand the lyrics. The riffs are okay. The production isn't bad. But I'm just not getting into this. "I Killed You" = sweet title.

FIVE DEEZ
Kommunikator
"Fugg That" opens with atmos synths & eh........ I don't know. It's hiphop all right. I think you have to be 18 to get into this shit. The vocals are super super monotonous. I realize they're supposed to be, but this isn't deeply funky, it's not funny and I don't enjoy listening to this. I think I just aged 20 years. "BMW" doesn't make me suicidal. It's uptempo. This is probably the sell-out track. "From Sorrow" is okay. It sounds like the guy from Dub Pistols. Do I win a prize if it is him?

RAY DAVIES
Other Peoples' Lives
Y'know I don't think I've ever heard an entire album by Ray Davies OR the Kinks. Oops, I typed the Kinko's there by habit/accident. So is it unfair of me to say the first song sounds like something from Paul McCartney's last album? No, not unfair, just stupid and/or incorrect. I guess I just nod & agree when people say Davies is a genius. I wouldn't know, maybe he is. I'm obviously a fan of guitar-driven pop rock friendly music. Which is what this is. I can already tell I'll need to hear this 50 more times before I understand any of what's happening. So, check ya later.

COPY
Mobius Beard
Wow, this is cool. Dancey syntho pop stuff. "A Slight But Delicious Warble" opens. It's foonkey & melodic. & no crappy vocals to spoil the atmos. "Just Expect" is more of the same but moodier & a bit slower. "Like a Turtle" - lo-fi drum samples, peely synths and stabs. It's like a more sociable Mr. Oizo. "Afro Oven" ha. Nice.

DICTE
Dicte and the Sugarbones
Umb. Modern rock/guitar pop. The first track sounds like Foo Fighters with a female singer. After that, yeah, it just sounds like an up to the minute pop record. Which it probably is. Which means there are guitars, hacked beats, synths, layers of vocals. Uh, Goldfrapp goes c0ck-rock?

REDNOISE
A Subtle Defiance
Wow, more hacked-up guitar samples & drum beats. Maybe this is the bigbeat genre ten years on. All those acid synths...I'd have to say so. "Say It To My Face" takes the portamento function to outer space. That's when all the notes blur together. "Conform" is a slow synth doomer like Massive Attack useta make.

JOSH ROUSE
Subtitulo
Ew, sycophantic David Gray clone. But even more obvious & cloying.

IN-FLIGHT SAFETY
The Coast Is Clear
Kicks off like U2. But the singer sounds like Coldplay. Or, yes, David Gray. Har.

FLOWJOB
Support Normality
Ohhhhhhh SHIT! Epic epic techno. Just like Orbital. Hell yes. "Flangers in the Night" = SONG TITLE OF THE CENTURY!! So, it's, what... the shortest track is 7:45, the longest is 10:13. Beats, undulation, buried vocals like Underworld. I love this shit.

HAMMELL ON TRIAL
Songs for Parents Who Enjoy Drugs
My friend saw this dude a long time ago & became an instant convert. and you know how annoying those guys can be. And how long-lasting the effects of a well-intended but still-annoying convert can be. It's not awful but I doubt I'll listen again. "Coulter's Snatch".

JENNY LEWIS & THE WATSON TWINS
Rabbit Fur Coat
Oh sister where art thou?

JAMES BLUNT
Chasing Time
Sounds like it's live. I've never heard this guy. Does he suck? It sounds like he sucks. Oh yeah, that voice. Good god, it's like Jamiroquoi strangling himself. Oh christ, nice StarSearch version of "Fall at your Feet". Okay, fuck this. Points off for yodeling

FINK
Biscuits for Breakfast
Acoustic guitar-heavy singer songwriter dude stuff. No.

EVERGREY
Monday Morning Apocalypse
More modern euro pop death metal. This is the euro version of Disturbed, isn't it.

