N/A: Get off my lap, okay? Let me repeat this for you: I AM A HETEROSEXUAL. Okay?

TG (tickling him with her gun): Oooo, so am I, big boy. Why do you think I like carrying so many big guns around with me? So hard... and long... and waiting to explode....

N/A (wincing): STOP!

TG: You know you want it.

N/A: Never!

TG (looking stern): Then you'll have to give me another review to help me over my deep disappointment.

N/A: I can't remember the last time I vacillated so much over a record. About half the songs on BEAUTY FOR ASHES are great. The other half are absolutely awful. I, uh, I'm confused dammit. For people who care about such things: The Sabians feature two ex-members of some band called Sleep. Apparently they were a big deal with the stoners or something. [n/a]

Remember that Abstractions disc, SONIC CONSPIRACY, from last issue, where i raved about mad vocalist Jesse Quattro and her stuck-pig grunting 'n wailing? Well, she's back, this time in the context of the band she normally plays with, Saint of Killers (her and deathjazz percussionist Tyler Cox plus possessed guitar fuckery from Alwyn Quebido). The results are otherworldy and loud, all spastic bursts of metal and freejazz, noise and drillpress precision, weird psychedelic death-mojo with a stuttering beat that occasionally threatens to actually resolve into something straightforward. And then Quattro opens her mouth and starts wailing and it really gets out of control in a hurry. At points they sound like Painkiller channeling Beme Seed singer Kathleen Lynch, which is a pretty intimidating way to sound, believe me (if you don't, check out "Giant Fly Regurgitates Bread," full of tortured shrieking and jacked-up instrument abuse). I like it when they slow down, as they do on "May Sweet, Your Rot Die In Peace," an actual song (a minimalist one, true, but still) with lots of distressed efx whirling around it. Just in case you got all comfy 'n relaxed during that one, they come out blaring and barely-coherent on "Shitcanal," a mad and swirling yowl that ends when the guitar threatens to go seriously metal, dude. "Rendering Tank" is a tad more ethereal and psychedelic, trudging away in old-school Pain Teens territory for a while and eventually cranking up into blinding white-noise death-by-volume (then winding down and out), and "Baleia" (a short solo electronics bit from Cox) is nothing more or less than diseased power electronics. Note that outside of this solo track, the rest of the album is pretty much divided into two sections: the first, five songs with guest bassist Miya Osaki, are heavy ambient-noise freejazz freakouts in the vein of Painkiller, Beme Seed, or John Zorn. (Matt Waters contributes sax on a couple of these tunes too.) The remaining three tracks are considerably more direct and metal-like, although still plenty "out there" in their non-metalness (dude). "Jaw of Traitor pt. 2" in particular has some seriously heavy guitar alternating with not-even-remotely-heavy freejazz lines, and the heavy parts are beyond pummeling while the other parts are mini-solos or something like that, shifting gears frequently and without warning. "Hanged" and "Soft Targets" feature more of this direct, trio-on-fire sound, plus lots of really insane shrieking from Quattro, especially on the latter, which ends the album in a roaring, pounding blast o' heaviness with all the grace and gentleness of a pack of killers with long knives systematically butchering a whole family. Will the mikes ever work again after being soiled with such vast buckets of blood 'n bile? If you don't check this out they might come and kill you, so i'd do it... you'll be so happy you did....

Hey, i sort of remember this... they used to call this... rock 'n roll. The singer even goes "doo be doo" on "Some Things Will Never Be," for Anu's sake. Their li'l press thingy claims they're "goth punk" or something, but be not deceived -- this is rawk, brutah. Three chords and four on the floor drums and a lot of energy, and they even wear suits (just like those black metal dudes in Akercocke!). If this disc is any indication of the live set, they probably have to have them dry-cleaned or replaced on a regular basis -- i'm having a hard time imagining these guys standing still on stage.... The whole vibe of this album is old-school NYC hardcore punk, before everybody got so uptight and full of shit, which means they aren't afraid to stop periodically and have ballads with handclaps and acoustic guitars (the aforementioned "Some Things Will Never Be," for instance). Unlike a lot of punked-out bands, though, these guys are tight and focused and to the point; this is what the Murder City Devils would sound like if they left the goddamn cheesy organ in a back alley and stuck to the fuzzed-out guitars. Why is this band not on a label? Why are they having to put this out themselves? What the fuck is wrong with the music business when talentless dirtbags like Korn and Puddle of Mudd and other illiterates who can't even spell their own names properly, much less play listenable music, have millions of dollars and whores and ass-licking toadies, while a real band has to put out their own CDs in obscurity? As for the songs, there's fourteen of them and they all rock in a real loud way (except the handful of ballads, which rock quietly). Go to the EPHEMERA section to find their web site and listen to the songs they have up there to hear the noise yourself -- if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you.

[The Moon Unit and the Dynamic Noise Duo are prowling through the lower levels of the Hellfortress, marveling at the shattered wreckage and trail of destruction TASCAM-Girl and CyberLieutenant 12-Track have left in their wake, when suddenly they stumble across the would-be tyrants in the Men's Room, where C12 is trying to stuff himself back into his exoskeleton after a satisfying dump. Let us go now to the tragic scene as it unfolds....]

TG (tapping her foot impatiently outside the stall door): Are you about done yet? We've got to get moving....

C12 (over flushing toilet): Yes, damn you, and this is your fault. If you hadn't damaged the Waste Collector on my suit during one of your turgid gun battles I wouldn't have to be doing this in the first place!

TG: Oh, you are such a crybaby. (reloads Hyperejeculatory Spasmolytic Ion Generator, Hand-Held Model) My mother has bigger balls than you.

C12 (emerging from the stall, still suiting up): If I weren't a gentleman I'd be forced to --

[Both of them freeze as the door crashes off the hinges and The Moon Unit bursts in with the Dynamic Noise Duo right behind him. The Moon Unit looks absolutely crazed and is waving a compact disc in a most ominous fashion. He is flanked by the duo, both of whom are holding cryptic-looking gadgets.]

TMU: All right you sick bastards! You're trapped now! I have you RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU! Oh, this is going to be so good! I'm going to enjoy this so much I'm practically wetting myself! (Still gloating, he waves to the noise duo) NOW! HIT THEM WITH THE ULTRASONIK!

[TG raises her gun to fire, but it is no use. M--a and M--w simultaneously press the buttons of their devices and the room is filled with inaudible but potent waves of sound. Hair stands on end as the sound waves smash into the would-be tyrants and render them immobile, their muscles suddenly overstimulated into submission.]

TMU (plucking the gun from TG's hand): So you thought you could throw me down the well, huh? Thought it would be humorous to pee on my head, eh? Well feast your eyes on THIS! Your PUNISHMENT! [shoves the CD in her face]

TG: Oh shit. He has a Saint Vitus disc. We're so fucked.

C12: Oh God! No! No! No! Not THAT! Please! I beg of you! Don't play it! It was all her idea! It wasn't my fault! Society is to blame!

TMU (ignoring them as the CD begins to play): Listen to that disturbed, reeking, noisy wah-wah! Tremble with fear before that rumbling bass! Can you imagine how alien and forbidding this sounded when it first came out nearly twenty years ago?

M--a (looking at the back cover photo): Ah, would that I could grow such a handsome and forbidding nest of hair as this young man in the parka.

C12: Please! I beg of you! I cannot handle this! The subterranean grooves... the evil proto-Sabbath riffs... the noodly guitar... those leaden tempos... that voice... please... please....

TG: Whatever you do, don't even think of playing "The Psychopath."

TMU (gloating): You mean this? (mutant, out-of-control wah guitar fills the room, accompanied by a lumbering groove much like a dinosaur having seizures in slow motion)

C12: Oh God! So much like Robin Trower... I can feel my brain cells regressing into hopeless despair....

TMU: Whaddya got against Trower, you freak? I spent half of the eighties listening to VICTIMS OF THE FURY over and over. This is heavy shit, you tasteless jizzlobber.

TG: If they would just pick up the pace a bit....

TMU: Nonsense! That leaden dirge feel is what made Saint Vitus great! Everything should be played this slow! Britney Spears might actually be listenable if she placed at a snail's pace like this!

C12: This album strikes me as a forbidding advertisement for the dangers of excessive Robitussin intake.

M--w: It would sound much better if it were many times louder.

M--a: Yes, this is true, but we must remember the primitive conditions under which they were forced to record. Legends in the making but underappreciated in their own time, they had to make do with the few resources at hand. Even then the evil Madame Onna was determined to crush their spirit, not that she was successful, as you can clearly see.

M--w: What, I ask, does Madame Onna have to do with this mighty band?

M--a: Just as they were the Saints of All Dirges, she is the Priestess of Assdom. Try as you might, shake your ass to this growling, lurching fury -- it cannot be done! She fears that which cannot be enslaved by the power of the almighty ass, so she desired greatly to destroy them. This is why they remained close to the ground during their illustrious career -- they did not dare stay visible for long, lest she muster the power to render them mute. As it was, they were forced to disband just to escape her satanic clutches -- but not before leaving behind several crushing albums of nearly inert motion and fuzzed-out tragedy.

TMU: Look at how slow "Burial at Sea" is, like Black Sabbath slowed down to half-speed. No wonder Goatsnake covered it.

C12: This is the sound of hopelessness. I have no doubt their audiences committed ritual suicide after each performance, I'm sure. Can we please move on to something less blood-freezing now?

TMU: NEVER! In fact, now I'm gonna make you listen to it AGAIN, before the freeze-ray wears off....

As a quintet (plus more sometimes) doing primarily instrumental psychedelic trance/shoegaze rock, Chicago's Salomé reside in a niche that is certainly not lacking in peers. Seems you can't point a car in any compass direction in the country without almost running over someone who has aspirations to topple Bardo Pond's coveted position as kings of strum-happy shree and scraz. Still, while this isn't ordinarily the sort of thing I use to rocket my grey matter 50 parsecs or more away from the nearest strip mall, Salomé really do have a good rapport. Too bad they're all living in different parts of North America now.

The first thing you have to ask with a band who are so obviously influenced by My Bloody Valentine, Neu!, Amon Duul and so forth is how do the guitars (there better be at least two, am I right?) go together. Quite intuitively, I?m happy to report, Saleem Dhamee and Ryan Jackson lock down tight on what the other is doing, making absolutely sure that they themselves are proving the exact complimentary piece needed. If one's ringing single, echoed notes, the other is laying down a thick blurry cloud. If one's providing a riff, the other is filling in with a counter riff. The band is locked down, no doubt, and Sam Leimer and Emma Bryant (bass and drums, respectively) go smashy smashy in the background with enough variety that you'll look away from the jangle long enough to give 'em a nod.

From what little I know of the history of this recording (released only months ago on the Chicago based Dutch Courage label), this is a recording from a few years back, which would explain my forthcoming complaint: while this is a decent enough little album for any trance rock fan to own, it doesn't really capture what kind of undulating thob they put together live. I go out in pretty foul weather, and have braved police stings on assorted bar/venues to see Salomé several times, and that's where they really work it. Which I suppose is the case with any band whose main stock in trade is taking a riff and pummeling it into a submissive gelatin in seven or so minutes. My other complaint is this disc takes a bit of time to get off the ground. By the time "Waiting" kicks in, and the head begins to nod (along with the brain), we've been waiting for about 15 minutes for this kind of blast, which I don't really get from the first three tunes. "Waiting," "Chambers & Vessels" and "Planet of the Apes" as a trio really hit a pinnacle, though, and the closer, "Tarantula," similarly ends the 40 minute disc on a satisfying note.

Okay, here's what. You know who you are, and you know if you want this record. It's cheap as the two ladies who got frisked on my corner by the cops tonight ($8 ppd. from the label), and it does indeed pack a punch. Or, if you're one of those types who doesn't want to read a series by an author that's still in progress until they're all written, you might want to hold off until the companion album, p.m. hits the stores in the future (there's also rumored to be a 2LP version which will contain both halves of the "concept). [cms]

These jokers from the suburbs of Hazelton, PA have been huffin' way too much nitrous oxide while playing their Sabbath and Earth records, that's for sure -- somewhere along the way they bumped the speed down to 16 rpm and never even noticed. Now that's what i call good huffin'. If you can imagine Wayne and Garth trying to shake their hair to Black Sabbath and Captain Beefheart at the same time after that all-night Robitussin chugging contest, well... um... that would be approaching the level of weirdness here. The level of exquisitely deranged loopiness here, all rendered at a volume slightly less than that of a nuclear explosion, gives them an ass-shaking obnoxious quotient of very high proportions. Armed with samplers, Moog keyboards, cut 'n paste software, ancient video games, drum machines, turntables, old records, and a virtual band weaned on monolithic sludge, Jeff Gallagher (guitars, bass, vox, programming, keyboards) and John Bushner (drums, keyboards, programming, vox) manage to make a huge, idiosyncrastic mess over about seventy minutes worth of thundering psychotronic weirdness. The closest approximation one could even begin to make would be to Thrones, that eccentric brainchild of Joe Preston -- this is in that ballpark, but heavier in its pounding metal roar and denser in its collection of instruments and other effluvia. Quite frequently it doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but it's so mesmerizing in its apocalyptic brain-freeze that you'll never dare reach for that dial. As for the sounds 'n melodies 'n riffs and standard equipment, they're all over the map and colliding from all different directions (then frequently drowned out by overamped bass hell). Titles like "This Is Bad Cabbage," "Who's Pumping Estrada?," "Bone Ape Tit," and "DJ Delta Burke" tell you all about where they're coming from (maybe even more than you wanted to know), and they're not above flying in the sound of skipping CDs to freak you out. You may hear weirder albums (interstellar overdrive by way of rhino tranquilizer is a lot easier to come by these days), but it's not likely you'll hear too many blindingly heavy albums quite this weird. (Unless you already happen to be hep to Robot vs. Rabbit, and they're less weird but more evil than this.) Bonus points for the totally mutant cut-n-paste artwork. Put this disc on at the next youth revival and see what kind of reaction you get....

TTBMD (popping his head in the door): Wow, this cd is fucking great. I recommend it to everyone. Go buy it.

Sappho's Fist -- DISTURBANCE PULSE [Little Man Productions]

Remember way back when, some issues ago, when i had good things to say about Frank Smith and Amy Kirk's THE SCHOOL OF VELOCITY? Well, they are back under a new name: Sappho's Fist (and it's a name i like, heh). And i have good things to say about this one, too. It's a bit different than their previous effort, particularly on the opener "Bird Ladders," which incorporates their earlier interests -- Amy's vocals utilizing repeated "found" phrases, strange noises, collage sound -- but also introduces an almost technoish beat and vocal loops to create something as equally otherworldly as it is danceable. For some reason it reminds me (in feel, anyway) of Lida Husik's "Matchstick Men from Mars," which is certainly not a bad thing. "Disturbance Pulse #1" is more eerie, marked by the pulsing sound of some clanking object (heavily distorted bass, perhaps) and various unidentifiable noises swirling around chanted, droning vocals. More heavily repetitive noises turn up in "Blue Shift," where Amy drones on about cello players breaking strings and equally peculiar stuff; then the sound settles into a pattern of odd sounds cycling in and out of a murky sea of other strange background noises. Almost nothing is "recognizable" in a traditional sense, which makes it sound all the more exotic....

"Disturbance Pulse #2" continues where the first one left off, acting essentially as a variation on the first version. "Terrorized by Beez" comes closest to matching the feel of their first effort; a beatless exercise in pure sound sculpture filled with scratchy noises, wailing violins, weird noises like shoes tumbling in a dryer, it pretty much defies description but is nevertheless interesting. The last track, "The Waves," just piles on layers of sound at the beginning, then fades away into the repetition of sounds that have been chopped and diced as spoken-word samples and croaking sounds worm their way through the main layers of sound. The most intriguing thing about SF's style is that it's hard to pigeonhole; there are elements here to please noiseheads, but it's not really a noise album; because of the beat element on the early songs, it also escapes categorization as a purely "avant" album. They may have to invent a new category for this sound, heh. Regardless of what you call it, it's certainly stylish and different, and well worth your powers of investigation....

I deeply grok both the name and the title (I'm down with the grind, yah), but the sound quality of this three-song demo is a tad iffy. Nothing wrong with the performances, though, although "Chico's Prizon Bitchez" (blink and you missed it) is way too short. The malevolent pounding and pained shrieking of "Fuck It" sure hits the spot, though. The lo-fi (and probably no-budget) recording makes it really difficult to tell what's going on sometimes, though, especially on "Demon666," which spoils the fun a bit. It would be interesting to hear this again with better recording. There's a certain quality to their diseased-sounding noise-grind that strikes me as having the potential to be really gruesome, if captured properly.... Bonus points for Ronald McDonald hung in effigy on the cover.

Quite a mouthful, that title. The Satellite Circle are yet another Stoner Rock band from Sweden. They touch all the bases with riffs cribbed from Kyuss, Sabbath, Monster Magnet, and other assorted 70s and retro-70s outfits; the vocals and guitars are drenched in swirly efx, the drums have that Bill Ward sort of stomp, and every once in a while they break away from the heaviness and let things chill with a "psychedelic" interlude.

It may seem like I'm setting up to trash this disc. I'm not. The Satellite Circle manage to distance themselves from the hordes of Stoner wannabes by knowing the value of a good song. A lot of bands in this genre are content to grab a fuzzbox, a delay, and a flange, effect up everything and waffle away. The Satellite Circle are able to focus their fuzz into catchy, concise songs. Also, they are a bit more aggressive than your average Stoner band.... They don't seem to go for any mush-mouthed slacker nonsense. Finally, the bass player, Fredrik Holmgren, has one of the most in-your-face bass sounds this side of Weedeater's Dixie Dave Collins. [n/a]

An achingly beautiful and sometimes eccentric collection of songs featuring mainly the piano and vox of Yoko Sato, this is one of the most compelling things i've heard in quite a while. Apparently the music was composed and recorded over a span of years from 1996-2000, not that you can tell -- it's all remarkably of one piece. She has this brilliant, ghostly piano sound (thanks to lots o' reverb) and a haunting voice with a register so high that i can't even tell whether she's singing in English or Japanese, but whatever it is, it's absolutely arresting. Its overall aesthetic reminds me strongly of the Thymme Jones solo album WHILE (the second time i've been compelled to mention that disc in this issue, and that's highly unusual, believe me). The first two tracks, "Pussyface" and "The Little Prince," are solely Soto and her piano, but the third track, "At Half Past 3," is Soto and her synthesizer (and sounds remarkably like Julee Cruse, in fact). Things get a bit more odd (and more clearly into Public Eyesore territory) with "Egg and Jesus," as hair-raising howling (she and Yoko Ono share more than just a first name, apparently) runs roughshod over her piano-pounding in scary, alien fashion. On "Piano Improvisation" she's back to more "traditional" sounds, although the piano sounds like it might have been treated; she's certainly doing unusual things with it, at any rate. She moves away from the keyboard altogether for the last two pieces: "Voice and Guitar Performance" features a whining, Doppler-effect guitar reverbed and delayed to the point of madness, through which her equally-processed voice bounces like an electronic ghost. (There's something in there periodically that might actually be a piano... or a guitar... or, uh, something else... it's hard to tell.) "Voice Performance" is an even more ear-scraping take on the same concept and guaranteed to offend your neighbors or your roommate. Definitely an eye-opening collection; i'll be keeping by eye out for more by this woman....

At last, the lovely Miz Sato returns with more cryptic bursts of noise, this time employing guitar rather than piano. I would have liked to hear her tickle the ivories again, but this is plenty swank enough in its own right -- four lengthy freeform improv jams (three on guitar, one with guitar and voice), all of them loud and noisy. The first one, "guitar improvisation one," is filled with screeching, droning, train-wreck sounds and high-pitched feedback so loud it starts breaking up; this is the sound the air raid bombers will make when Ragnarok arrives. The second one, "guitar improvisation two," is a bit more playful (if no less noisy), with bursts of mutant sound occasionally heralded by yowling feedback; lots of scratching and beating on the strings, painfully adjusted EQ, and unpredictable noise blurt. There's plenty, plenty reverb on these tracks, especially "guitar and voice improvisation," where she wails wordlessly (sometimes shrieking, eek!) over overamped guitars doing the drone 'n groan thing. On "guitar improvisation three" she returns to the frenzied attack mode of the second one, hopping all over the fretboard and making achy-breaky screechy noises like a disembodied noise cowgirl. In short, a fine example of incomprehensible yet entertaining guitar abuse. But what i wanna know is, how come none of the women i meet are this incredibly hep? I must be looking for luv 'n noise in all the wrong places....

Sauce -- "Why Can't You Be More Like My Stapler? / Home/San Pedro" [Hard Tail Records]

Well, uh... i don't know what to call THIS. Their promo letter describes it as a blend of folk, country, and punk, and damned if that isn't... TRUE. Sardonic, melodic, with a constantly shifting tempo, "Why..." is one of the weirdest and most original songs i've heard in a while that could still actually get played on the radio. (It probably WON'T, because the radio is too busy promoting the pee out of worthless sludge by Alanis and Bush, but that's why they made this nifty li'l single, so you could go BUY the damn thing and never have to turn your radio on in the first place. You're better off that way anyhow, since Big Brother might be SPYING on you through your radio waves... you DID know they can do that now, didn't you?) "Home" doesn't have quite so nifty a title, but musically it might be even more demented -- it opens up like a true country song before leaping into pogo riffing. Think of a punk band with a banjo that doesn't sound like the Bad Livers and you're hot on the trail. "San Pedro" is... um... words fail me. It's good, but i'm not sure i can adequately describe how weird it is to hear a song with a big thumping rock beat, squeaking country guitars, and a vocal delivery straight from the hills of Appalachia. I should point out that none of this would work at all if these guys weren't really good, which they are. An amusing little single, indeed. The cover features some really nifty-looking hand puppets (courtesy of Scairy Hairy Toys), by the way. Just thought you might like to know.

Sauce -- THE CAKE BAKE DISASTER [Hardtail Records]

I haven't entirely made up my mind on these jokers... this is an odd bunch, all right. They have imagination and a cool, twangy guitar sound all the right things like that, but they also have a penchant for bizarre (and occasionally juvenile) humor that i suspect is kind of an acquired taste. It's not so problematic on "Your Love Bites Like A Mosquito" (where the slinky guitar riff and horns would redeem just about any lyrical gaffe anyway) or "She's A Stoner" (a lazy stroll of a song that's actually pretty amusing), or even the intriguingly oddball "Why Can't You Be More Like My Stapler" (sounds like they've been sniffing Scope again), or other similar songs, but by the time you get to the obviousness of ones like "G Spot" and "Fish Taco," the joke starts getting a wee bit stale.

Then again, they make up for it with some plain old-fashioned kick-ass (insert your favorite "all right!" cliche here) rock and roll on songs like "Hey Mom!" and the beyond-saucy "Penetration Tonight," in which it becomes obvious that they are very much aware of the existence of the Knack. (This is a good thing.) Of course, the lyrics to "Penetration Tonight" -- easily the best thing on the disc -- are in that gray zone between screamingly funny and really offensive ("well, your short short skirt has got my heart a-thumpin' / and the way you dress says let's do some humpin' / oh come on baby, i love you truly / your words say stop but your eyes say do me"), depending on how PC yer politics are, i guess, so consider yourself warned in that respect. Plus the slanderous "Defamin' the Prophet" manages to get in some rude but funny nose-thumbing at religious prophets like Mohammed (again, a violation on the PC meter, assuming you care about these things).

Bottom line: Interesting semi-folky music coupled with an eccentric sense of humor that would run the risk of being disposable if they weren't pretty suave musicians. Plus eccentric lyrics and even more eccentric ideas about music....

Did i mention that they're kind of eccentric? Oh, i did, good....

My understanding here (which we'll call "soft-focus" since it's pretty fuzzy, uh huh) is that Savio is in One Inch of Shadow, the mysterious band I babbled about last issue, and that Cat Sun is his own private cd-r label. That makes sense, because not only is the disc's presentation similar (handmade packaging, cryptic photos, arty insert), but the disc's sound is in that same ambient country death folk territory. Apparently all the music here is courtesy of Savio, which is interesting, since I'd swear I hear a female singer from time to time... of course, given the high level of efx processing and endless reverb at work, that may well be Savio himself. The album is tripped-out and hallucinatory, with only a core of folk guitar and vocals (however exotic they may be) keeping it from turning into a full-blown dark-ambient dronefest. Inhabiting a deep, dark space far back in the forest where the sun is nothing more than faint light coming through the tops of the trees, where the world as we know it has never existed. The country folk blues of the gatekeeper at the way station before the desert leading into the Great Empty. There's an extremely high drone quotient at work here too, and the pace is mellow and deliberate. A good album to float off to, wherever that journey into the dark abyss may take you.

O, i greatly approve of this. Forget that it's on Alchemy, Japan's home of whole-grain golden noise, for this actually has a very low noise quotient. No, this is secretly an exotica album, featuring the fab vocal stylings of porn starlet turned chanteuse Miki Sawaguchi, the fetching gal with the hefty hooters indeed on the cover (and in the booklet, where she reveals a lot more than just her psyche). Absolutely nothing can prepare you for the shock of the boss trumpets blaring on the opening instrumental, a big-band swing thing executed (as is everything on the disc, in fact) with swank precision. The bizarrofest gets ramped up in earnest on the next track, where Miki and the backing band (a bunch of swell guys who shall remain unfortunately nameless since i can't read the Japanese liner notes, but there are a bunch of them, including Jojo) turn Joan Jett's "Be Straight" into a funky salsa dance tune -- only to follow up with the lounge-cool funky bossa-nova (with flamenco guitar, no less) "Bad Bad Bossa Nova." Along the way they also churn out surf-rock with scrunched guitars, slow 'n moody neo-folk, and an absolutely gorgeous pop ballad that could seriously be a huge hit if it were only in English. (I prefer it in Japanese, myself.) The album's only flaw is an excruciating stab at a Janis Joplin song that wasn't very good to begin with and sounds really grotesque in Miki's hands, although i think her butchery of the song is deliberate, especially after hearing how well she sings everywhere else on the album. That wacky ironic Japanese sense of humor at work again, i suppose.... There is some noise on the album (probably courtesy of Jojo), but it's mostly buried in the background (especially on the neo-folk track) and in the introductions; the one exception is the sixth track, which is mainly a lot of disconnected noise and meandering while Miki babbles. It's okay, but nowhere near the brilliance of the other tracks. Still, this is already one of my favorite albums of the year and i sure hope this isn't going to be a one-off deal....

Scala -- BEAUTY NOWHERE [Touch] and LIPS & HEAVENS [Too Pure]

Scala is the current project of ex-Seefeel members Justin Fletcher, Sara Peacock and Darren Seymour with Mark Van Hoen (aka Locust). There's nothing very twee or ambient about either of these recordings. It's a truly unique, flavorful blend of post-punk, current dance-floor stylings and the more experimental avenues of jungle, especially the creative use of drums. Take for example, track titled "Torn". It's all live drumming, with a distinctive twist. Here and there, Locust will chop up the drum track or sample a portion of it giving it a hard-edged dance feel, but at the same not nearly as cold and sterile as a drum machine. "Hold Me Down" is a slow, dreamy, almost introspective track with futuristic, solid-state, tribal- like drum sampling lending to an interesting dichotomy in sounds. Or there's "VDT", an edgy dance tune with lots of distortion and gain. Demanding and sweet, it's a swirling, melting, action-packed way to jump- start the grey matter. [yol]

Scanner -- SULPHUR [Sub Rosa]

An interesting live document that was recorded at the Purcell Room in London last year, the seven selections here are an excellent introduction to the work of "telephone terrorist" Robin Rimbaud. Imagine Brian Eno with a hand-held scanner and no sense of privacy (or perhaps an interest in provoking discussion of what DOES constitute privacy these days) and you essentially grasp what Scanner is all about; Rimbaud tweaks a bank of synths and tape loops while weaving in cellular phone conversations gleaned from his trusty scanner. What's impressive is that he's able to make it work live; he has an excellent sense of when to make the scanner's presence known and when to turn it down and let the background music turn over.

The opener, "radio entry," is one of the most ambient tracks here, with soothing synth washes and an eerie climbing tone-loop; periodically he turns up the scanner to eavesdrop on a particularly interesting conversation, but mostly the music holds forth here. A bit later, in "through seven doors," the pattern is reversed: the intercepted phone chatter dominates as the shuddering soundtrack movie wavers far in the background. Then "flaneur electronique" brings in squealing whistles, a stop and start, beat, and the performance begins to approach ambient techno, if you can imagine such a thing. The last (and longest) track, "brittle," allows the prominence of the scanner vs. the music to fluctuate; for a while the scanner is the primary instrument, then the music takes over, and they circle back and forth like doomed vultures.

Ultimate result? Swankness. Pure swankness. The only objection, in fact, is that at 40 minutes, it's too short. The hype is justified....

Scanner / Shea / Main -- SUB ROSA LIVE SESSIONS [Quantum]

An amusing li'l factoid: I snagged this for the Main section and have ended up being most enamored by the Scanner material instead. (Not to disparage Main, by any means -- they turn in some fine work here.) I didn't realize Robin Rimbaud was making such hep sounds, mon. Armed with (apparently) a synth, some beats, and a scanner, he creates some seriously moody sonic ambience (sometimes with major beats, as on "beef," and sometimes not) into which he occasionally drops in scanned conversations, scratching sample loops, and other odd noises. He has five songs here and i like them all, particularly the hypnotic and chirping "thrones of hives," whose rhythm sound (i don't know what else to call it, since it's not a readily identifiable "beat" as such) i would genuinely like to steal for my own band. The lone track by David Shea -- "fragment of alpha" -- is also interesting, as it comes packed with a lot of quirky sonic baggage (mostly in the form of oddly-juxtaposed samples), but in the end, it kind of pales next to the work from Scanner and Main. Main's contribution here (in what was supposedly the last gig with their original lineup) is nothing less than "live firmament" -- a long (37:02) suite of odd, watery sounds that come across very much like Aube with a guitar in hand. I'm impressed that they can actually sound so much like the albums; i always figured that, given the weirdness of the sounds and the immense amount of layering on Main albums, that their sound wouldn't translate very well to the stage. Obviously i am incorrect (again), as they sound flatly brilliant and lose nothing in the transition from studio to stage. This is well worth owning, and probably the companion CD (SHEA > RIMBAUD > HAMPSON) that was released earlier this year is as well, although i haven't heard that one.

Scanner -- "hollowhead / who else is there?" [Soul Static Sound]

Eek, cryptic vinyl! It really annoys me when labels don't even bother to put the proper speed on the label or anything.... At any rate, this is some lo-fi rumble techno (or something like that) from everyone's favorite cellphone terrorist. Oddly enough, the cellphone makes only a limited appearance here, mostly in the form of bursts of static linked to the beat. And indeed there is a beat; "hollowhead" possesses all sorts of hollowed- out noises chained to a pulsating beat. Bonus points for ending with UFO noises.... The cellphone snippets resurface on the flip side, where jagged bits of conversation weave around ominious, shuddering synth drones. This is interesting stuff that sounds very different from other material i've heard by him so far. The ominous groove is a keeper....

Scanner -- "seamless data generator / tape junk" [Soul Static Sound]

From the sound of it (not to mention the packaging similarities), i'd assume this is essentially a continuation of the above single, or something arty like that. The A-side is very much like "who else is there?" in its use of grinding, ominous synth drone, crusty clattering drums, and the occasional chunk of cellphone verbiage. A bassline that sounds like it's been munched permeates the entire song, while keyboards drift in and out of the mix at strategic moments. "tape junk" operates on more familiar territory, at least in parts of it; other parts, though, are dominated by distorted tape loops. Cellphone snippets are carefully arranged around the piano moments and loop savagery. Intriguing... almost approaching noise in places, even. Obviously a man who's not ready to be pinned down to any one sound. I'm not sure this is his strongest material, but he gets an A for effort anyway just because the sounds on the flip side are so swank.

Scenic -- INCIDENT AT CIMA [Independent Project Records]

Bruce Licher's latest musical project, Scenic, brings you their conception of a "soundtrack for the remote East Mojave Desert". It's funny, I listened to the disc once through before reading the press release and within the first few notes, immediatly recongnized the signature Licher/Savage Republic guitar playing. Again we have a clean, demonstrative release. But is that all there is to a recording? The press release lays it on a bit thick by trying to pose this as a "more mature" and "more focused" incarnation under Licher's direction. Take those adjectives and replace it with just "more reserved" and I think we're getting somewhere. Why they even attempt to dimish the absolute brilliance of Savage Republic is beyond me. What sets Scenic apart from Savage Republic is that SR had the guts to do something intense, raw and angular. INCIDENT AT CIMA doesn't even come close to that, try as it might.

Ttwo other observations to note.... describing the recording as a "soundtrack" initially fits perfectly with the use of a blowpipe, harmonica and acoustic guitars. It's the kind of association most people would automatically assume, which only serves to underscore the sense of utter cliche present. Perhaps if Scenic had spent more time listening to the desert, they might have come up with something a bit more provocative and ingenious. Alternately, tracks like 'hole in the wall' seem to be rich with references to the Gastr Del Sol school of minimalist atmospherics. Don't be mislead by the critiques. It's still better than over half of most that the "indie" scene has to offer. hopefully next time, Licher and company won't be so timid about pushing the boundaries a little more firmly. There's no question they could easily succeed at that task. [yol]

Schizoid is actually one J. Smith plus a lot of machinery and very, very loud guitars. The result is something massive and angry, somewhere between Atari Teenage Riot, Rage Against the Machine, and an exploding meat grinder. Beginning with "Two Minutes Hate" and "All Things Are Connected," the songs bleed together in a sustained bolt of aggressive lightning -- heavy beats, scrap-metal noises, loops of found sound, and horribly distorted guitars run through miles of efx are all piled upon the burnpile while Smith roars in menacing fashion. The moments I like best are when the beats go into full-tilt loop mode and the guitars do the same, such as on "Grim Prospects," or when he seizes on a happening riff (such as the one at the beginning of "Extinct and Obsolete" or the one running through "Elitist Musings," which starts as one sound and morphs to another before being overrun by mutant guitar and spastic beats) and uses it to lead into the sonic obliteration. "Dementia" uses carefully-chosen samples to amusing effect amid the stun-gun beat (a beat so loud that the vox is pretty much drowned out -- good thing he provided lyrics, not that i can read them 'cause they're in such microscopic print), and "It Feels Like I'm Being Raped" is a pretty impressive demonstration of how noise can be used in the service of rhythm. I particularly like the menacing wah-skronk and tiki-tiki beat that opens "Amputate"....

The overall effect is pretty much that of an American answer to Atari Teenage RIot, and it rages pretty much full-on for the entire disc -- there are occasional moments of "mood" or even prettiness (the gothic-sounding keyboards at the beginning of "The Big Picture," for instance), but they don't last long before being beaten down and sandblasted into bloodstained paste by the jackhammer beat and tidal wave of noises, efx, and samples. Like chaos in search of a form, the album roars along spinning in all directions and unleashing jagged bits of shrapnel at every turn. Definitely a hardcore beast for those into hammering sonic punishment. This should hold you over until the next ATR album appears....

Michael Schumacher -- ROOM PIECE [dist. by Warpodisc]

Remember my intense raving about the godhead album FLOOD a while back? Well, this composer-type guy was half of the duo that produced that brilliant album. This time he's working on his own, with a disc he's released himself but which Warpodisc (or is it Warm-O-Brisk? i can't keep 'em straight) is kindly distributing. This is a recreation of "The Room Piece," which came to life in 1994 as a sound installation revolving around tones generated by a 16-channel computer setup. With each installation the structural form changes, because the "song" is generated by a computer algorithim derived from six prime numbers (13, 17, 23, 29, 37, and 43). Different intervals of sound vs. silence are generated on each channel, so different instruments are playing for different lengths of time, sometimes alone, sometimes overlapping, all entirely dependent upon the computer, whose algorithim is making it up as the piece proceeds. (The result, incidentally, is that each replay of the piece is totally different.) To make matters even more complicated, each droning instrument is only allowed one pitch, played throughout the entire piece, and with the melodic instruments (piano, woodwinds, etc.), their choice of pitches is severely limited. There are even more rules regulating the piece's generation, but i think that's quite enough of the technical aspects for right now....