DYSLEXIC LOVE
Dyslexic Love
Oh my god. This is a sonic paint-by-numbers. And the worst snare sound this side of Metallica.

KITARO
Spiritual Garden
Ha. I've never heard the guy. I guess the music is exactly what I expected. Piano/synth-driven, melodic, mellow, reverby instrumentals with strategically placed nature sounds. It actually isn't bad. I've definitely heard much worse.

MAN MAN
Six Demon Bag
Okay. Oom-pah-pah piano. Chorus of dude. "Engwish Bwudd" is like an orgy between Rasputina & Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Heavy on the oom-pah cheese & light but still present on the weird-out shit. "Van Helsing Boombox". Ha: "Push the Eagle's Stomach".

LADIES
They Mean Us
What the hell is this? Built To Spill with blastbeats? "Black Metal in the Hour of Starbucks". nice. It's like a jazzier, quieter, but still very fucking whacked-out (obviously) Fantomas. Or something. And with indie whiteboy singing. Um. And the 12:08 album closer is called....."Mandatory Psycho Freakout".

NATACHA ATLAS
Mish Ma'oul
You know she fucking rules. Straddling genres & cultures. Bit of Bollywood here. bit of, I don't know. But I like it. "Ghanwa Bossanova" = Latin American/Middle Eastern hybrid. Hell yes.

TOSCA
Souvenirs
"John Lee Huber (Burnt Friedman)" is the first thing I've heard from David Sylvian's new collaborator-bwah outside of their Nine Horses album. And it sounds pretty much just like that. So much texture, so much groove. Shit is deep, shit is nice. "Fuck ya brain" they sayeth. Niceth. I don't know any of the other remixers or the remixees for that matter. It grooves, that's all I know.

QUEENSRYCHE
Operation Mindcrime 2
Okay, I liked Queensryche for about five minutes in 1986, after that "Gonna Get Close To You" video came out. I thought it was great. Maybe I was right. Dunno. Beyond that, see above remarks about Guns & Roses. I'm not down with the Ryche. What else can I tell you but that it sounds like fucking Queensryche? I'm sorry I just wasted your time and mine.

NIGHTMARES ON WAX
In A Space Outta Sound
"Passion" = slo jam. "The Sweetest" = synchro shuffle reassembled reggae parts. "Flip Ya Lid" too. "Pudpots" = teh JAMMMM!
Cool, mature-feeling dancey groove shiot, but not.

MISS CRAZY
Miss Crazy
Savatage lives! The singer sounds like Axl & the music is like 80s hard rock, with the bass line thudding quarter notes on an open string. Take yer pick. I don't know, it's really strange when the most derivative 80s hard rock metal thing I've heard in a long time is actually the breath of fresh air. Shit. Just don't tell anyone.

ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN
Ballad Of The Broken Seas
"honey child what can I do" is the fuckin' jam. Wouldn't know about the rest.

NO LIFE TILL

2006-02-17T17:39:00.000-05:00

I dreamt that Robert Plant wanted me to be his boy toy for his summer tour. Those were his exact words: be my boy toy for the summer tour? I'd never really thought about Robert Plant that way - gayly - but concluded in the dream that he was pretty dreamy.

In real life, I fuckin' love bit torrents. Every few years there's another new downloady technology that comes along & blows everything else out of the water. Starting for me in 1999 with the original Napster. Concurrently I discovered usenet and began to prefer it for its completeness. Usenet was it for the longest time, then this torrent shit started for me about six months or so ago. Maybe nine months. I've downloaded so much incredible shit in that time. And I've also shared an insane amount of great stuff too. I love adding to the gene pool of DVDs.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

VADER
Art of War EP
Opens with a 90-sec orchestral thangamajig, just like they all do now. Only this one fades in all intense-like, with military snare drums. Then: "This is the Way" takes up the mantle from Metallica's "One". It's a deathly ghouly bang-your-head chugging open string riff. Tis fucking brutile but I'm guess you guessed that already. Yeah, the blastbeat kicks in and it's awesome. It's like ultra death metal but you can still hear keyboards. Fucking crap, the drums sound like a sprinkler. In a good way, obviously. Production is excellent & clear. All six trax run together, so you go on a nice little journey for a quarter of an hour. "Death in Silence" is FAST.

LAMPSHADE
Let's Get AWay
"Come Closer" is slow pokely jangly guitar indie rock with a young-sounding female vocalist, whose voice makes the chix in Mum sound like Marianne Faithfull did on that Metallica record. ie - high & twee & about five years old. The song = nice. Dude vox kick in on the chorus. "New Legs" starts with some noodly clean guitar riffing/chording, arrythmic drumming & the toddler-voiced chiock belting out the lyrics. I betcha she's about three foot one & holding a blankie. The last half of the song is jaunty & upbeat 80s retro fake disco bogus Joy Division action that everyone does now. Which is fine. "By and By I Come" starts off like the previous one. Tis mighty jaunty. "It's Okay" opens with furry fuzzy bass & drums and pokey delayed clean guitar. And that chix's voice. I'm not sure if I could get down with it for 48 minutes. But it's not assraping my ears either, so who knows. "Joy" is a bit uptempo, innit. File under listen again.

RICHARD JULIAN
Slow New York
What the fuck, did Leon Redbone come back as a young hipster? "Slow New York" = I hate to say it so soon, but: fake American Music Club. Right down to the all-over-the-place singing. It's almost kind of like Harry Connick covering Mark Eitzel. The good bits anyway. The bad bits remind me of Blues Traveller. I run away now. I forgot to mention Metallica.

DARKTHRONE
The Cult is Alive
What? I guess I assumed Darkthrone would sound like Dimmu Borgir, just like everyone else does. Fuck that shit, it sounds like the last album these guys listened to was Celtic Frost "Morbid Tales" in 1983/84. The riffs are brutile & ugly, and the vocals, oh the vocals are a bitchslap to the inner ear. The tempo of the first song is refreshingly middling. And then he says "come on you fuckers!!!" and they go into a thrashy bit. I think I'm in love. It's so raw and unpleasant sounding. Oh shit, and "Too Old Too Cold" is the greatest title ever. I almost don't care what it sounds like. But: it sounds like Venom. Old, great Venom. Sounds like they're calling out all the posers with this one. I heard him say "you call yourselves black". Ooh. "Atomic Coming" - Celtic Frost the song "Morbid Tales". They might've written down all the notes & just rearranged them, because. Yeah. "Graveyard Slut", damn, another great title. This is the gratest album eveur and I haven't even heard "Shut Up" yet! "Graveyard Slut" sounds like a different singer, who INSISTS on giving it the Tom G Warrior business. I can assure you, all this tribute-payment to the mighty Frost is not accidental. I think he just said something about a big rack. Metallica was never this cool. I mean, maybe for the first five minutes after the "Whiplash" EP came out.

BETH ORTON
Comfort of Strangers
Y'know, I think I got shnookered by her first album & the Chemical Bros tracks she did. I foolishly assumed she'd be interesting, unique, a solitary voice, an artist. Kind of thing. "She Cries Your Name" still gives me chills but everything she's done since then has been lackluster. At best. She's had time to accept the fact that the first album was a fluke. Damn it. So, no more electronix then, I assume. "Worms" immediately sounds like something from 1970s AM radio. In a bad way. Joni Mitchell or something. "Countenance" is the inevitable jab at alt-cuntree. Bleh. "Heartlandtruckstop", okay I've had enough. You proved your point.