The result is an unpredictable kind of minimalism. Sounds come and go, drones linger for some time before fading out, and the structure evolves into different levels of complexity, but the algorithim's fundamental randomness keeps it from getting stale. In fact, listening to it on CD, it's hard to believe this is almost entirely computer-generated. While the relative sedateness of the piece as a whole might be off-putting to the average rock-oriented listener, electronic enthusiasts and followers of the avant should find it extremely interesting. In places there are parallels to the sound generated by the likes of Nurse With Wound and Organum, in fact, while other parts have more in common with the tonal minimalism of Phill Niblock and LaMonte Young (since Schumacher has studied under and is endorsed by Young, that's not exactly a huge surprise). The main disadvantage to hearing this on CD after reading about its intent and construction is realizing that the variations must be infinite live, whereas it's always the same on this disc (although you could probably change that with some judicious EQ twiddling, i suspect). Additionally, this is being presented in only two channels, whereas the live installations are presented in 16, with speakers placed throughout the room for a more spectactularly ambient feel. Nevertheless, the disc stands on its own merits and is a more than worthy addition to the canon of sound exploration. Hopefully more pieces by the man will become available as time progresses.

Paul Schutze & Phantom City -- SITE ANUBIS [Big Cat Records]

Paul Schutze, one of the pioneers of electronic music, has teamed up with avant-jazz king Bill Laswell and a small host of others to put together SITE ANUBIS, a disc composed of melodic, rhythmic instrumental pieces. The drums, guitars, electronics, and wind instruments all meld together, creating the atmosphere of each piece. The disc is very meditative, very low-key, very melodic. The tempo of each piece is rather slow, and as such it provides a rather ritualistic feeling to the recording. It does become difficult to discern the differences between tracks; each has the same mood to it, the same rhythmic structure. [bc]

(While rummaging through the drawers in the Command Center, TG makes a dubious find: a titanic stack of drugs confiscated from drug-runners cutting through the Hellfortress estate one afternoon. Lacking any good common sense, she scarfs everything down in great handfuls and is almost immediately stricken senseless.)

TG: Oh... oh wow... (holds up her Plasmatonic Grok Thrower) I... I can see through my gun! I can see the bullets inside... they're so cute... I just want to cuddle them and feed them gunpowder....

C12: Ah, wonderful. Not only are you a lunatic, but now you are a stoned lunatic. Correction, a stoned lunatic with guns. I knew I should have made out my will before I agreed to this foolishness.

TG: Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'd blow big fucking holes in you and suck the blood from your ruptured capillaries if I didn't love everything in the whole wide world right now. (tottering unsteadily to the CD player) I suppose this is a good time to be checking out that trippy looking Sciflyer disc....

C12 (listening): I've not heard of this band, although the data banks indicate several of its participants have played in the Houseplants and Nitrous previously.

TG: Never heard of them. (slowly spins in circles, waving guns haphazardly like castanets)

C12: Neither have I, but I greatly enjoy this disc. Notice the CD's cover, a time-lapse photo of overlapping phases of the moon -- an accurate indication of their space-rock roots. They wouldn't be at all out of place, I suspect, on a bill with F/i and Hawkwind.

TG: Now you're getting somewhere. F/i... F/i... that's ringing a bell....

C12: The American Hawkwind, essentially. One of their guitarists is married to the guitarist in the criminally underrated Loblolly.

TG: I see from the titles they have the big balls to cover Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." Is it any good?

C12: Indeed it is. It's also much shorter and more concise than the original, for which I am eternally grateful.

TG: One of the things I like about this band's sound is that their bass is mixed way up front, which gives them lots of drive. The psych guitar doodlings trail in its wake instead of the other way around.

C12: One of my favorites here is "the time is right now," which is slower and more trance-like than the opening tracks, and often reminds me of King Black Acid. It's also one of the few places where you can hear the singing. They greatly favor burying the vocals to the point of making them nearly subliminal.

TG: So how can readers get their hands on this spiffy item, seeing as how it's self-released?

C12: We can list their contact address in the EPHEMERA section.... (freezes at the sound of pounding on the door) What's that?

TG: My heartbeat, probably. Woo, I've never been jacked up like this before. (holds hand out in front of her face) Did I grow more fingers or something?

(pounding grows lounder)

C12: Dearheart, I think we may have a problem. We appear to have company.

(monstrous sound of drilling is accompanied by sawdust and holes appearing in the door)

C12: In fact, I suspect it would be an excellent idea if we found a convenient exit....

I like this band's attitude: The first sentence in the liner notes is "recorded @ home on an 80's model Tascam 1/2" eight-track machine." Bands who record at home and aren't ashamed to say so are a-number-one-okay with me.... Like the tracks on their debut disc, also self-released and recorded at home, these are basically blissed-out fuzzy drone rock. The difference this time around is improved production that lends a bit more definition to the instruments, which doesn't detract from their bliss-drone at all. The only shame of this disc is that there are only three songs, but they're good ones, and something is always better than nothing, right?

The first song, "slowfire," starts off like early New Order, but when the fuzzboxes come on, sounds a lot more like what My Bloody Valentine would have followed LOVELESS up with if they hadn't been smoking so much dope. The whole song is bathed in a sizzling bed o' fuzz and you can hear the vocals this time around, but they're so drenched in reverb that what they actually have to say remains mysterious indeed. That New Order thing creeps up again in "studio audience" -- the drummer really favors that sound on this disc, which is fine by me -- but the guitars are fure droning, floating wisps o' fuzz. Both of these songs are long ("studio audience" is over seven minutes), which gives them plenty of time to drone as the guitars occasionally make faraway psych moves. Very hep indeed. They close with a version of Husker Du's "Powerline," which is fast and appropriately spaced-out, although i sure don't recall NEW DAY RISING! sounding like this (although it probably should have).

As for how you can glom this fabulous disc (and their equally swell first one), check out their web site. While you're doing that, i'm going to go play this again....

The Scissor Girls -- S-T-A-T-I-C-L-A-N-D [Load Records]

I bought this solely for the album cover. The front features a strange, ink-stained sketch-in-progress of mutant insects eating Salvador's Dali's droopy watches has has a nifty logo consisting of a skull 'n scissors; on the back are the three women who are this combo looking... uh... well, i'd approach them with CAUTION if i saw 'em on the street, for they look MIGHTY LUNAR. Needless to say, i was so taken with this item that i had to have it immediately -- i wouldn't even listen to it in the store first, for it was CALLING me, i KNEW it was going to be brilliant.

And guess what? HA! I was RIGHT! It's every bit as arcane and alien as its cover would indicate. Sort of like... uuuuhhh... Main on Rophynal? Jim O'Rourke after many swigs of Robitussin? The Butthole Surfers circa 1984 after a couple of really good tabs? Beefheart with more torque? (No, i dunno what that last one means either, but it SOUNDS right....) There are moments that sound like free jazz minimalism, moments of thundering repetition, sick flanged-out guitar sounds, yelping, PLUS it is almost totally impossible to tell where one song stops and another one begins. Yee haw! Let the drummer COOK! Toward the end of "D1 Test/Cracked [???]" they even throw in warped surf guitar while wailing that "it's broken DOWN" -- the understatement of the year (but in a good way).

Some pieces, like the Jim O'Rourke-produced "M. Poison," are fairly well orchestrated; others just sprawl and yaw with dizzying, Beefheartian unpredictability. So many bands have aspired to be the second coming of Beefheart, but this is the first one i've heard who have actually succeeded (scary as that may be). And it just gets flakier -- weird chanting, beeping noises, violin-like guitar sounds, quasi-tribal drumming, and all manner of mayhem show up in "Noster Virtis," while "s-h-a-r-p-e-n-i-n-g" is mostly a quirky, heavily reverbed guitar figure to which various peculiar sounds (and some yelping) are eventually attached. More muted jazziness darts in and out of "Weird 09" along with shamanistic drumming and some of the strangest guitar noises i've heard outside of a Main or Jim O'Rourke record (perhaps Jim produced that track too). Tom Smith of To Live and Shave in LA is by and large the "producer" throughout (except for Jim O'Rourke's occasional helping hand), but i suspect he was there mainly to keep them from completely bouncing through the walls.Flaming brilliance. Ingest and quantify or live forever in shame.

Scorn -- EVANESCENCE [Earache]

It's hard to believe these guys were once in Napalm Death -- this is about as far removed from grindcore/death metal as you can get without turning into Whitney "yes i am a chihuahua, listen to me squeal" Houston. Three magic words here: Ambient industrial dub. Got that? In other words, funky bass, fucked up vocals, weird noises, and it all sounds like it was recorded underwater. BLUB BLUB BLUB, bloop bloop BLUB BLUB... you get the idea. While this is essentially cool, more or less, it works best as background music while you're doing something else (or maybe while you're floating in salt water in an isolation tank thinking deep thoughts about Bhuddism or something, whatever), and the biggest drawback is that there isn't a whole hell of a lot of variety here. Strings do make an appearance on "The End" to good effect, though, and all the songs have various intriguing noises blipping in and out. Still... the first album was better....

Scorn -- WHITE IRISES BLIND (ep) [Earache]

Ah, more fun from those jolly dub-heavy fat-groove boys Mick Harris and Nick Bullen. This was recorded around the same time as EVANESCENCE -- maybe even during the same sessions, for all i know -- and as such, bears a strong resemblance to material from that album. Basically, if you liked EVANESCENCE, you'll like this too. "White Irises Blind" employs a thunderous, lock-step beat and a big dubby bassline over flanged-out weirdness that cycles up and down throughout the song to hypnotic effect; "White Irises Blind (minimal mix)" strips out most of the vox and the cyclotron guitar and drops in some interesting percussion moves. Of the two, i favor the latter (but just barely).

The Scorn formula -- and make no mistake, there is a formula of sorts at work here -- continues on the flip side with "Black Ash Dub," "Drained," and "Host of Scorpions," which all tread the same territory of beat vs. dub bass with weird flanged shit thrown in at regular intervals. It's all pretty good, although if you aren't already heavily into Scorn and the whole repetitive minimalism/isolationist thing then you might occasionally wish they'd pick up the pace a little or find another variation to explore, but that's kind of like life... you either like what you get or you don't and there's nothing you can do about it anyway....

Scorn -- DELIVERANCE [Earache]

Oooo, lucky us -- Earache, in its infinite wisdom, has inexplicably decided to reissue a couple of heretofore "lost" Scorn goodies on CD now that the bird has flown the coop and landed at Invisible Records. (The other thing being reissued is the WHITE IRISES BLIND disc, which includes a couple of bonus tracks not on the vinyl edition.) Here we have the five tracks from the original version plus three previously unreleased remixes of "Exodus" (from EVANESCENCE, one of their best albums). This is an important disc in the Scorn saga, for this is where Harris and Bullen jettisoned all the frantic death-metal jitterbugging that made the first album sound like a splintered hurricane and moved seriously into the dub influence that would overtake their second full-length album, COLOSSUS, and throw the death crowd for a loop. (The other EP is essentially a continuation of this one, with most of its tracks eventually showing up on the album.) The first track, "Deliverance," points the way with a thundering slow-motion beat, subterranean bass swaying back and forth, occasional "vocals" that drift in and out of the mix, and somewhere in the background, landslide guitar riffing (the only holdover from VAE SOLIS). "Deliverance Through Dub" is a devolved, dubbified version of the same, with lots of strange drum effects (hell, a lot of strange effects period) and many points where everything falls out but the truly staggering low end. "Delivered" is even stranger, ambient most of the time; "To High Heaven" is essentially dub with a ridiculous amount of fuzz. "Black Sun Rising" reprises the ambient tip with lots of hissing and heavily reverbed vox. The last three tracks are different versions (mixed by Andy Weatherall) of "Exodus" and are plenty hep on their own, so they make a nice bonus. Essential stuff.

Scorn -- ZANDER [Invisible]

Apparently word in the various newsgroups that discuss these things has it that this is a hideous abomination of an album, which i find kind of curious, since to my ears it's the best thing Mick Harris has coughed up in a while. It's certainly a new vista of sound, or at least a different direction, at any rate. "twitcher" has a sparse edge of harshness to it unlike the efforts of previous albums, although the rumbling, dubby bass that eventually comes in does blunt the edge somewhat. By the second cut, "well sorted," it becomes obvious what the biggest change here is -- the drums are dry! They're also really upfront in the mix... perhaps this is what's bugging people? Well, whatever. Sounds all right to moi. Of course, the songs don't really "go" anywhere -- this IS Scorn, after all -- but the sounds are interesting, as in the hollowed-out thumping on "strand" and the heavily-gated noises of "wreck shop." Probably the best things on here are "check the sonic" (which actually sounds more like old-school Scorn) and "not answering," the latter of which drapes its clattering beats and inevitable dub bass against what sounds like a curtain of ringing bells. The ending "416" is pretty hep in its own right, with a happening beat and not a hell of a lot else save the dub machinery. Bottom line: Probably not equal to albums like COLOSSUS and EVANESCENCE, but still worth hearing....

Scorn -- LOGGI BAROGGHI [Scorn Recordings / Earache]

Um... well. Dunno what to make of this. What we have here, mostly, is the old-style Scorn (heavy repetitive beat and bass bleats) vs. the new Scorn (weird noises, apparent conversion to techno in a very twisted way). I'm still undecided yet as to whether or not this is a good thing. Certainly, there's some hep drum sounds happening on tracks like "Look at That" and "Do the Geek," and the latter is considerably more spartan than previous stuff, which is interesting, but what the fuck's he doing running his vox through weird boxes and crap? I... I dunno.... Overall, the songs here tend to emphasize the beat, with sparse accompaniment that actually approaches sheer minimalism in spots (as on "The Next Days"). There IS some truly interesting/deranged stuff happening on the title track, and "A Mission" has some nice tone-generator sounds over a swell dubby bass, but those vox... damn, i liked Scorn a lot better when the vox were submerged, mon... Oh well... i think i'm going to consider this a transitional album and hope i like the next one a lot better....

I'm going to try and ignore the name -- I mean, I played in a band called Bongwater 666 * so I'm in no position to criticize anyone in the band-name department, but, um, ouch. [Note: tmu is most curious as to what, exactly, a scrotum grinder might be; send any pix to the Hellfortress mailbox at the beginning of the issue.] Name issues aside, Scrotum Grinder kick all kinds of ass. They play a crusty variation of hardcore that falls into the grey area between noisecore and grindcore. Judging from the lyrics and song titles, they have a bit of an obsession with Ronald Reagan. They're also quite pissed -- see "You Are My Favorite Line In The Worst Song Ever Written," and, uh, the whole disc. They also have a sly sense of humor. There's a Slapshot cover credited to "traditional." Some of the backing instruments include horns and kazoos. All good things in my book. [n/a]

* It wasn't my fault. Kramer didn't want to share the name.

Ha! The band with the ridiculous name return to ROCK! Their last couple of albums and EPs have wandered back and forth between rock and weird experimental moves, but this one they largely dispense with the quirky stuff and rock like a piledriver. In keeping with the title, three "No" songs kick off the album: "No Star," "No Telephone," and "No Luck." The first is a loud and crazed raveup, one of the most furiously energetic things they've ever done; the second one starts out in a similar fashion, with even more noisy guitar squiggles, but quickly devolves into "choruses" of bassist Nao chanting "I ain't got any telephone" over and over in obsessive fashion while fuzz guitar drones away in the background. The pace slows down a bit on "No Luck," with choppier rhythms and weird girl-group harmonies, and the rest of the album rocks back and forth between these two styles -- fast 'n furious or not-so-fast and cryptic. "Red Dress" alters the formula a bit -- it begins with Aiha chanting "Hey Rou -- Hello" over Noa's growling bass as drums and guitar gradually enter the picture, building to a lurching midsection in which Nao spits out the rest of the lyrics as a slashing guitar is followed by a thundering beat in repetitive fashion; as the song essentially doubles back and repeats itself, violin and cello get dropped into the mix toward the end. The obsessive chanting (something that's become a hallmark of their style over the past couple of years) shows up again in "Krazy 4 U" and "Do I Love You Enough" (the latter of which is one of the best songs on the album). Things get really interesting on "Everyone's Fave," though, which opens with a loop and semi-funky beat; as Aiha intones the lyrics, the guitars gradually fade in, and as the song progresses, violin and cello lines are layered on top of everything for a new variation on their hard-candy sound. As with many of Seagull's best songs, here's plenty of inventive drumming on this track as well, too. (Incidentally, their old drummer appears to have vanished; the drumming on this disc is provided by two different guys, who may or may not actually be in the band.)

Aiha's baby makes an unexpected appearance at the beginning of "A Guitar For Me and Milk For Her," another turbocharged guitar excursion that's broken only by the sputtering "Guitar! Milk!" chorus in the middle. Like most of the other songs on this album, this is pretty direct and simple -- in fact, this is probably the most structurally uncomplicated album they've ever done. Whether that's by design or due to the departure of their original drummer is hard to tell, not that it matters either way. The tunes rock, so what does it matter? On "Motor Psycho" they return to what is apparently one of Aiha's favorite subjects (tuff boys on bikes); which is more pulverizing melodic hard rock, while "8" is sort of a fast (and short), demented blues-derived thing with intensely minimalist lyrics (chanting "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8!" and not much else). The final song, "Do I Love You Enough," shifts through a couple of different tempos and rhythms before settling into a hypnotic rock-grind as Aiha chants "Do I, do I, do I, do I, do I love you enough?" over and over as the solo comes not from the guitar, but the violin, until the song fades out with her still chanting.

While SSKHKH have yet to make a bad album, this is by far and beyond the best thing they've done yet. So what i want to know is, why don't they have a stateside deal? What's the problem here? Why do i have to keep shelling out $30 or so for each new installment of my Seagull fixation? Somebody needs to get on the stick here, dammit....

Separation -- MANIFESTATIONE VOL. 1 [Corprolith]

An interesting variation in the noise sweepstakes... almost ambient in its technique. Slowed-down shuddering sounds form the brooding bedrock over which distorted snatches of conversation, twitchy sounds, and other unidentifiable sounds are superimposed from time to time. Some of sounds toward the end of "Divisions Within Appearance (parturition edit)" approach the territory of Main's watery guitar sound, actually. "Ritual Suicide" is a bit stranger, with abstract basslines in the background as distorted vocals and occasional bursts of overdriven noise; it starts getting interesting when bellike sounds swirl into the mix. It runs a little too long, though, and the distorted-vox effect is not always applied in a manner that suits my tastes, but otherwise i like it for its ambience....

The opening track on side two is looooooong, with a tumbling sound repeated ad infinitum and augmented by repetitive skipped-CD sounds deep in the mix, skipping record sounds, and other oddness. (As usual, i lot track of the song titles midway through the first side, so i don't know what's what here now.) There's a lot of open space at work here, unlike the average full-speed-ahead noise thunderfest, which is a positive thing -- variety is needed in the noise genre! So while cassette will never work for the average pain-above-all-else noisehead, it is still worth checking out for those who desire something a bit different, perhaps a bit more... CRYPTIC. (And for the masochist in you, there are actually 17 volumes in the series so far. HA! And i will review the second volume in the next issue, so be prepared to learn more....)

Separation -- MANIFESTATIONE VOL. 2 [Corprolith]

Another 90-minute selection from the evolving, staggering multi-volume epic that is the MANIFESTATIONE series (up to at least seventeen volumes, if my count is correct). Long expanses of low-key rumble and keening audio hiss, presented in undramatic ambient fashion, make this a record better listened to as background music than anything else... at least, until a beat eventually shows up, followed by more deep-in-the-trench rumbling. Still, Merzbow this ain't (which is okay, since the bludgeoning display of power thing has become kind of boring and routine anyway). The flip side offers variations on the same general feel -- more subdued scraping and squeaking that is eventually augmented by shuddering bass and what sounds like twisted pipe organ/kazoo lamentation. Weird, intriguing, and definitely following a different path than the usual band of lemminglike Merzbow and Masonna clones.

This is the debut from September Plateau, an offshoot of acceleradeck, and it's an intriguing departure (or perhaps a new direction?) for E+J. Guitarist/beatmeister C. Jeely composes tracks of scattered, clopping beats overlaid with growing sheets of melodic ambient guitar. On "occasional light" the beats come first, startling in their directness, like butchers chopping on wood blocks; the guitar creeps in, melodic notes eventually expanding into full sheets of sound. This is where MBV would have headed after LOVELESS had they not been too busy smoking dope to ever get around to making a new album. Eventually the beats fade out, leaving only a wash of delayed and reverbed guitars tinkling away for several minutes. Most suave. "Pure" is even more swank, with an endless beat 'n bass loop over which Jeely drones and tinkles, like light scattering through the blinds. After several beatless, largley ambient songs, the beats that arrive again in "almost alchemy" are jolting, although they are soon drowned out by waves of cascading arpeggiated guitar lines. The slow and deliberate pace, even the construction, of "thinking of storms" is reminiscent of Windy and Carl -- bass throb and watery guitar anchor the piece while a wave of reverbed guitars gradually filter in, building and transforming the overall sound as the piece unfolds.

Some of the shorter pieces, like "shadowal," with its translucent slide and static progression, and "coast collapsing," are more like brief vignettes. Several, including the slow and dreamlike "hold your breath," are entirely beatless, outside of implied beats that come from the regular ebb and flow of guitars washing in and out as Jeely lays down a fusilade of ghostlike notes over the top. The guitars of "bluetone" act almost as a cyclotron, cycling over and over with minute changes without ever really going anywhere, although a bassline pokes through eventually to give the track some propulsion. The drone that opens "glacial kiss" leads the way for a repeated arpeggio progression that is in turn augmented by bass drones and other elements. The track grows without really progressing in the traditional sense, turning into a mantra that is hypnotic in its near endlessness until it gradually fades out as slowly as it faded in, ending in a wavelike drone.

This album also reminds me something consistent to all of the E+J releases -- the artists all get great tones. Yet another fine release from E+J, who are shaping up as one of the most consistent experimental labels on the planet. Need i say that the artwork, as usual, is stunning? You should own this.

Shea/Rimbaud/Hampson -- SHEA > RIMBAUD > HAMPSON [Sub Rosa]

Blood flows as the Captain and TASCAM-Girl beat the living shit out of some more bad guys. Bones splinter; blood vessels are burst; bombs explode in the background; bullets riddle the walls and wreck the china. the Captain lays a drone low with an uppercut as TASCAM-Girl kicks his evil minion in the balls. Without pausing, they offer this exchange:

"What is that fuzzy droney noise in the background, Captain?"

"One of the live collarobations between David Shea and members of Scanner and Main, my dear."

"Oh. I see." Another wave of bad guys pour into the room; more bones are broken as fists and feet fly in a choreographed symphony of pain.

"What's the matter? Don't you like it?"

"It's all right. Still, I think the other one, SCANNER > SHEA > MAIN was better."

"And why is that?"

She shrugs. "Just... because."

The Captain rolls his eyes and continues to beat on the skull of a hooded wing commander of the Evil Empire. "Now that's some summation...."

Sheavy -- BLUE SKY MIND [Dallas Tarr Records]

Interesting... i had no idea that Canada was so stricken at the passing of the (original (and worthy)) Black Sabbath that they felt compelled to create one of their own. Enter Sheavy, who sound much like PARANOID-era Sabbath, down to the convincing faux-Ozzy singer Steve Henessey. Really, when "Mountains of Madness" began playing, i thought i'd dropped a Sabbath CD in the player by mistake... and when "Blue Sky Mind" came on afterwards i started having terrifying flashbacks to the metal days o' high school, when we used to sit around horribly stoned waiting for AC/DC to show up and play, arguing in the meantime over which version of Black Sabbath was better, the Ozzy version or the Dio version. (Like there was ever any DOUBT that runtboy Dio could even BEGIN to suck up to the Great God Osbourne.)

So anyway, the press thingy (which came adorned with dominatrix pix, mucho swank) claims they're big on the Monster Magnet/Big Chief tip, but that can't possibly be true, because Monster Magnet bore me and i actually like this, even though it is tremendously retro. Really, i've never heard classic Sabbath recreated so lovingly (or well). They can only get away with this because they do a really good job, especially on tracks like "Domelight," where they drag in a bit of Hawkwind as well. Oh wait, "Cosmic Overdrive" DOES sort of remind me of Monster Magnet, which may be i'm only lukewarm on it.... I could live without the squeaky falsetto vox on the otherwise swell "Sea of Tomorrow," and i don't know WHAT to make of the weird intro to "Supa-Hero" (a lot of blabbing and giggling that sounds suspiciously like Beavis and Butthead on fast-forward), which sounds so much like Black Sabbath that is it SCARY, except that their guitarist plays lead with considerably more dexterity than Tony Iommi ever did (blasphemy, i know, but i never listened to Tony for lead wanking anyway). But then they allow the Hawkwind thing to take over for an instrumental cosmic space-jam (appropriately entitled "The Gun-It Jam," and i... i... mon, i'm flashing back to London listening to Hawkwind's "Space Ritual" on the Metro while eyeing some English girl's ass... eek... we're all in trouble now... i'm becoming possessed to pick up my guitar and play like this even though i have no talent for it, hide the cat....

They also include a live version of "Psycho Universe" that matches the rest of the CD in recording/playing quality, unusual for live tracks. As an added bonus, the CD tacks on eight tracks from their SLAVES TO FASHION demo cassette, which includes a cover of (surprise!) Sabbath's "Rat Salad" and is generally more of the same classic metal madness, only, uh, tubbier. (Damn cassette mastering....) If your world caved in when Sabbath kicked Ozzy out and were foolish enough to continue releasing weak-ass albums while Ozzy did the same, then this CD is for YOU. Find their address in the [ephemera] section; the CD is $15 postage paid and, while ridiculously and unashamedly retro, is still better than 95% of what passes for "metal" right now, believe me.

I have a hideous confession to make. Many moons ago when Shellac's first album came out, i did a review of it and the Jesus Lizard's DOWN at the same time and came to the conclusion that DOWN was the superior album. (As i recall, this was in the context of much smart-assedness.) But to my surprise, my ears have improved since: I rarely ever listen to DOWN now, but am rapidly growing more and more enamored of AT ACTION PARK every day. So along comes this, the new Shellac disc (well, it's been out a few months now, but it's their latest opus, howzat?), and everybody's telling me it's not all that good and generally running it down... and i don't get it, because this doesn't sound all that different (in essence) from the first one, which everyone likes. Huh? Go figure....

I have to admit, i think some of the songs this time around are a tad more accessible (well, as accessible as you can get under the circumstances -- Shellac has never had any real resemblance to "normal" rock bands in sound, lyrics, or vision), but others are far more bizarre than anything the band's ever done. The real key to this debate, though, is that they're all basically variations on the same theme. (While I haven't heard it, I suspect TERRAFORM is much the same way.) More than anything else these guys have been involved with, Shellac is looking more and more like the continuous refinement of a single brilliant sound. Their albums aren't so much about evolution or variety or "progress" as they are documents of the ongoing process of stripping away all but the best parts of their music. This is a good thing, because it insinuates that Shellac are going to get even better as they go, which is most promising since they're already better than 80-90% of the bands out there now.

"Prayer to God," with its big crunch and lyrical bile, and "Squirrel Song," with its familiar outrage about a different subject (yes, it's really about squirrels), are probably well within what most associate with Shellac by this point, but "Mama Gina" is the point where they start weeding out the weak. Built on a minimalist guitar riff repeated endlessly with little variation against a beat almost as minimal, the bass is almost nonexistent thorugh the first third of the song. When the bass finally does show up on a steady basis, before long it sounds like the bass is the only thing there, with the rest of the band sinking underwater before it all roars back at triple-time or more, roaring like a swarm of angry bees being chased by a steam engine, only to all totally derail at the end. All of which segues into "QRJ," which is all full of Zeni Geva and Swans noise-moves for a moment or so before turning into a snakelike procession of quixotic basslines over the guitar and drums acting like a metronome. This is the sound of math-rock by way of Illusion of Safety and no-wave. I can see where the sound, especially accompanied by a really insular and borderline opaque lyrical stance, might throw people a tad. It's definitely not your father's math rock... but i like it.

"Ghosts" is another bizarre one -- the bass leads the way, riffing in complex wheels, with the rest of the band following behind dutifully... then it all abruptly stops, the guitar and drums devolving into skronk almost -- and then it picks up like a bizarre, dissosant-guitar driven answer to Motown as Albini tells a ghost story, sort of (how he tells it is the best part, although it's impossible to describe here, but I'll bet you never imagined you'd get to hear Albini say "she's crazy about ballerinas," did you?). Speaking of bass, the introduction to "Song Against Itself" (every bit as absurd and angular as the title suggests, believe me) owes far more to Joy Division's sound circa "She's Lost Control" than to any goofy math-rock concept invented in the wake of Polvo and Unwound. Of course, Joy Division never had the whole band delivering lyrics at strategic points in the manner of a crowd executing a baseball cheer. In Canaveral," as the band flexes its rhythmic muscle, Albini asks a series of questions leading into "what do you think would make him / stick his cock in my wife / what on what earth would make him stoop so low?" and as the band goes through start 'n stop moves, Albini escalates into a barely-controlled rant filled with lines like "they'll fertilize the rocks in China from space / with the ashes of his remains" -- only to be interuppted by a bizarre trumpet (?!?) solo that ends with the band winding down in increments. The arcane and the absurd reach an apex with "New Number Order," where Todd Trainer relates (in an incredbily rambling fashion) how we should change the order in which numerals appear to "make things more interesting" while the instruments wind around each other in precise, geometric patterns. Yeah, i can't imagine this appealing much to people who spend all their time listening to Christina Aguilera or Korn or anything like that. This is seriously cryptic shit, which for my money is always way better than obvious shit.

The best song on here, in my opinion (or my favorite, anyway -- same thing, right?), is "Shoe Song," coming on like a minimalist version of Rhys Chatham's "Die Donnergotter," only with actual lyrics and happening in a much-reduced timespan (Chatham's song takes up an entire album side, but Shellac get by with just over five minutes). It starts with the guitar and (nearly inaudible) bass ping-ponging through a quixotic riff as the drums eventually come in, then it turns into this hypnotic lockstep groove over Trainer cycling endlessly through the same minimalist drum pattern. After the first verse, the band starts to seriously swing, robot-style, and by the end of the second verse, Albini's riffing away in such precise time that half the time you can't tell him apart from the hi-hat. Then a breakdown of sorts during the third verse leads out as Albini shouts over the gradual dissolution of the multi-instrumental groove. Listening to this, it's not hard to imagine that Albini went to college to study some really disciplined structural field (architecture, i think, or sometihng similar). "Watch Song" is almost as good, built on a similar structure and field, but delivered far more forcefully (although on a peculiar subject: getting testy over returning a defective watch, if i'm interpreting the lyrics correctly) and riddled with bizarre, almost jazzlike riffs.

I can see how some might write this off as an overly-intellectual and academic execution of post-modern rock, which is what it would be if Shellac didn't have three powerful things going for them: brilliant, precise playing steeped in a wild variety of influences; equally brilliant production (while everybody automatically thinks first of Albini, the truth is that all three members of Shellac are excellent recording specialists who all make their living not by playing in the band, but as recording engineers); and Todd Trainer, the secret rhythmic weapon of the midwest. (Trainer was formerly the beat behind the always-excellent Breaking Circus and concurrently serves in both Rifle Sport and Brick Layer Cake, so he's had plenty of practice at perfecting the beat.) While everybody's attention regarding Shellac is generally focused on Steve Albini after his stints in Big Black and Rapeman, the scary part is that as good as he is on guitar -- and at this point he's very good -- he's not necessarily even the strongest link in the musical chain here. Bob Weston is every bit as disciplined in his bass-playing and Trainer is simply one of the best drummers on the face of the earth. As a result, what many have unfairly dismissed as just "Steve Albini's new band" has become one of the tightest rhythm sections around that actually swings. That they happen to prefer minimalist art-rock riffing has less to do with any reaction to or against the current state of rock than with their own peculiar influences, which they have honed down to a science.

And those influences, mostly from the art-rock period of the late seventies to mid-eighties, are what make Shellac the band they are today. It's like they took the best components of Wire (arcane sense of humor, tricky riffs), Joy Division (midrange bass 'n guitar, robotic riffs), and Brick Layer Cake (the dude on the drum stool), then threw away all the weak shit and reassambled the parts to make a distinctly American model... and one with an extremely intellectual and arcane sense of humor, at that. Lyrically, Shellac have more in common with Pinter and Pynchon than with any of these bands, with the possible exception of Wire (assuming that the guys in Wire had grown up in Chicago listening to Stax records) That absurdist sense of humor, delivered in a highly educated, intelligent, and arch manner, is what sets them apart from their peers at the moment, many of whom are just as well educated and intelligent, but way too serious and kind of boring. (Plus they don't have Todd Trainer either.)

Needless to say, the more i listen to it, the more i'm convinced this is a pretty swank album. Maybe even one of the best albums out right now. The best part is, unlike many other albums, this one gets consistently better the more you listen to it, and not the other way around. As a packaging bonus the disc comes in a box designed to resemble a professional recording-tape box, which looks really nifty, even though it won't fit on the rack with your other CDs. (The LP comes in a similar design and includes, for some warped reason, the CD as well.) Now if i could just figure out how to get my hands on a copy of THE FRIENDS OF SHELLAC i'd be in good shape....

Disclosure: Shevel Knievel guitar player T. Darlin and I have a play-by-mail thing going, so it's possible that the following review might be slightly biased. That being said, I've never been one to cut my friends slack when it comes to their music (go ahead, ask TMU) [TMU: It's true!], and luckily I don't have to start now. Shevel Knievel are three young ladies based out of Oakland, CA. Their music is hard to pin down. They play a dirty, hazy, filthy brand of rock that inhabits the space where punk, sludge, indie rock, noise rock, and straight up rock and roll crash out after long nights of cheap booze and messy sex.

"So," you're saying to yourself, "it's all well and good that they don't fit into any particular genre and all this stuff about booze and sex sounds great, but man, what do they sound like???" (shakes head) There's no pleasing you people, is there? There's a bit of mid-to-late period Black Flag (think SLIP IT IN and LOOSE NUT) in there. I can hear some Flipper. I'm sure people are gonna say they hear some Sonic Youth. There may be a touch of L7, but these gals are way more into the fuzz than the chunk. They also write some damn catchy songs and lay down some great riffs. [n/a]

Shifts -- PANGAEA [E + J Recordings]

And here you thought Main was the only band that really did this whole "is it guitar or isn't?" thing well. Shifts is yet another musicial incarnation of Frans de Waard (Beequeen, Kapotte Muziek), in which the guitar (and nothing else except an EFX box) becomes the source of minimal, tripped-out exercises in avant atmosphere. The album's title and concept come from the process of tectonic plates shifting subtly in the earth (Pangaea was the original one-world continent that eventually cracked and shifted into the other separate ones, more or less), and the sound reflects it. The first and last pieces are the only ones in which the guitar is actually recognizable as a guitar; in the first, layers of loose, slo-mo guitar picking (with plenty of rattling incidental notes) form a loose and shifting latticework of monochromatic texture, and in the last, a similar theme reintroduces itself. The arid desert landscape in between those two instances is occupied by long, shimmering drones and rumbling like sand dunes shifting in the moonlight. Some of the more penetrating drones in the third section would make really ominous fright flick music, mon. Not bad for a guy who, at first glance, appears to be doing damn near nothing but maybe letting his guitar feed back. Then again, sometimes that's all you really NEED to do. As a texture freak, i certainly think this kind of album is a hell of a lot more interesting than, say, the latest spoo from [name your generic platinum-selling sheep]. Given the quality of this and the Aube release reviewed last time, i'm definitely looking forward to the forthcoming Tabata release on this label.

Shiva Speedway -- [demo]

The evil men in black of Terrorists United to Remove Democracy (T.U.R.D.) were sitting around in the table in the subterranean bunker, carefully assembling the last of their satanic running dog time bombs, when the door exploded open and Captain 4-Track and his trusty sidekick TASCAM- Girl burst into the room, ready to kick their scruffy asses.