DEATHSTARS
Termination Bliss
Oh, it's 1997 again and the burgeoning hybrid of heavy metal guitars & dance beats + synths hasn't played itself out yet. Or was it born played-out? Whatever. "Tongues", there's live drums + a loop, synths, downtuned metal guitar, and vocals that sound like Rammstein. Whatever you call that style. Kind of lower register almost speaking. But not rap. The songs would actually probably rock harder as simple synth pop. But, no. It's fucking 1997 innit. "Blitzkrieg" owes its existence to Ministry. Which is probably fine if you're into that sort of thing. "Motherzone" reminds me of Mortiis. Ghouly keys, biggish chorus. And a bunch more just like it.

BLOODTHORN
Genocide
"...for Those Whose Time Has Come" is the requisite intro track with the spoken-word action buried in the mix. Relatively slow, mournful meanderings for two minutes. Then "Blood and Iron", instant deathly dissection via heatfurnaceblastbeatcolonblow punctuated by more slow mournful meanderings. Back and forth, on and on. A bit prog too. "Forced Selfmutilation" = song title champ. I dunno, I think I blew my wad headbanging to Darkthrone.

BOO-YA TRIBE
Angry Samoans
Get it, because they're from Samoa? The same island as the old school wrestling stars The Samoans. And, you know those Girls Scout Cookies? They invented those too. Um. "No Free Ride (Intro)" just sounds like a metal band. "Skared for Lyfe" contineus the theme. I thought these guys were more hiphop than this. This shit is like Korn or Rage Against The Machine, which, who cares. I mean, I'm glad they can keep all the beats & tunes in-house to cut down on licensing samples and paying producers, but...heuughgh.

CIRCUMAMBIENT

2006-02-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

CIRCUMAMBIENT ::: FUCKING ABOUT FOOD

I just downloaded iTunes to hear a 22 second preview of the newest XTC single, the digital-only "Where Did the Ordinary People Go?" This was one of Colin Moulding's better songs put forward for Nonsvch in 1990/91, out of a batch of at least ten complete stunners. This 2006 recording fits neatly between the two 'Apple Veni' - an uptempo rockerbopper with pizzicato strings. It sounds like a pastiche of Andy Partridge's latter-day songwriting style.

iTunes is a beast. I'm going to uninstall it now. Between WinAmp, Quicktime, RealPlayer and Windows Media, the last fucking thing my PC needs is one more system-hogging media player. My god.

CALEXICO
Garden Ruin

Modernish Americana acoustic twangy-voice almost country rock but not. "Cruel" gets down like a more self-aware American Music Club. Pedal steel. Horn section. "Yours and Mine" is acoustic guitar & singing. "Bisbee Blue" is moderately uptempo. I guess you guys who like Wilco and all that shit will already be lickin' this. Everyone else can join me in getting the hell away from it.

CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE
Etiquette

Damn, that dude's voice really sounded like Mark Eitzel at first. Shit freaked me out. Not so much now that I know it's snot him. What do you got here. You got lo fi drums, piano, maybe bass, maybe synths. And low-register mushmouth dude singing too many words, awkwardly. I guess I've heard worse, but I'm still glad the songs are short - 2-3 minutes each. "Young Shields" adds a tense but danceable drum groove & undulating bass bit to the sad synth chords & vocal mannerismae. "I Love Creedence" is more of the same & now I know what he's doing, he thinks he's Mark Kozelek - messy singing, highly personal lyrics, classic rock references. I get it now. "Love Connection" inserts similarly unsettled female vocals & lyrics to the mix, which is somehow preferable. "Holly Hobby" sounds like His Name Is Alive. Not horrible but still highly unlikely I'll listen again.

ENSIFERIUM
Dragonheads EP

Almost poppy death metal, if you can imagine that. The guitars sound like fifty million bucks, the drums sound great too & the wee little choon sounds like some fucking, I don't know, Scottish Highlander shit. Viking boat sea shanty 'sailing' 'together we fight' thing. The lead vocals are tuneless black metal. Weird. This is probably what passes for pop music in Europe now. It's not bang-your-head heavy. Or is it. Couple of progressive moments there with the time signature. Okay. The choral backing vocals are just weird. Oh shit, halfway through there's a keyboard-stab breakdown that sounds like vintage Yngwie or, heh, Europe. "Warrior's Quest" is like a Lord of the Rings ballad or some shit. Everyone slow-dance to the death metal now! "White Storm" adds a thrashy bit, almost a blastbeat but not quite. And yet, wow. Stunningly un-stunning. Take that, weird fake Euro poppy death metal.