"Gaw!" One terrorist said, staring pop-eyed at the girl in the tight black latex outfit roughly the size of a postage stamp. "Look at da HOOTERS on his sidekick!"

"Sexist backwoods motherfucker," she snarled, backhanding him into a wall. "Bad enough you goons want to rule the world, but you're sexist pigs besides and you probably even drop your g's, don't you?" Dazed, he reached for the gun in his holster; she kicked it away, then kicked him it the head. He went down like a sack of Irish potatoes.

"Uh," the Captain said, consulting his Superhero Rule Book, "I don't think we're allowed to kick them in the head...."

"Oh, don't start with me now." The biggest of the goons rushed her, eyes like crazed amphetamine-fueled pinwheels of wheedling doom, a four- foot machete in one hand and a 9mm Baby Mac in the other hand. She raised one heavy jackboot and kicked him in the balls, then broke a chair over his head, sending him spiraling to the concrete floor.

"My God, you're RESTLESS tonight, aren't you?"

"It's because I've been listening to the new Shiva Speedway demo." Thugs began pouring into the room like water from a leaking roof; she began to beat on them violently as the Captain took others down in a moderately more humane fashion. "They have this one song called 'Below the Belt' -- just like where I hit that evil bastard, ha! -- where they do the grinding stop and start headshock guitar thing they've practically patented at this point while Dez and Heidi take turns shouting over a tricky beat. They even have a mellotron warbling away in the background. It's most hep."

One of the men in black grabbed her from behind; she turned her head and bit him on the ear. When he dropped her, screaming, she broke another chair over his head.

"Pretty soon, you know --" he paused to slam a gun-toting thug to the ground -- "you're not going to have any more chairs to break."

She ignored him. "So then they have this slow squealing grindy thing called 'Lucky,' where they put to use their other really cool move, which is having one guitar play something moderately tuneful while the other approximates the aural sound of Lysol being sprayed on roach hotels. Sort of like... like... Marshall Crenshaw meets early Swans or something."

"My God. What a frightening thought."

"But then they top it with 'Spider,' where they go back to the Black and Decker approach with more lurching stop and go guitars like lawnmowers, and 'Coyote' alternates squealy overdriven dissonant passages with some actually catchy parts before going into overdrive, and if that doesn't all make you want to beat the shit out of bad guys and stay up late and wreck your mother's brand new car and set your bratty little sister on fire, then by God i don't know what's wrong with you." She emphasized her point by breaking the last chair over the head T.U.R.D.'s head, smiling as he sank to the floor, eyes forever crossed.

"You know, I think I'm going to have to monitor your listening habits more closely from now on...."

Shiva Speedway -- [demo # 2]

Coolness incarnate, although the overall sound begs for release on CD... Shiva Speedway are simply too HEAVY to be contained by skinny strips of mere magnetic oxide, okay? This is a post-reorganization demo, with only Pam Nicholas (drums, vocals), Dezaray DeCarlo (guitar, vocals), and Heidi Saperstein (guitar, vocals) present, and contains the two songs from their most recent single ("Hell" and "Twister"). Aside from the mondo brief instrumental "Envoi" that closes out the tape, there are three other songs --"Angel" (which wins bonus points for the name alone, obviously), "Moonshine," and "Texas." Hard to say which is the best when they're all good, although "Angel" is my favorite at the moment. Everything is drenched in feedback, even the "quiet" parts, and the heavy parts are so teeth- grindingly immense that you'd think they learned to play by opening for Zeni Geva or something. Most of the songs here employ a devious guitar attack in which one guitar plays something pretty and reognizable as an actual chord progression while the other wallows in heaviness or spurts pure sonic filth. In other places (especially "Angel" and "Moonshine" they alternate pretty parts with heavy parts before crawling around in the gutter and laying waste to anything that moves. Bonus points for the climbing wall of chaos as "Moonshine" heads into a tailspin -- THIS is the way guitars and drums were meant to be abused! And the thudding lurch-metal of "Texas," with its military marching beat and chopped-up guitars is not to be missed either.

Shiva Speedway -- [demo # 3]

All right, four more tracks by the Loud Goddesses o' Boston. I'm always impressed by bands who can make their guitars sound like the speaker cones are ripping apart even at low volume. Three of the songs on here will be coming out on singles sometime soon; i forget which one is the "extra" track. Not that it matters, 'cause they're all brilliant. "Deal with the Devil" continues in the vein of earlier stuff, which fuzzed-out guitar death and swirling slow-motion tornado chord progressions; "Burning Building" alternates chime-chime riffing heavily borrowed from Creedence Clearwater Revival, of all things, with considerably heavier moments of thuglike guitar punishment. "Winterland" surges back and forth between contemplative chiming and heavy guitar as well, but adds plenty of pinpoint stop 'n start riffing for good measure. And the fourth track, "El Loco," is just purely loud, crazed, and obnoxious, right down to the bizarre ending (sampled weirdness and screaming from a '50s monster flick, phaser noises, other loopiness -- truly it is hysterical). This is, of course, a good thing and something you should not want to miss out on. [And yes, i know you're not supposed to end sentences with a preposition, my degree is in English dammit, i IGNORE THE RULES OF GOOD GRAMMAR AT WILL, okay? Children, don't do this at home... WE ARE PROFESSIONALS....]

The band's recorded sound has noticeably improved --this tape does a much better job of capturing a decent drum sound from Pam Nicholas' vintage kit, and Dezeray's singing is even better than ever. The guitars (courtesy of Dez and Heidi) remain as crazed as ever. Soon this band will be bigger than Jesus and YOU -- yes, YOU -- will be sorry that you don't own this so you can prove how clued-in you were at the very beginning, so you'd best send email to Pam at [pmn@mit.edu] and snag a copy or find about the singles or something. God forbid the readers of DEAD ANGEL should miss out on this....

Shiva Speedway / Quivvver 7" [Harriet Records]

Shiva's track, "A-Train," is most cool, even though the three remaining hands of Shiva now more or less disavow it because this predates their "retooled" sound (which means that this is probably your only chance to hear what they sounded like with a bass player in the band, natch). It opens slow, with a sad and lurching riff, before building to a big mess o' squealing guitars and a bass that's doing SOMETHING in the background while Dezaray howls about rape and escape by jumping from a seven-story building. Thunderously traumatic.... Quivvver, aside from having obviously creative ideas about spelling, are, uh, DIFFERENT.... "Funka" is anchored by big, funked-out drums, skittering guitar, and sing-song chant lyrics. Guitarist Carol Defeciani really likes the treble switch on her guitar, too (she whips out a harmonica toward the end, for that matter). Weird... good, in a bizarre sort of way, but WEIRD....

Shiva Speedway / Enduro -- "Moonshine / Sister" [Uprising Records]

By now it must be obvious to even the most casual reader of DEAD ANGEL that i really like Shiva Speedway. Mondo obvious. There is a reason. They are good. Very good. So good, in fact, that you should be crushed by their seesaw guitars and sheer menacing weight. (I see i'm writing short sentences. Very short. Terse, even. Chalk it up to spending all day reading GET IN THE VAN. Henry rants. Henry raves. Henry calls Kira a "rancid bitch." DEAD ANGEL wonders what Mike Watt thinks of Henry. It doesn't matter. "Love will not break your heart... it will CRUSH it." Blah blah blah. I have been awake entirely too long.) Anyway, this is one of the songs from the demo i mentioned a few issues back, now lovingly recreated as a split single (with improved sound) for the masses. Starts out pretty, gets loud and occasionally squealy, goes back to pretty... lots of shifting dynamics. The best part comes when they shift into overdrive and Dez starts to WAIL while they all lean into the hurricane. Coolness. The derailed- train instrument-abuse ending earns bonus points, especially since it goes on for QUITE A WHILE... excess is always welcome at the DEAD ANGEL Fortress Beneath the Frozen Wastes....

Enduro, a band from Austin, fill up the other side with "Sister." They rock. Actually, it would more accurate to say they grind -- their guitarist sounds like he's tuned down several steps and hasn't bothered to change his strings in a while, which ALWAYS assures you of a truly boss guitar sound. (Autodidact only changes strings about every 16 months for that maximum sludge sound.) Their singer sounds like he eats Drano and washes it down with jalapeno sauce (the really HOT kind). They lurch. They grind. They make funny noises. They make a hell of a lot of noise. This earns the DEAD ANGEL seal of approval. Prime meat, USDA approved, no mad cows here, only psychotic singers. Bring on the UFOs. And a straitjacket for the Enduro shouter, he sounds like he surely must need one.

Shiva Speedway / The Cat Ion -- double 7" [Echostatic]

Oooo, more coolness. A double single! Zounds! Shiva Speedway clock in with two songs from the tape thingy i reviewed last time -- "Deal With the Devil" on the A-side and "Burning Building" on the flip. They are both swanker than... than... than swankness itself! (Now THAT'S swank.) The thing i like so much about "Deal With the Devil" is the way one guitar accelerates while the other deccelrates -- it's like getting blindsided and sucked into a vortex about every couple o' measures. All the lame-ass bands on Trance Syndicate right now can only WISH they had this much style. (Behead and Drain don't count, since they actually have talent.) "Burning Building" earns many, many bonus points on the DEAD ANGEL coolometer for borrowing freely from Creedence at the opening before getting all snarly, and for the fact that i can't understand a single word Dez is saying even though she's mixed WAY up there. If you live in Boston and haven't seen them yet there is something wrong with you....

The Cat Ion took me by surprise, though. "Bodied" barrels along like a less pretentious version o' Shudder to Think, or maybe a more focused and catchy Unwound, without sounding like either of those bands. Heavy slabs o' repetition without getting obnoxious about it and a seriously ass-eating guitar tone, eek! I'm gonna hide under the bed now! (But first i'm gonna play the song again....) The flip side, "Lullaby," is not quite so relentlessly bad-assed -- as the name implies, it's a quieter thing -- but it's still plenty suave in its own right. A band to pay attention to....

Incidentally, the Shiva single is clear and the Cat Ion one is red yet transparent (just so you know), and the artwork is primo... snag it....

At long last... Cambridge's fuzziest power trio emerge from hiding with their first full-length CD. Five of the twelve tracks here have previously appeared on compilations and singles (mostly in different versions or mixes); the rest is all brand-spanking new to your ears. And fine goodies they be, these songs... full o' fuzz, drone, twists and turns, and paint-peeling guitar. Le Shiva benefit heavily from the increased clarity of CD -- all of the stuff that's previously appeared on singles sounds vastly better here. This is particularly true of "Moonshine," always one of their more crazed offerings, which not only has been remixed here to increased sonic effectiveness but has become even more deranged in its arrangement, eventually devolving into an inspired mess o' detuned riffage and noise.

Most of the songs here remain squarely in the mode they established early on: peculiar stop 'n start arrangements powered by four-on-the-floor drums, incredibly overfuzzed guitars often working in opposition to each other, all topped by Dezaray DeCarlo's wailing, droning vox. The result is often like a muscular cross between Big Black (minus the strident diatribes) and Polvo (with better songwriting), or maybe even -- more so on the newer material -- a grittier East Coast answer to Sleater-Kinney, with whom they share a fondness for certain guitar tones. Of course, Shiva Speedway are way loopier -- i don't think you'll ever hear something as exquisitely deranged as the largely indescribable "sock monkey" on a Sleater-Kinney record, much less the truly devolved outro on "Moonshine" -- and while their sound is certainly as tuff 'n loud as Big Black or Polvo, they're nowhere near as cranky as the former and much, much more focused than the latter. (They also do quiet stuff now and then, like the instrumental "pink," something the aforementioned artists generally shun.)

When they decide to rock, mon, they rock hard -- check out the driving "Devil Dog" or the pounding drums and swirling fuzzdeath guitars of "Below the Belt" for hard evidence, or the full-throttle roar of "Broken," or the midsection of "Moonshine," or the heavy chunks dropped into "Mars." One of the more interesting things happening on this disc, though, is their newfound fascination with drone, particularly in the vocals -- this shows up all over the place, but especially in "Drop Dead Eyes" and the amazing "Psychic City," whose vocal drones, hypnotically repetitive guitar lines, and general otherworldliness make it sound like a distant punk cousin to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." (The song shows up again at the end of the disc in a dub version that's every bit as swank as the original.)

Strong stuff, mon. The only band from Boston right now that i can think of right offhand consistently as interesting would be Helium, whose last album was nowhere near as consistent as this one. Track this one down. You need it. Trust me.

(The drilling grows louder and more intense, but C12 can't get TG to tear her attention away from the tile patterns on the flower, where she is convinced the Moon Unit has secretly encoded the secrets of the Hellfortress right out in the open. In a desperate attempt to bring her back to reality in time for them to escape, he throws on another one of the latest offerings from Public Eyesore.)

TG (finally looking up): Is this another one of the Public Eyesore discs?

C12: Indeed it is. And, um, now that I have your attention, I think we should --

TG: This is bizarre shit, man. I don't know where they're coming from, but they've got shit happening in all different directions using tape loops, samples, and heavily mutated orchestration to create... uh... something... something... uh, different.

C12: Mein gott, you are stoned, aren't you?

TG: They make me think of Mauve Sideshow. You know what I mean? They've got that same weird wind in the willows feel, where you can't quite figure out what noises came out of what instrument. Lots of processed wind-chimes turning in the wind, lots of strange sounds drifting around, that kind of thing.

C12: Actually, it reminds me quite a bit of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. The original with Lon Chaney, mind you, not that horrid thing they performed on stage....

TG: Yeah, I can sort of see that. (a large chunk of the door clatters to the floor; she doesn't appear to notice) Only this is, uh, way stranger. Like if the Phantom had dropped some really primo acid before sitting down at the keyboard and if he let the mice run around in the pipes.

C12: I could draw comparisons to Vox Barbara in places. I think their intentions are different, however. My favorite of the five tracks here is "Pachinko," which includes many fine tremelo sounds and drones, sounding very much like a science fiction laboratory in which the machinery is slowly switching itself on and off.

TG: They ought to be doing soundtracks for sci-fi flicks. Or maybe videogames. I'm not sure which.

C12: Yes, quite. (another chunk of the door caves in and a spindly robot arm reaches in, fumbling for the lock) And now I sincerely believe we need to run, dearheart. They are upon us.

TG: They... they are? (looks at the door) AAAAH! (staggers toward the door firing blindly with her hand cannons)

C12: Oh, that was most suave. The door is over there, you dope-addled fool.

TG: The door? What door? I was aiming for the nest of vipers....

(C12 grabs her by the arm and pulls her toward the air conditioning vent, intent on escaping while there's still time. She trails along bonelessly, humming the theme song to LAVERNE & SHIRLEY.)

C12: I suppose while we're racing against time to pry open this vent and crawl inside and hopefully escape, we should throw out another review. A last-minute arrival from the tall Canadian one should do the trick...

Shonen Knife -- HAPPY HOUR [Big Deal]

It was dawn when the helicopters rose over the horizon, drenching the hills with steaming liquid death. The ragged people of the homely village ran screaming into the streets, howling as their tiny bodies were turned into smoking lumps of carbon. As one building after another crashed into the street, reduced to chalky rubble, Captain 8-Track and his ever-present sidekick TASCAM Girl stepped out of the Woly Boly Drinking Hut ("Free Drinks For Superheroes! Drink Until You Have To Crawl Into Street Puking On All Fours!"). The Captain looked dashing in his long black trenchcoat; TASCAM-Girl looked somewhere between hot and ridiculous in her red rubber dancing cowgirl outfit, of which there was actually very little. She held a bottle of tequila in one hand and a rather large and fully loaded Destructo-Gun in the other.

"God DAMN it," she shouted over the din. "Why is it we can't even go on fucking vacation without having to shoot half the bleedin' planet?"

"Because it is our destiny," the Captain said gravely as he opened his lockbox and produced many weapons and a CD player, "to rid the world of bad guys and expend much ammunition in the meantime. Plus the moonunit has an unsavory fetish for explosions and random gunfire."

"Yeah yeah, tell me about it." A phalanx of soldiers landed on the ground before them, their parachutes trailing behind as they aimed with their rifles. She squeezed the trigger of the Destructo-Gun several times and they all went down as one, spouting geysers of black blood. "So what are we reviewing this time as we wipe out whole squadrons of shitheads?"

"The latest album by the esteemed Shonen Knife. It's called HAPPY HOUR. Listen to this," the Captain enthused. "Listen to the thunder of those mighty drums, the bleeps and bloops that indicate they've discovered techno, the otherwordly babble--"

"Uh, I think that's them speaking Japanese." She fired off another blast from the Destructo-Gun. "Sure is catchy, tho. I'm impressed that they're confident enough to lead off with a song whose lyrics are largely Japanese."

As "Konnichiwa" roared through the speakers, barely audible over the deafening barrage of gunfire and rockets, she was compelled to add, "Are you sure this is Shonen Knife? This sounds like Nashville Pussy on helium -- nobody ever told me they could play this fast... oh wait, it must be them, they're singing in Japanese again. I like this. This makes me think maybe they could kick somebody's fat ass if they felt like it."

"What about this song?" the Captain asked as "Cookie Day" played. "This is more like vintage Shonen Knife, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah. Listen to that twangy guitar, though -- betcha they've been listening to lots of country records. Even though this doesn't even sound remotely like a country song. And this next one, 'Hot Chocolate,' is pretty hep too. I really like the way she butchers the word 'chocolate'... come to think of it, damn near nothing from this is intelligble, just the way real rock and roll should be." A soldier popped up from behind a rock; she pounded over a dozen bullets into him, vaporizing him entirely.

The Captain thrust the CD booklet in front of her face. "Ah, but they have lyrics for that!"

She snatched the booklet away, transfixed by the sight of Nakao Yamano as a cowgirl in pink. "FUCK! You never told me this Nakao chick was so hot... I wanna bury my face in her.... Hey! What's this shit that sounds like an Oi song?"

"That would be 'Sushi Bar,' only one of many songs on this album about food. Apparently they've been hanging out with Cibo Matto, or so it would seem."

"This song rocks like a motherfucker. I'm approving of this album, oh yes I am. Excuse me, would you duck?" As he did, she tossed a grenade over his head. The dozen soldiers behind him exploded in a wild tangle of blood and disenfranchised limbs.