MONO
You Are There

Six songs in an hour. The first track takes its time building up from cool ambience to spacy freak-out-rock. Sigur Ros minus the songs. It's kind of like Sonic Youth in reverse. Mono starts with a quiet, pretty riff-thing and adds or subtracts to the atmos from there. Slowly building. "Yearning" is 15.5 minutes of the same formula. Prettiness, starkness, minimalism, into full-bore rocking-out. Eh, it tickles my new Bark Psychosis bone. I like this a lot, hopefully I'll remember to listen to it again.

HARDKANDY
Last to Leave

Lo-fi/downtempo/chillout. American singer dude, not so sure. He's not bad but he's not exactly great either. His vocal style makes me think that he thinks he sounds like Jeff Buckley. I say that because of the falsetto action and the lyrics. "Triage" has a decent groove. "Advice" is like a dude version of Beth Orton. Meh. I mean, so many other artists do this sound so much better.

KELLEY STOLTZ
Below the Branches

Soaring piano-pop like Flaming Lips or an American hoping to sound like XTC. Layers of activity make the songs sound more interesting than they maybe really are. "Little Lords" starts with some sad alt-tuned acoustic guitar & singage, building up slowly & adding instruments as it goes. Beatley. So, what does that mean, Guided By Voices? Flaming Lips again? "Ever Thought of Coming Back" is a nice happy moper. "The Rabbit Hugged the Hound" is a happy happer. Not bad but not lifechanging either. Or maybe it is & I just need to hear it 50x in a row.

MESH
We Collide

All the generic band names today. We are Mono! We are Mesh! We are Feedback! We are Aether! This Mesh is dancey techno pop metal rock. Which means, "Open Up the Ground" has quarter-note bass drum pulses, Depeche Mode style synth treatments of basic chord patterns, distorted guitars on the chorus, and decent dude-vocals. These guys are definitely in Depeche mode. The production is very good. The vocals are compressed to hell. There are tunes. Couple of DM-style ballads. This is very well done for what it is. Unfortunately I also happen to have no use for what it is.

MATISYAHU
Youth

What the fuck is this shit? White college kids pretending to be from Kingston Jamaica? I don't fucking think so. It sounds like Snow fronting 311. Get this shit away from me now and let us never speak of it again.

THE FLAMING LIPS
At War with the Mystics

Speaking of Flaming Lips. Y'know, I've never been a fan, despite trying on several occasions to get into them. Whatever that means. The first song uses an old Casio patch that was also used by me. And later the Moonbabies. So, what can I say, this sounds like the fucking Flaming Lips to me. End of story. You don't need me to tell you what to think. There are more layers of meaning in every song than I'm prepared to deal with right now, frankly.

SHE WANTS REVENGE
She Wants Revenge

Oh shit, Interpol got a drum machine!

THE WONDER STUFF
Suspended by Stars

It's been a long time since the Stuffies troubled the British top 40. And even longer since they troubled the American top 40, ie never. Two true statements that have no bearing on anything. I've only gotten into the early Wonder Stuff albums recently. I was always more of a Neddies fan myself. And Poppies. The Stuff doesn't suck, nor does it rule. Old-timey guitar rock with nice choruses & choony verses. I mean, if I listened to this in the car every day for a month it would probably be my favorite. Or not. His lyrics are cheesedick quite a high proportion of the time. Not that Ned's lyrics weren't. Or the Poppies, at times. So, fair play to them, I guess.

APPETITE

2006-02-11T10:08:00.000-05:00

dammit, I got shnookered by this bogus 'lost 1998 album' by Dead Can Dance. It's...not them. Or is it? It sure as hell sounds like the music could be them. The singing definitely isn't them. So, what the hell. I thought I was onto something hotttt there, first thing. Now, nada.

DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND
Synchrestra

I guess this is what happens when a 'metal dude' wants to do something different. He alienates everyone. I dunno. It's not horrible, there are neat riffs 'n' shit in spots. And some of the clean/alternately-tuned guitar stuff is okayish. But in the end it sounds like a violent and pointless collision between the new age and death metal genres. Which, usually I'm all for violent and pointless collisions. Lots of pianos and strings. Uh-oh, "Babysong". The name alone should be enough of a clue. It sounds like either he just got married or he just had a kid and now he's trying to write heavy metal lullabies... or, I know, something 'pretty'. Eugh. Then "Vampolka" = 90 seconds of bogus oompah. Then "Vampira", more of the same, but with singing. I don't know.

MUSLIMGAUZE
Speaker of Turkish

Minimal electronic beats with effects and sampled native music instruments with names I can't spell let alone pronounce. I have to tread very carefully when describing things from cultures I'm not conversant with. There are a few sizzly samples fading in & out across the stereo spectrum. "Bedouin Tablet" is 16 minutes of calm abuse. Easy listening but not. "The Good Muslim (reprise)" is another almost ten minutes of the same.

NORFOLK & WESTERN
A Gilded Age

Well, I like the band name and the album title, so that's two points right off the bat. Track one, "Porch Destruction" - another good title, and a slow, quiet fade-in with strings and acoustic guitar. Ooh, light drums. This could be great. It could still all go pear-shaped too though. Violin. There's the singer's voice. Uh oh. Light upper ranged dude with harrrrd Amerrrrican accent. The music is nice, so nice. The chorus is okay, joined by a female vocalist. And then it rocks quietly with distorted guitar and the strings go all swoony. Heh, "Porch Destruction", that's funny. It's funny because it's irrelevant and unexpected. Blistered distorto guitar solo. "A Gilded Age" gets down with a wimpy but able groove and...is that a banjo? Are you fuckers taking the piss? BANJO? I think it is. But it's not bad. I'm shocked. I'm shocked that there's a banjo coming out of the speakers and I'm still listening to it. This track is way uptempo, still using strings and the eventual blistering distortated guitar solo. Offset by more fuckin' banjo. The drums and bass are off in disco-land. This is the track. Oh shit, steel guitar too. Wimpy disco rock with banjo and pedal steel guitar, you've got to be shitting me. Etc.

EDGUY
Rocket Ride

I think this may be a Euro pop-metal band. Bear in mind that pop-metal no longer means Winger. Nice pianos and analog synth line on the 8-min opener, "Sacrifice". Dynamics. The singer sounds like every other metal singer. Maybe it does mean Winger after all. And "Rocket Ride" isn't a KISS cover, which is the only thing I wanted to know. "Fucking With Fire (Hair Force One)" is a pure 80s throwback, not in a good way.

GRANDADDY
Just Like the Fambly Cat

Hm,piano, lo-fi little-kid-voice at the beginning. "What Happened?" Then "Jeez Louise" rox like a regular rock band. Maybe it rox more than regular, what's the benchmark anymore? The excessive vocal harmonies get on my tits pretty quickly, but the rest isn't bad. I guess that's the deal.

INDEX AI
World Blade Center

Hm, neither dancey techno nor techno-pop. The singer dude kinda raps in a way, not unlike yer favorite early 1990s Wax Trax recs. Personally it gets on my nerves after the first song. The music has a lot of potential - dancefloor and otherwise - but it's compromised by the monotonous vocalage. But that's just me. You might hear this and be like it's the second coming of the second coming of the second coming of Bill Leeb and Gary Numans' gay fuck love child's second coming.