"How about this song 'Fish Eyes,' in which Michie wakes up with a fish head and discovers that all her friends are 'eager to hear my new views'?" He raked his machine gun from side to side, mowing down soldiers like roaches.

She dropped to the ground to avoid incoming fire. "I think it's pretty fucked up. Cool solo, though. Where do they come up with these subjects, anyway? The Japanese must be a twisted bunch of fuckers."

"And they are so obsessed with food this time around! 'Banana Chips' and 'Gyoza' are also about food... this song 'Catch Your Bus' is an excellent diversion, however. And the mellotron on 'Jackalope' and 'People Traps' is a new move for them, not to mention a nice momentary turn from all the distortoguitar rumbling happening everywhere else."

"Fuck you man, I like that overamped guitar. Especially on 'His Pet,' apparently a deranged tale of some lunatic growing mutant sharks. That's some supremely dirt-encrusted fuzz they have happening on this track. Not to mention Atsuko is really beating the shit out of her drum kit. Guess she wants to be heard over all the fuzz. I like this song. I like this album. This is the greatest thing Shonen Knife have ever done. I take back all the mean things I ever said about you, even the time you played that Swans album while I was hanging upside down and I swore I'd cut your balls off with a potato peeler." She emphasized her sentiments by blowing three helicopters out of the sky, laughing with manic gusto as they fell to the ground and exploded in great bursts of smoke and flames.

Captain 8-Track unleashed a low-flying thermonuclear missile and watched with satisfaction as the entire army compound evaporated in a mushroom cloud, along with most of the surrounding mountain. "So I'm to take it, then, that you also approve of their nuke-sleaze cover of 'Daydream Believer'?"

"Is THAT what it was? It sure was hard to tell through that fuzz... the biggest, dirtiest, filthiest fuzzbox in the world.... Have I mentioned that this is the greatest thing they've ever done?"

"I believe you did, yes." He unshouldered the hefty missile launcher. "But come, my child... our work here is done. Let us return to the Hellfortress Beneath the Ice, where you can listen to this magnificent CD all day on our 5,000 watt stereo system."

"All right... you're the man....."

One of the weirdest-looking bands around -- the frontman is a bald goatee guy apparently on loan from Nitzer Ebb and he's backed by a bunch of guys who wear really expensive clothes and look a lot hipper than me and you (how the HELL did the guitarist get that one stray lock of hair to stay perfectly in place all through the video? That's some serious gel, mon....) -- they nevertheless have the musical goods, so we can excuse their sometimes questionable fashion sensibility (seriously, they look like they just stepped out of a DETAILS fashion shoot, oooo, how SATANIC). The first song is brilliant --a whiny, adenoidal voice muttering cryptic stuff, then drums pound away, then he whines some more, then drums pound away, then a million guitars flood in like the bursting of the Hoover Dam. Yow! They end up sounding remarkably like Hemi with much better production, which makes me wonder where the band is from (and how long it'll take Hemi to call their lawyer and discuss the unusual similarity between the song's middle and the middle of "No Jesus Tonight"), not that it really matters.... The second song is merely ok, which makes me suspect the full album (probably available by now) won't even come close to living up to the one brilliant single, but that's kind of par for the course these days, eh?

The production is brilliant, though (at least they spent their money wisely), so even if the songs on the full-lengther don't hold up, they'll SOUND good. Heh. Luv that operatic warbling though....

Howard Shore -- CRASH soundtrack [Milan]

Well, what can i say... it's a soundtrack, dammit. Which means it's mostly just fragments -- fifteen pieces in all, most of them a minute or two long, with titles like "Mechanism of Occupant Ejection" and "Two Semi-Metallic Human Beings." In other words, all of these pieces were obviously meant to go with some pictures, which has always been my objection to soundtracks; they almost always sound like something's missing, namely the picture....

This one works better than most, however, mostly because of the weird and eerie instrumentation. Shore (who has composed the soundtracks for nearly all of Cronenburg's films) abandoned the normal orchestral approach in favor of using six electric guitars, three orchestral harps, three woodwinds, and two percussionists... then combined them all into a largely seamless single voice in minimalist fashion. The result is an eerie, disembodied floating sound that reverberates like high-frequency chamber music bouncing off the walls of a deep underground cavern. It's a watery sound, one in which the guitars don't really sound like guitars and the drums are amost unrecognizable as percussion. Often the guitars sound like flutes, as on "Mirror Image"; at other times (particularly on "Crash" and "Where's the Car?") they're a bit more recognizable, yet still unusual in their tones and texture.

The only drawback to the disc is in the fact that, within the movie, the different pieces are spaced out through the movie and in the background with the design of providing a musical unity throughout the film; on disc, with all of them strung back to back, the repetition of themes and sounds might be a bit off-putting to some listeners. Nevertheless, the disc is well worth hearing (obviously, since i bought it and i never buy movie soundtracks)....

Shunt/CFR -- DEATH BY ELECTRICAL TAPE [???]

Gruesome sounds from [grievous], split into two sides -- one of Shunt material and the other by CFR. The Shunt side is pretty chaotic stuff: amp burping, fried guitar hum, screaming, chopped edit hell, roaring cyclone guitar trash, burned heads on a stick, an ocean of blood... you get the idea. Imagine Merzbow and Monde Bruits processing sick loops and source material from the Gerogerigegege with a blender set on puree and the light begins to dawn on you, eh? The two other tracks on this side -- "sclerosis" and "death by electrical tape" -- don't deviate too far from this basic pattern, although the latter incorporates some seriously heavy grinding gear noises about halfway through that i reall like.

CFR, on the other hand, involves more RHYTHMIC destruction... namely, the use of loops constructed from devolved noises and chug-happy CD skippage, among other things. The pattern is quickly established with the numbing "symbol worship and its consequences," essentially one loop that goes on for a LONG TIME while other stuff fades up and around the edges in almost subliminal fashion. This continues through "die screaming" and into "rm -r," at which point the loop turns into a brilliant twisting chiming thing that's just the BADDEST thing i've ever heard and something i more or less want to steal and use for my own somewhere else, heh. Brilliant.

A word about the packaging, incidentally... the tape comes enclosed in a shell that's been securely wound in black electrical tape, with the triangular remains of a dead CD attached to the front. I had to slit the tape open with a utility knife to get at the cassette. It's that extra touch o' class that makes the difference....

Shunt/Musicide -- SPLIT [Kill Music]

You want burning piles o' filth? We got burning piles o' filth. We got your family values right HERE, buddy... about a foot below the belt and down where things get foul in a hurry. This tape offers two forms of audio hell: On Shunt's side, you get short bursts of sonic fury, in which [grievous] generally approximates the sound of sheep being given belt-sander enemas while being shoved feet-first through a wood chipper-shredder (all the best to hear those HOWLS OF PAIN). All at high amplification, of course. Going through them track by track is pointless; they're all obnoxious and high on the Intense-O-Meter. Some titles, just to give you an indication of where his head is: "fuck the human race," "zero sum," "retch," "socket rot," and my favorite, "edward van halen's hip replacement surgery." As for the noises, it basically sounds like he grabbed anything he could find handy, tortured it with a fork, processed and amplified it, then threw the entire thing against a brick wall several times until the entire mess was broken into a million jagged pieces. Antimusic at its finest. Happening shit.

The Musicide stuff on the flip side of the cassette takes a bit of a different approach -- "crush the nazi skinhead's kneecap" is a short bit of churning, low-grade pink noise, while the longer -- much longer -- "if life is a movie, will someone please roll the fucking credits" derives its eerie power from wailing, cycling feedback/hum that gradually builds into cascades of harsh, ugly high-pitched squealing. This will probably cause you permanent hearing loss if you have it turned up to loud when the first wave of real ugliness hits, so be forewarned. Eventually it disintegrates into a low-end rumble like a sandstorm being swallowed by an earthquake, which is plenty boss for my tastes. Happening... most happening... and horribly limited, so if your curiosity is piqued you'd best be contacting these guys ASAP....

The poop sheet references Neubaten, Mainliner, and employs the phrase "songs that take apart rock music atom by atom so that you are left with a skeleton of sound." So you probably guessed your mama won't like them, right? This is loud shit, mon. They claim to be using guitar, bass, and drums, but it sounds to me like they're running around the world's biggest kitchen hitting everything with big sticks on "White Keys," and it is real, real loud. "Infinity of Stops" is exactly that, an endless procession of lurching stop-start noise micro-riffs and a stuttering beat leavened with loud crazy shit. By the time "Anna Mae Wong" lurches around, sounding like a box of metal springs and light bulbs being slowly pelted with rocks and firecrackers in a building that's coming apart at the seams, the truth becomes obvious: these people are either insane or on extremely powerful and mind-altering chemicals. Possibly both. Their cells are probably mutating even as their tinnitus subsides. "Right Side of the Hall" consists of what sounds like something pounding on the wall (presumably the right one) while someone shouts incoherently and everybody makes intensely disturbed sounds. The exquisitely hideous tones of the death-disco grind of doom that passes for "EE" are real nice (your mileage may vary), and the primitive noise-funk and pounding rhythms of "Reduction" sound like an unspeakable collision of Funkadelic and Merzbow while zonked on some really potent hypno-juice. I am afraid to even imagine what these demented hoodlums of gross noise are like live. But I'm sure it's real loud. One more time, Load does not fail in its mission to crush all time-honored notions of time, space, sound, and music. Your neighbors will despise you and leave voodoo dolls with the ears cut off on your porch for playing this, though. Be sure to play it loud. (Did I mention it was loud?)

I hear rumors that this slab of pork, this mellow bit of sonic frippery, this latest thing from those whacked-out tofu-sniffin' yahoos in Sightings, was recorded in a barn out in the alkali flats of Lower Midlothian as Satan's concubine gave birth next door to a hideous and mewling lot of star-maggots, and that the horrifying experience compelled the guys of Sightings to record monstrous paeans to dead Shuggoths and then go back later and systematically strip away all the parts that would have explained everything. That's one explanation for this, sure. (I think "sleep deprivation and drugs" is probably a better one, but that probably means we gotta get Occam and his ass-munchin' razor in on things, and you know what? Fuck Occam.) It's a fucked bunch of weird shit, all right -- on "One Out of Ten" it sounds like a discordant and blaring mess of unrelated incidents ebbing and flowing around a frantic and restless tribal beat. Strange things are equally afoot on "Sugar Sediment," as a sampled snippet or keyboard doodle becomes the bedrock of a growing, evolving percussion and efx-fu jam. The power of the backwoods boogie grafted onto sensibilities more frequently found in clubs where people dress funny and talk about Kraftwerk a lot, in other words. They can do the crunchy noise thing too -- there's plenty of grotesque sounds in their addled future-lounge noise-swing or whatever it is we're calling this freeform death funk these days, particularly in "Switching to Judgement," a jaunty bit of Russian jig-dancing and lusty pipe-laying buried in layers of skronk. And then there's "Dudes," so reminiscent (particularly in those freaked-out psychodrama vocals) of the late and badly-lamented Arab on Radar (gods! fucking gods! and fuck you if you think otherwise! HAH!) -- pounding drums, blaring everything, some loud guy raving and howling on top of it all, a highly crazed and public nervous temper-tantrum verging on a pure psychotic breakdown. "The Last Seed" brings you back down to earth a bit with a bit of dry, abstract electron-fu -- "see, child, how they bounce when you jiggle the strings just so!" -- as if to remind you that, yes, you are indeed grokking the deliberate sounds of experimentation, not just listening to purloined bootleg recordings of some mental patients dabbling with gadgets in the recreation room. Bonus points for the endless washing machine of doom beat of "Arrived in Gold, Arrived in Smoke," which is only enhanced by shredded metal frequency screech and hostile emotion processing. Damaged electronics or the new daring seed of death-techno? Hard to say, but it sure does swing, like a dead man swaying in the breeze with the stinky piss still running down his leg, yessir....

Like many on the Public Eyesore label, these chaps have odd ideas about meter, noise, and found sound; unlike most of them, Silt Fish are working with instruments that don't lend themselves well to noisemaking (acoustic guitar, standup bass, and various other traditional instruments such as the jaw harp). Consequently, this is nowhere near as "out there" as some of the label's other releases... but it's every bit as good, just a bit more rooted in traditional musical stylings. These recordings have the same kind of feel as the off-the-cuff Americana of the Folkways records, and are not really noise or free jazz at all, but more like country field recordings of an Appalachian hillbilly band going at it on the back porch with a tape recorder rolling and the background noise left in for ambience. Of course, the band itself is a bit on the eccentric side -- at points during "We've Come to Sea" they carry on a conversation without ever stopping the music, and titles like "Nosing Hot Pennies" and "There Once Was a Worm" make it obvious that their cues come from somewhere other than suburbia. But as an acoustic neo-folk trio they're pretty tight, and they have a penchant for the kind of weird sounds that would alienate country purists but which Public Eyesore enthusiasts will find a balm for the soul. The ghost of John Fahey hovers over many of these tracks. Standout tracks: "We've Come to Sea," "Navvy Work," "Where Are the Pills For My Head?," "There Once Was a Worm" (which wouldn't have been out of place on one of the later John Fahey albums), and "The House With the Dreadful Nibbling In Its Roots." When you need to return to the land where the hill sound began, this is where you'll want to go.

Interesting (if wildly random) stuff indeed. This is the debut release of a one-man band from Oslo, Sweden (Are Mokkelbost, also a member of ABM, an improvisational electronic act from Oslo as well), one that mixes elements of hardcore, techno, noise, electronica, and percussion that borrows from both freejazz and tribal sources as well as industrial rhythms. The sound is so layered on all sixteen tracks that it takes a few spins just to even figure out what the hell is going on. As for the music itself, there are sixteen songs, but they are actually more like loosely-structured movements in one long, drifting piece than separate bits, which means the album makes more of an impact when listened to as a whole than for individual songs. The tracks themselves often sound like an almost totally random collection of odd sounds and instrument choices, and it's only through repeated listening that the pattens buried under all the sonic flamboyance become evident. It's the kind of listening experience that defies easy grasp on the first try, but grows on you with repeated listenings.

Mokkelbost's overall sound and approach makes me think of techno, but if it is, it's an extremely detailed and devolved kind of techno, which is far more intriguing. Snippets and/or loops of noise grind away as wildly different instruments generate drones or mutant melodic chunks or weird juxtapositions of sound and rhythm, often with peculiar results -- parts of "moving in caves, enter abstract" sound like the instruments are on the verge of coming apart and stopping, and "5th cumming" welds fey techno keyboard tweaking with crazed noises and extremely disturbed ideas about percussion. "Passion Pirates and Parasites" sounds like an ampethamine-addled burst of fury from death metal freaks abusing the electronics and keyboards. Repetitive motifs are employed to great effect from time to time (especially on that one), and no matter how weird things get, there's always a rhythmic backbone of some sort keeping it all anchored and together. My favorite track is the brief but pounding "oi," sounding like Gary Numan guesting in Whitehouse (or vice versa), followed closely by the ridiculously heavy and overblown "spray dagger" -- imagine Wagner hopped up on pills directing an orchestra of death-metal guitarists and keyboardists and you get the idea. I can see why this is on Jester -- like the recent Ulver disc, this is a brilliant fusion of wildly different disciplines (in this case noise, metal, and techno) into one really original whole. Highly, highly recommended.

Solo guitar improvisations from guitarist Bryan Day in the vein of John Fahey (a brief segment of the first song's second movement breaks down into a actual waltz), only not quite so unadorned or overprocessed. The first song, "hands beckon," is actually a long series of improvisations linked together, featuring acoustic guitar and electric guitar (often treated) interacting with each other under similar circumstances. The other three songs are improvisations for guitar featuring varying levels of processing -- "sine daughter" employs extensive reverb and delay to generate pinging notes and shimmering drones that resonate in waves as experimental guitar improvisation drifts through the curtain of sound, while "ladybugs" pits intermittent snatches of melody from one guitar against muted noise and tweaking from others, and "christmaseve" is a solo performance (guitar, vocals, and squeaks) of what i would assume is a Christmas song, although not one i recognize. Day's playing here is more restrained and "guitar"-like than i often associate with his playing, and this release is a fine example of his growing skill at sound construction.

You want to know why metal bands, for good or bad, dominate the music business? Because they have such an innate (possibly insane) desire to succeed that they will do anything to get where they want to go. Look at this band from Nashville, Tennessee, for instance. Not only do they give away three-song demo CD-Rs to pretty much everyone they come across ("I'm homeless, can I bum a cigarette?" "SURE DUDE! Here, have a CD-R too!"), but they apparently actually ponied up good $$$ to air TV commercials on TNN, MTV, and the Science Fiction Channel in search of a record deal. (What i don't understand is, if they had that kind of $$$, why didn't they forget the commercials and just form their own label and put the music out themselves, which would have probably been a better deal in the long run -- but hey, no one ever said guts and motivation automatically led to good business sense.) Regardless of their actual musical merits, SkaRd are the kind of band that will ultimately be successful just because they're willing to work for it and crazed enough not to take no for an answer....

As for the musical merits themselves -- the three songs here are certainly varied enough, and they play well. (I'm not sure what to make of the singer, whose vocal stylings are all over the map, much like Mike Patton sounded in Faith No More, but that may well be a point of attraction for many.) They strike me as being largely progressive metal -- lots of tempo changes and shifts from light to heavy, plus they're not afraid to employ genuinely strange-sounding guitars (as on "Reality"), and they have riffs out the wazoo -- but they're apparently not down with this baggy-pants rap-metal thing, which wins bonus points with me. (Then again, on their web site a couple of the members list Korn and the like as favorites, so maybe they're just better at hiding their influences than most metal bands.) I like the growling wall o' fuzz they generate in spots on "S.O.D." The songs are well-thought out and executed with plenty of panache... this is not bad. Not entirely my cup o' Chinese tea, true (i tend to favor machine-driven metal like Prong or corrosive drunken gutter trash like Eyehategod and 13), but i can hang with this. I'd certainly rather see these guys with a record deal than some of the godforsaken trash that currently passes for metal.

Skin Crime - URGE [Bludlust!]