HALF FAST

2006-02-09T15:57:00.000-05:00

CENTRO-MATIC
Fort Recovery
Misra Records

Sounds like a more-fuzzed American Music Club. Doesn't everyone, though. (I just heard Poster Children "Tool of the Man" (1993) and that does the whole 'deep' yank guitar honkey thing just so much better across the board. Poster Children rocks more and is more melodic. And rocks less, you figure it out.) Oh, wait, Centro-matic uses kooky synth sounds. But, yeah, AMC did that too. Better. "Take a Rake" rounds out the decathlon and rocks, at least on the surface. And the surface is where all the action is, apparently.

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
The Life Pursuit

What the hell is this? You know I'm normally a fan of anything wussy and ghey in pop music. The only other time I tried listening to Belle and Sebastian, I had a violent reaction that could only be subdued by listening to Pantera and wearing a red bandana on my head. This time, it's not that severe. I mean, I've certainly heard worse. And this IS pretty wussy and ghey. Surprisingly very not bad. I'll have to hear it again sometime.

DELAYS
You See Colours

Effected female vocals and synth pokes open the first track. And then the drums come in and it's all upbeat. "You and Me". Maybe it's designed to trigger that Katrina & The Waves response because I'm ready to get up and bop my head around. That's a compliment. "Valentine" is the female-fronted variant on the nouveau Duran Duranine strain of the recent past. Updated their synth tones & dance beats along the way. But yeah. It's melodic and you can dance to it without even trying to be ironic. Whoa, "Sink Like a Stone" almost sounds like XTC. I definitely need to hear this again.

FURTHEST FROM THE STAR
This Waking Moment

Holy fuck I feel old. They should change their name to FOO-THEST FROM THE FIGHTERS. Because it's just so fucking blatant. My god. The problem with the kidz today is that they take the fun out of everything. It's all so contrived. The magic is all just CGI effects. If this band has a video, and I'm sure they do, it's surely a special-effects circle jerk. I can't listen to this, it gives me grey hairs.

GRAHAM COXON
Love Travels at Illegal Speeds

Lots of guitar. Floor tom. Big-boy chords. Euw, but that singing voice. Could I listen to that for an hour? Hm. Maybe. Hey Graham, got your Coxon? He were in Bluh, weren't he. And at least his british accent is real, I guess. It's less annoying than Blur ever were. But that was also, if Blur ever had appeal to me, which is certainly debatable, part of the draw. It's confusing but at least it doesn't suck shit, as far as I can tell.

THE KOOKS
Inside Out

Guess what. This could be any other brit-wank guitar band that's out at the moment. What do the Kooks bring to the party? Is what I wanna know. I mean, you know how the Strokes singer dude kinda sounds like he's singing with a British accent, kinda? This guy sounds like that too, only he is British. You understand my confusion. Regardless. The guitar-y music isn't bad at all. I just think it might get annoying pretty quickly.

TRESSPASSERS WILLIAM
Having

I've heard good things about this band. Apparently it's all deserved. You got yer sexy-soundin' breathy female singerist, yer late night sound effects, yer ambientish keys and chords. This is all the first track, "Safe Sound". It's nice, it sounds like Mojave Three plus Sigur Ros. And I only invoke the name of Sigur Ros due the scope of the songs, they have the same kind of filmic approach to songmaking. And they're slow & quiet too, which counts for a lot with me. DON'T FUCKIN' ROCK! Sexy. You go buy now. Get me one while you're there. Thankie hankie poo-poo.

THE STROKES
First Impressions of Earth

Do I have to? I mean, I thought their first album was, like, "The La's" of this decade. Y'know, a debut album with almost-all fucking killer songs that you just can't argue with. I mean, you can make all the faces you want, but in the end, the shit sticks with you. I don't know if this album is any good as a whole but it hasn't grabbed me like the first one did. And "Ask Me Anything" is actually annoying, so points off for that.