With regular contributions to the Cause, and coming off the heels of a singularly depraved manifestioso, Skin Crime is fast becoming The American father confessor:

Yes, I have strayed from the Path. Yes, I am oft given over to Temptation from impure heretics like Aube and BDN. Yes, I still haven't need of a hearing aid. But I blow my speakers out every month and offer up my hearing, such as it is, on a nightly basis. I'll do my ten Heil Mikawas and promise to be real Good next year, so can I please have some more? Verily, when its there for the taking, who can resist the Urge to sink his teeth into more? More, you ask? More of the same? Nay, for that would be too predictable. Mr. S. Abuse has Strayed in his own right of late. Where the aforesaid manifesto (aka WHOREBUTCHER) focused most intensely on inexplosive smoldering fury, Urge is more exploratory, more open to alteration and altercation. To a limit: a limit that starts where your upper register follicle-receptors thingies end. Say, 20 kHz or so. Such is the extent of "Random Need," recorded live at Taxidermy Studios, wherein the high-end nailboard finds itself consistently overloaded and undermined by feeding-back seismic wavehounds with bits of powdery charcoal caught in their mucous-stripped throats. You can see why they don't record shit like this in Japan or San Francisco -- it would scare the hell out of the natives. At least MSBR has the sense to warn the listener in advance with revealing titles and detailed visual aids. "Random Need" my ass. Sure enough, the truth rears its ugly head on side B -- it has that tendency: "Premeditated." Figures. He knew it from the beginning and, as per sadistic disposition, was just stringing us along for the ride. Minute, dysfunctional, radio-controlled transistor beacons prowl an apparently- uninhabited crater floor, scrying, smoothing and prodding the surface. Taking more liberties with their surroundings, a series of capricious static charges start biting at the sky, first zigging then zagging into the emptiness. There's a moral to this story, though, cause suddenly the annoying bastards find themselves imprisoned in an undulating, constricting prismatic energy field. They go berserk, electrodes haywiring, needles spinning, frequencies overloading and to some avail but not enough as it turns out: freed from impending strangulation, the little buggers find themselves burned beyond recognition and stripped of basic motor rhythm skills. It's what we reviewers call poetic justice. [JK]

Skullflower -- FORM DESTROYER [Broken Flag]

Okay, this is a mini-review (reviewlet? uh, never mind), since i already reviewed RUINS many, many issues back and all of this early album is included on the vastly easier-to-find RUINS. However... HOWEVER... two of the tracks here were REMIXED on RUINS, so i'm gonna review these two songs out of sheer perversity. It's a COMPLETIST thing, okay? Anyway, those two tracks are "Woodland Death March" and "Solar Anus," and here they sound a bit tubbier and the guitars have a different level of prominence -- meaning that on the original version of "Woodland Death March" here, you can hear a lot more guitar noodling and the overall tone is much tinnier. Ditto for "Solar Anus," which has a deeper, thicker bass and just plain sounds HEAVIER than the RUINS version. These are both spiffy, and why Skullflower decided to remix 'em at all is beyond me... must be an artistic creative reinterpretation thing....

Skullflower -- RUINS [Shock Records]

This is actually a compilation of tracks from two out-of print releases, the first (???) Skullflower 12" ep and FORM DESTROYER, plus two previously unreleased tracks, "Eat the Stars" and "Black Ass Bone." It is godlike. You should run out and buy this, like, RIGHT NOW. The whole thing is great. On "Eat the Stars," one guitar swirls like shrapnel whirling in a monsoon while another one drones, both over a thudding dinosaur beat; that turns out to be the basic format for all the others that follow, actually. The only real differences are in intent and intensity. The high-end guitar wailing through "Birthdeath (remix)" will strip-mine your ears even as the drums threaten to cave in your skull; the trance-riffing and distorted vocals on "Grub Song (remix)" will make you wonder if your stereo EQ is set properly. (It is.) Others like "Elephant's Graveyard," "Big Muff," and "Woodland Death March (remix)" have plenty of lurching riffdeath coupled with screaming, wailing guitars to keep your inner ear wobbling like a tiny tot who's ridden on the merry-go-round a bit too long, but the absolute quailing GODHEAD here, what may be the best Skullflower track EVER, is "Thirsty Animal." Drums pound, pound, POUND their way through your skull while guitars -- God only knows how many -- roar and wail like a hail of satanic bees rising from a fissure in the earth duing a hurricane while volcanoes blot out the sun. This beats the pee out of heavy metal ANY DAY, mon.... The last track (and one of the longest ones), "Procession of Eternity," points to the direction they would head in over future albums -- fuzzed-out distortion in the beginning, soon giving way to eerie, quasi-ambient rumbling and endlessly reverberating guitar lines. Jesus listens to this every day; shouldn't YOU?

Skullflower -- XAMAN [Shock]

Skullflower's finest moment?!?! Well, i sure as fuck think so (although the skull-caving glory of "White Fang" on INFINITYLAND comes awfully close). This is an early classic, a "lost" document (for most, anyway) in the sense that it's now hopelessly out of print and, since Stefan Jaworyzn contributes guitar doodling here and he's apparently no longer buddies with the rest of the band (he "left" shortly after this album), the chances of it being reissued anytime soon are, uh, real minimal. Which is too bad, because this crushes the piss out of practically everything else on earth. Of the four tracks, my favorite is the long and obnoxious "Slaves," in which the drummer pounds one heavy beat into the ground while the twin guitars of doom wail and fuzz and just basically disintegrate everything they touch in a fiery trail o' VAPOR. The high-tone ear damage of "Sunset" is pretty spiffy too, although nowhere near as earth-shaking as the opener (granted, "Slaves" is a pretty hard act to follow...). The side-long "Waves" is essentially similar in attack to "Slaves," only lengthier and cutting a kamikaze path from different angles, and is equally brilliant. Probably their definitive moment, and something you should grab if you ever see it....

Skullflower -- SHAKING OBSIDIAN CODEX [RRR Records]

More sonic brilliance. Five songs, over 73 minutes, plus the fold-out cover artwork (a charcoal drawing of a black sun presiding over a landscape of barren trees in a Hobbit-like land) is incredible. Possibly their best (and certainly one of the most consistent) release to date. As with most of their work, the best stuff comes later in the album. This time, after sitting through the semi-ambient washes of "Sir Bendalot" and "Circular Temple," things start getting noisier on "Crashing Silver Ghost Phallus," where chiming pastoral guitars get pasted to the wall by crunched-out avalanche distortion guitar early on. But nothing can prepare you for the incredible, massive drone of "Diamond Bullet." Over an unending bass drone, first the drums come in, then the chittering guitars, then looping guitars that squeal and whine, and it just keeps feeding on itself like a parasite weaned on feedback, yow, this is LOUD! Truly staggering. "Smoke Jaguar" is the other peak of brilliance here -- yet another slow burner, only this one's about 24 minutes long and takes its own sweet time about getting wherever the hell it is its going. Wind, drone, and rumble all combine to form a HUGE and majestic soundscape. If you're only going to own one Skullflower album (like such a thing is POSSIBLE!), then this should be the one....

Skullflower -- LAST SHOT AT HEAVEN (Noiseville)

Oooo... noisy noisy noisy.... From the first wave of feedback that kicks off "Caligula," the album quickly settles into a loud, wailing sea of feedback and shrieking guitar. This is another trio -- drums, guitar, bass -- that manages to sound totally immense, like Zeni Geva or A.N.P., actually leaning in the direction of a more focused and rhythmic version of the latter. Unlike those two bands, though, they're less interested in terrorizing you than holding your head underwater (metaphorically speaking, dammit, don't go thinking that this mighty band endorses drowning people) and forcing you to drown in a sea of fuzzy feedback noise.

It's also pretty much instrumental; if there's any real singing or lyrics on here anywhere, I certainly don't hear them. Instead, the songs are more about layers of sonic texture and waves of sound, usually anchored by brooding drums that pound away with slow, relentless precision. In fact, slow is another operative word here; while things never quite descend to the agonizing crawl of Coedine or Godflesh, these songs sure aren't fast. "Bad Alchemy" is probably the fastest thing on here, and it's just barely within the realm of mid-tempo. That's fine by me; besides, pure feedback-driven music doesn't really work beyond a certain speed....

So what separates the songs from each other? Not much, really. They all tend to be variations (but GOOD variations, natch) on the same theme -- get a happening beat going, then pile on layer after layer of feedback-drenched guitar and doom-fuzz bass. They could have just called the eight songs on here "Movement 1-8" with pretty much the same effect, actually; but song separation isn't the point here -- this isn't pop, dammit --the only reason the titles exist at all, probably, is because they sound cool, OK? (And they are really cool, too, as you can see above... damn, I'm rambling again.) Just ignore all that and drown in the sea o' noise; you'll be much happier.

It had to happen sooner or later, given their wildly indiscriminate outpouring of releases (do these guys ever sleep? eat? fuck? do anything but record 24 hours a day? seriously, since approximately 1990, between the main band and a half-dozen spinoffs, these guys have released no less than 22 CDs and LPs, and probably more, and that's not even including the endless spew of singles), but Skullflower have finally released an album that's... um... well... i'm about to commit heresy here... but it's... ah... kind of boring. (!) The problem here is everything is way too long; there are four songs that clock in at a total of almost eighty minutes, and each piece just goes on and on and on and on and on until you want to scream. Normally going on and on is their forte, but this time it all seems a bit more aimless... adrift... uninspiring. They make lots of nifty noises, true, but there's nothing happening here that hasn't been covered in earlier releases by Total or Ramleh or even their own albums, so i'm not sure what the POINT is. I dunno, maybe the acid was just bad that day or something... but the songs never work up any real head of steam. Instead, they just sit there like sullen, twinkly-sounding lumps of hissing ambient goo. By far the most low-key of Skullflower's output yet, to say the least. There are some really interesting sax and reed squeakings happening on "Argon IV," though... but it's not enough....

Aaaaaah, THIS is more like it. Catastrophic blasts of jagged white noise... guitars screaming from the rings of Saturn... the delicate sounds of sheet metal being ripped into halves, then quarters, then eights, then tiny bits of confetti-sized shrapnel... a sonic body bomb under construction that explodes in your face... i think i like this CD. This actually sounds a lot like their earliest stuff -- a return to form, perhaps? Whatever, it shrieks and howls and just basically makes one hell of a lot of racket. "The Idiotsburgh Address" is full of howling, lurching guitars trying to bend strings off the fretboard at a volume just under that of a Concorde landing on your house, and "White Fang" -- in which they don't just beat a riff to death but totally obliterate it -- may well be the loudest thing ever recorded. No amount of volume reduction will render those buzzing, roaring, hummingbirds-on-bad-speed guitars pretty or even listenable. No, even at low volume they're going to carve deep, bloody furrows in your skull. Over and over and over. Until you lie twitching on the floor, gasping from the painful cerebral hemhorrage. And look! There's MORE! Weird rotating Leslie cabinet droning on "Pixie Dust".... subsonic rumbling, filthy guitar whining and clattering tribal drums on "Abraxas"... ugly barking crap on "False Magic Kingdom"... and on "Blood Orange," something that actually approaches a real "song" (oooo, how scary!), albeit one with a lot of really intense drumming. (True to the Skullflower ethic of "how can we have run out of tracks for guitars ALREADY?", of course, the drums ARE mixed well below the six-stringed sonic filth....) SO... the brilliant suggestion from DEAD ANGEL is that for the spending-impaired, if you have to choose between this and ARGON because you can't afford both, go for this one, no contest. You can pick up ARGON when you win the lottery, ok?

Skullflower -- TRANSFORMER [Sympathy for the Record Industry]

Not quite the stunning return to form i'd hoped for (although what about INFINITYLAND? wasn't that enough? perhaps i'm being too hard... or perhaps it's because the standard they set with the first few releases make it tough to live up to), but certainly a lot better than the formless ARGON. Things start out in promising fashion with "The Lords of Increase," a short burst of aggression that sounds like a pure throwback to their CODEX-era mayhem; then "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Secs." comes on like... uh... something else. It's not bad, but it doesn't go anywhere; it' just power-riffing with mutated tremelo guitar in the background (and violas -- somewhere in there, not that i can actually tell). "Cut Loose 1 + 11" is kind of interesting, with ambient guitars, weird twanging noises, and other effluvia that makes it sound approximately like a spaghetti western on Mars, and "Golden Hair" takes a similar approach; both are all right, but it still sounds like the mighty Skullflower's in a bit of a holding pattern, eh?

Things start getting interesting again with the hornlike feedback of "Morning Dew," which is nicely augmented by reverbed guitars droning away like a psychadelic pastoral acid trip. This is good 'flower. They should do more of this.... "Cicada" wakes you back up with harsh, tinny guitar clattering, structurally almost like an over-EQued coda to "Morning Dew," an interesting idea. "Surf Creature" drops samples of a woman apparently on acid or the verge of orgasm into majestic guitar chords and intense, vibrating feedback in the background to good effect. Ah, if only the entire album where as brilliant as these three songs....

The CD also includes, incidentally, "Ponyland" and "Fake Revolt," from the SFTRI single of a while back. I've already rambled about these items in an earlier issue so i won't go into details here, but it's nice to have them here so i don't have to diddle with the scratching up the single, heh. And they still sound as good as they did the first time around....

Skullflower -- THIS IS SKULLFLOWER.... [VHF Records]

Gak! Skullflower... have gone LOUNGE! They took a left turn and ended up in the Cocktail Nation! I yi yi! Well, not REALLY... although it certainly sounds that way at times on this, their latest offering. This is their most mellow disc yet, one that relies more on psychadelic noodling than sheer gut blowout noise terrorism. The aptly-named "Lounge" opens with a rotating drone of low-key feedback accompanied by guitars and other instruments doing strange things, like a lounge jazz band after many shots of Absolut. The volume knob remains down on "Creaky Rigging" as well, and while it climbs up a bit on "Glider" -- where the strumming and chiming is also augmented by the occasional burst of low-end feedback and hum -- it never really pins out there, either. There IS plenty of catastrophic guitar wailing and hollowed-out percussion on "The Pirate Ship of Reality is Moving Out," though. Not to mention Richard Young on guitar instead of Matthew Bower (he must have stepped out for a smoke). An interesting change of pace from their usual primate grunting, even if i DO prefer it when they sound more like they're destroying their instruments. Still, this almost sounds like they're trying to become Flying Saucer Attack now that said fine group has broken up. Then again, i could be full of shit. (Don't anybody get helpful now and CONFIRM that or anything... some things are better left as MYSTERIES....)

Skullflower --"Avalanche / Rift" [Majora]

YES, DAMMIT! MORE SKULLFLOWER! I know you hate them by now since EVERY SINGLE ISSUE of DEAD ANGEL has featured at least one review by Skullflower or one of their 3,734,196 spinoff bands, but i have no CHOICE -- they're holding a gun to my girlfriend's head and forcing me to say nice things about them! I can't help it! SOCIETY MADE ME THIS WAY! Do think I'd WILLINGLY spend my every cent on these things if i weren't COMPELLED by forces beyond my control? It's not my fault! I can't help it! MERV GRIFFIN IS TO BLAME! The headless sno-cone girl begged me not to review this -- she WEPT, writhing on the floor, gnashing at my ankle (which was wet because it rained today and i got caught out in the rain, of course; it always rains when i have to go to the bank at lunch) -- wailing, "Please, no, have pity on them! No one can afford to buy all these discs, except for that one other guy in the Western Hemisphere who collects all this Skullflower-related junk even more obsessively than you (hi Mason!), so spare them this one time! Please! Do it FOR ME!" But I shook her loose as she continued to wail (try to not to wonder how a headless person wails) and ignored her entreaties, for the fate of nations are at stake! The world must know about Skullflower! All must revere the Band That Would Be Kings of Fuzz! People must be informed that soon it will be a CRIME not to buy and own and cherish anything with the word "Skullflower" on it, anything, anything at all, even badly-made Kewpie dolls whose crappy plastic hair falls out when you set them on fire, with The Magic Word stenciled on their cheap plastic feet! To buy Skullflower-related product is to suck the life from Oprah Winfrey one bloated cell at a time, so for this reason ALONE we must acquire everything they've ever released (and it would explain why there's so MUCH of it, since Oprah has a lot of cells to disperse to The Great Seven-Bladed Windbreaker of Time and Space). (I know this makes no sense, but a flaming wheel of fire appeared to me in a dream and told me it was so, so of course i believe it. Aren't you glad the flaming wheel of fire didn't tell me to put battery acid in your Slushee?)

So anyway, this is one of the early 7" releases and it's loud and pounding and full of squealy noises and you should buy it and if you don't yet grasp why then you haven't been paying attention. The End. Thank you.

Skullflower -- "Slaves / Satan My Black Ass, Steve Albini = Jim Steinman" [Forced Exposure]

More white noise guitar skronk from... YES... these guys again. The a-side "Slaves" is your basic military-type beat (courtesy of a clunky-sounding kit) over which sheets of painful white shrieks of guitar sewage have been "kindly" grafted; the flip side is a variation on more of the same. Not bad, but hardly essential... mostly for the collector only, unless you've never heard the band (WHAT?!?!?!) and have a couple of bucks to blow, in which this serves well as a cheap introduction to the 'flowery school of sonic filth.

Skullflower -- "Bad Alchemy / Blues for H. M." [Dying Earth]

Hark! What is it, then, the sound that cleaves thy skull in two? Be it the sound of angels farting? Perhaps it is the sound of loop pedals being slowly disemboweled and thrown in deep water while cavemen beat on the walls with dinosaur bones? No, it must be "Bad Alchemy"... the lead purge o' heaviness from this (old) single from 1992. As for the other song (named for spaced-out serial killer Herb Mullin -- what's with these guys and Whitehouse and their serial killer fixation, anyway?), it's mostly lots of ugly skronking noises. File this under early Skullflower, in their primal period, then... not absolutely essential but intriguing nonetheless....

Skullflower / MTT -- "Evil Twin / Come In" [Minus Habens]

It burns like the bloated night. Night falls into the ripened ocean. Ocean of sound, waves of fury. Fury is the word for the scraping guitars. Guitars that stun, roar, and burn. "Burn!" screamed the galloping drums as they shattered the windows. Windows into the dripping soul of black filth. Filth and decadence writ large in the hands of a prophet made of stone. Stone walls cannot contain this thundering wall of sound. Sound is a weapon and the flower is buried deep inside Matthew Bower's skull. Skull and bones and flesh and meat, rotting in the unblinking eye of the sun. Sun rises, sun falls, guitars cascade in jagged waves, overdriven guitars explode like overheated shrapnel, calling the blood to come forth, calling the blood to come forth, i set out to ride the horse into hell and came back with a gnawed femur ripped from the socket of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Kennedy would shit her pants in front of God and everybody right in the middle of ALTERNATIVE NATION if someone played this for her. Her head would explode like a melon beneath a hammer. Hammer of the gods called forth by the drums, sheets of metal bent into action by wailing guitars, furious wild scribbling like twins bathed in the scent of evil. Evil twin. Twin evil. Evil twin. Twin evil. Evil Twin.

[pause]

"Um... mon, have you started smoking dope again, or did you just find some leftover pills rattling in a bottle somewhere around the house?"

Cut. CUT! That's a wrap.... (fade to black)

Skullflower -- "Evel Knievel / Teenage Lightning / Diamond Bullet" [SFTRI]

Ah, a blast from the past... i didn't even know this existed until i stumbled across it by accident while looking for something else. Here we have the loud and sludgy side of the 'flower, especially on the first track, which is essentially a big, lumbering drumbeat with lots of heavily reverbed guitars going WAAAAH! and WEEEE! over the top while another guitar makes ugly skronking noises. Suitable for directing military maneuvers while under the influence of Thorazine (best bring your sunglasses). The second one might be the closest i've ever heard them come to doing a "rock" song; i can't decide if it was recorded live or just badly, but the drums have that big-hall feel while the guitars sound kind of crapped out. For this kind of stuff, though, that might actually make it BETTER.... "Diamond Bullet" sounds essentially like a wildly remixed version of the "Evil Knievel" with a lot more shrill fuzz in your face and a massive mosquito drone. Damned if i know what the vocals are, though; i get the feeling they're sampled from the something i ought to recognize, but then again, i ALWAYS think that about samples, so one never knows.

Skullflower -- "Village Sorting" [Self Abuse Records]

This is more like the old Skullflower that made its reputation on pure scary fried-amp domination, buddy. Quaking guitars, hornlike guitars, guitars soaked in feedback, guitars dripping blood, blown speakers, coaxial cables catching on fire, gladiators with raw meat dripping from their jaws overrun the tiny village and burn it flat, violence hangs in the air like the tiny blackbird of doom... a relentless, thudding drum beats like the throbbing vein in a sociopath's withered skull... bright shards of guitar rot burst through the violence every so often, accompanied by squeals for help... but still Superman fails to come... all is lost... the napalmed children wail naked in the streets as their village burns behind them, bodies piled in the street like steaming dog waste... the main street lined with poles, each carrying a severed head on the point... from the distance the natives see the carnage and flee, lest the scourge fall upon them as well... feedback lassos in the few that try to run... a river of intestines runs down the hill in great sheets of blood... the village burns... and burns... and burns.... Skullflower rises to the sky like knights in armor to the blinding light of the heathen sky... still the record spins... and it is... WORTHY....

Skullflower -- "White Fang # 2 / Glassy Essence" [Freek Records]

Blood! Fear! Loathing! Death! Tacos! Hell! Screaming! Loud! Guitars! And! Hellish! Drums! I! I! I! Burn like the snake! Moan like the toad! The tiny lights of hemoglobin congeal beneath the lamp that smokes shrouded in vapor! WHUNG WHUNG WHUNG goeth the mighty flake guitar! POUND POUND POUND goeth the mighty leaping drums! Your blood boils like overheated mercury in the scrotal sac of the alien interceptor! Set phasers on immolate and twitch like the hanging man! The tarot card reads death, the spine it will shatter, that sound you hear in the distance is the rattle of the baby skull in the glass jar made of fused sand scooped from the craters of Hiroshima! Words are not enough! Words are not enough! Words are not enough! To describe! The hellish! Mountains! Of distortion! The rapture of the shattered drumstick snapping like Mariah Carey's wet and lifeless spine across the steel rim of a frozen drumhead! The ice queen cometh, she moans as she does, the bed buckles beneath her weight, SHE HAS NO TAMPONS! She is the white fang, she owns the glassy essence, the flower buried deep inside her screaming skull is a black orchid and its taste is bitter! The shame! The shame! The shame! Moloch! Moloch! Moloch! I'm with you in Detroit! I'm with you in London! I'm with you in Poughkeepsie! I'm with you in Bumfuck! I'm with you in Truth or Consequences! I'm with you in Stratford-Upon-trot- Evandale's-Bleeding-Asshole! I'm with you when the sun falls from the sky! I'm with you when the moon spits in the sun! I'm with you when light bulbs are on sale three for a dollar! I'm with you when Skullflower gets around to putting out a new goddamn fucking slab of white-hot shit so I don't have to make up stupid bullshit about a single that nearly two years old! Moloch! Moloch! Moloch! (etc., etc. etc.)

Skullflower -- "Total" [Vinyl Communications]

Hmmmm, what have we here but what sounds like a return to old-school Skullflower. Interesting. Most interesting indeed. The a-side (at least i'm assuming it's the a-side; the record itself has a blank label on both sides and you kind of have to figure it out by the groove markings) is a prime chunk of mid-tempo drone straight out of "Diamond Bullet," with lots of squealing in the background like pigs being stuck with knives and thrown over a cliff. You can just hear their squeals faaaaaaaaade away as they fall one by one.... The flip side sounds more like an outtake from Total's EXPLODED STAR SAD SERVANT -- lots of high-pitched shrieking, elephantine roaring, and just plain guitar junk weirdness happening while something (i'm not sure what) thumps around like a man in a box trying to work his way out. This certainly beats the hell out of anything on ARGON. These results, incidentally, were obtained by playing said record at 33-1/3 RPM, admittedly an arbitrary choice, since there's no playing info included; i suppose eventually when i'm bored enough i'll play it at 45 and see what THAT sounds like....

Slap Happy Humphrey -- s/t [Public Bath]

This is a cool idea -- a "concept" album paying tribute to a Japanese singer nobody in America has ever heard of (Morita Doji, in case you were wondering) by doing quasi-noisy covers of her songs. Apparently Doji is a mondo huge influence upon the vocal style of Mineko Itakura, lead vocalist of Angel'in Heavy Syrup, so it only makes sense that Jojo Hiroshige (noise guitarist, Alchemy Records honcho, and Angel'in Heavy Syrup producer) got the hots to do this gig, he called her in.

By now anybody who's been reading DEAD ANGEL for any length of time knows where this headed since i've now mentioned Mineko and Angel'in Heavy Syrup, but it must be said: this album is godlike. We're talking required listening. Mineko is (brace yourself, i'm going to make a bold statement here) the greatest female singer on the planet, bar none, i don't care what other singers exist, NONE are as celestial as Mineko (there, i've said it and I'M NOT ASHAMED, DAMMIT), so of course anything she lends her vox to is automatically BLESSED. As it happens, having Jojo on board certainly doesn't hurt either, and Fujiwara plays some really stunning acoustic guitar and violin too, so she's backed with class....

So here's the setup: The songs are basically acoustic ballads graced by Mineko's gorgeous voice, and great songs at that, but -- and this is key -- periodically Jojo swoops down with catastrophic noise guitar and just flat out OBLITERATES everything in his path for, um, no real good reason at all. The first couple of times you listen to it, the effect is incredibly jarring; on repeated listening, though, it becomes a brilliant counterpoint to the quieter textures. Leave it to Jojo to weld folk and noise together and actually SUCCEED. And fortunately for YOU, the listener just waiting to be hypnotized by this circular slab o' greatness, Alchemy Records in Japan has farmed it out to Public Bath here in the states, so it is available domestically! Will wonders never cease! It is as if manna falls from the heavens! Truly! Really! You must BELIEVE!

This is actually one-half of a set; I and II normally come together in a handpainted VHS box with a sixteen-page booklet. For various reasons, i only have the first half available at the moment (perhaps the other half will find its way into the reviews later), but that will do for the moment. Essentially a collaboration between Macronympha and David Gilden (of Houston, Tejas -- has Tejas suddenly become the new noise capital of the the Land of the Free and the Brave or what?), featuring fucked-up, psychotic guitar riffing over Macronympha's trademark bed of rumbling noise filth. Of course, the guitars aren't always exactly recognizable as guitars (not ones made on this planet, anyway), and are sometimes drowned out by the sheer painful earhate, but they get the point across... namely, that they are secretly agents of Telex who want to damage your hearing so you'll be forced to buy one of Telex's fine (and expensive) hearing aids! Hah! The guitars shriek and radiate a lot more here than on straight Macronympha releases -- the efforts of David Gilden, perhaps? It's hard to tell. Still, the results are impressively intense, and come in cryptic, fragmented bursts with pauses in-between that are just long enough to allow your ears to twitch a bit before being mauled into submission again. I'll bet the second volume is every bit as nerve-damaging, too... plus the booklet's probably stuffed full of grotesque, antisocial behavior. More sick thrills in the slaughterhouse....

American knows how to do box sets right, and so does Slayer. This actually comes in two versions: the "economy" version reviewed here (three cds and a DVD in a deluxe gatefold digipak with a lengthy, if not always completely readable, full-color booklet elaborating in great detail the band's rise to greatness), and a "deluxe" version that comes in a giant ammo box and includes various geegaws, a bigger booklet, and another disc (a second DVD, I think). The packaging is really well-done, the song selection is pretty sharp given how many albums they have to choose from, and the extras are pretty impressive. If you've never dared to embrace Slayer's manic and thunderous brand of sonic hate, this is a good place to start.

The first two discs provide the highlights of the band's post-Metal Blade career (although they manage to sneak in some nods to that era in the live tracks and elsewhere): Five tracks each from REIGN IN BLOOD, SOUTH OF HEAVEN, and SEASONS IN THE ABYSS; three live tracks (all early songs, too) from DECADE OF AGGRESSION; five songs from DIVINE INTERVENTION; then three songs each from UNDISPUTED ATTITUDE, DIABOLUS IN MUSICA, and GOD HATES US ALL. Not enough for you? Then it's a good thing they threw in a bunch of obscure b-sides, Japanese import tracks, and soundtrack appearances to make you happy. There are 40 songs on these two discs, and they're all highly disciplined exercises in violent, churning heaviness. Even the b-sides and extra tracks tacked onto the Japanese releases are obscenely rude and obnoxious.

But wait! There's more! The third disc is subtitled "Shit You've Never Heard," and they're not kidding. The band dug through their archives and came up with an interesting mix of 17 demo cuts, obscure live appearances, and other oddities. Highlights include a speedy run-through of "The Antichrist" in Tom's garage (12/83) that makes it real clear how indebted they were to Judas Priest back then, a live 1985 performance of "Necrophiliac" featuring a grotesque intro from Tom referencing Mentor's filth-purveyor Il Duce, a rough studio version of "Piece by Piece" that includes the original bass intro, Hanneman's early homegrown demo (with drum machine!) of "Raining Blood", a savage live version of "Mandatory Suicide" from the same Michigan show referenced on the DVD, a bizarre live collaboration with Atari Teenage Riot ("No Remorse / I Want To Die"), and a swell, menacing live version of "Bloodline" from Sweden in 2002. The rest of the tracks are band-picked live renditions of key tracks like "Sex, Murder, Art," "Seasons in the Abyss," "Raining Blood," "Angel of Death," and others.

And that brings us to the DVD, subtitled "Shit You've Never Seen," and its 17 examples of video obscurity. Most of it is live footage (bootleg and otherwise) of early (1983-86) shows; the rest is a smattering of particularly hefty performances from 1991-2003, including a synapse-shattering live rendition of "Bloodline" on ESPN, footage of the band receiving the "Heaviest Band Award" from KERRANG! in 1996, and the electronic press kit for DIABOLUS IN MUSICA. It's really instructive to see the early shows, where they look just like Judas Priest's rhythm section fronted by the bastard son of Gene Simmons and you can't even see Lombardo behind a monster drum kit. The four songs taken from a 1983 set in California are from a crappy-looking bootleg video whose garbage-compactor sound is about what you'd expect, but it sounds plenty intense and it provides visual evidence (in the form of the wall of Marshall cabinets) that the band understood the importance of volume from the word go. The three tracks, all from REIGN IN BLOOD, taken from a 1986 show in New York are of much better visual quality, and the band plays everything a such a supersonic speed that they look like long-haired hummingbirds beating their wings frantically in a vain attempt to explode. Bonus points for the surly bouncers guarding the stage , one of whom apparently ends up with a broken nose while policing the pit. The three songs from the Michigan show in 1991 feature excellent video and sometimes iffy sound, plus lots of boss closeups to show how much stamina it takes to be Slayer. The DVD is a must-have, especially for the "Bloodline" performance.

Bottom line: If you're down with Slayer, you need this. Period. And you should probably get the big box, if you can afford it... I'm already kind of wishing I had....

I'm puzzled. I don't understand why all the reviews of this i've read so far whine so much about how "tame" it is, particularly by comparison to their previous slab o' jumpiness, DIG ME OUT. Frankly, i think this is a hell of a record and mondo better than their previous one. Sure, they actually all play at the same time and stay in tune and sound like an actual band instead of a bunch o' girls jumping about in a frenzy, but frankly, mon, i think that's a good thing. One of the things i never liked about the entire Riot Grrl movement was that they placed improper emphasis on sloganeering over actually being able to play your goddamn instruments. Sleater-Kinney can play their instruments. I approve. I like. And really, this album rocks like a pee dog; i fail to see how anyone could have a problem with it. Guess critics are just weird....

If you're not already clued in to the SK sound, here's how it works: they gots one semi-jazzy (sorta) drummer, Janet Weiss, mon, she be layin' down beats while the other two women jump around playing alternately spiky or full-throttle guitar. They don't have a bass player -- they don't need no stinkin' bass player, dude, they're fucking Sleater-Kinney -- and while they peel off wiggly corkscrew riffs, the two guitarists try to shout either down with wildly different vocal styles. That's SK's main hallmark, actually; while Carrie Brownstein coos in the usual standard-issue girly style, Corin Tucker makes like an air raid siren, yelping and wailing and wavering like a woman possessed. Some people find Corin's singing really off-putting, but that was the first thing that appealed to me, perversely enough (the second thing were the guitars -- i like it when they get spiky and then the roar like jet engines on takeoff; reminds me of Shiva Speedway, who, now that i think of it, are also another all-female power trio who don't need a stinkin' bassist). One of their most unique trademarks is the business of both singers simultaneously singing two totally different things, as if taking different sides on the subject of whatever the song is about -- the best example would be on Burn, Don't Freeze!"

Stylistically, they're pretty diverse, particularly for a band that gets lumped in with the now-dwindling Riot Grrl movement. Stuff like "Start Together," "Burn, Don't Freeze!," and "Get Up" just rock like crazed bastards, all jumpy humpty rhythms and jagged guitars crashing in all directions (but in a controlled manner, mon; that may be why the critics are all whining, but fuck 'em) while Carrie and Corin do battle on the mikes. But then lower key stuff like "Don't Talk Like" and "Hot Rock" manage to fuse a weird syncopated jazz-lite feel with straight-ahead pop. And then there's morbid creep-fests like "The Size of Our Love," apparently about dying in a hospital room and equally cheery sentiments, powered by a lurching king-o-reverb riff and drums that eventually creep into the picture... not to mention the swinging weeper "Quarter to Three," coming on like souped-up torch jazz. I don't care what the critics say, there's nothing on DIG ME OUT anywhere near as riveting as these two songs, and the swank part is that there's half a dozen songs almost as swell and the entire thing rocks. You must own it.

[THE SCENE: A big, drafty boardroom in the big, big building that is home of Arista Records. Louise Wener, the charmingly English warbler for the band Sleeper, latest in an apparently endless wave of female-fronted poppunk bands leaking out of Europe like barrels of radioactive waste, is surrounded by lots of fat cats in pinstripe suits. The label that once tried to sign Big Black, original home of such visionaries as Linda Rondstadt and the Eagles, is trying to figure out how to market an "alternative" band. Let us listen in as the fun begins....]

CAT # 1: Louise, we like you and the boys have done with this album. We really like the way you put that line in "Swallow," by the way -- singing "He comes / She swallows," but warbling so histronically that no one can tell what you're really saying! Brilliant! We can push the "controversial lyric" angle and still get it played on the radio!

LOUISE: It was nothing, really.

CAT # 2: And that stuff in "Alice in Vain" -- "I hurt myself / I hurt my Alice in Vain" -- that's great too. Really deep, really meaningful. You're going to be a star, Louise!

LOUISE: Well, that would be nice... but what do you think about the music?

CAT # 1: We like it. Catchy, catchy, catchy -- the magic word! And the songs are short, just the way songs ought to be. Very tasteful, that guitar playing, uh, what's the guitar player's name again?

LOUISE: I'm the guitar player, you dolt. And Jon Stewart.

CAT # 3: Doesn't he have a TV show?

LOUISE: Um... I believe you're thinking of a different Jon Stewart.

CAT # 1: Anyway, like I was saying, we like the way you're combining that new-wave retro thing with this girl-group vibe... like if the Knack were women! It's a moment whose time has come. Look at Elastica....

CAT # 2: Well, I think Elastica's kind of overrated, actually.

CAT # 3: But I sure wish we had their album on our label.... Think of the sales! Did you see their singer on the cover of DETAILS? Louise, you're in the fashion section of that issue too, aren't you? I like to think that says something about a band, when they'll pose in expensive clothes in a trendy magazine in the name of promotion. That's the sign of a band that's going places, all right!

LOUISE: Well... right, I suppose. So what are you doing about promotion, anyway?

CAT # 1: Oh, you'll love this. This is brilliant. We're pressing up these little giveaway cassettes with six songs on them, five from the album and one from the "Vegas" CD-single, "It's Wrong Of You To Breed." But get this -- we're only going to put PART of the songs on there! You listen to it, and about halfway through the song fades out! If you want to hear the whole thing, you HAVE to go buy the album! And if you like "...Breed," the best thing on there, you have to pop for the "Vegas" CD-single! Isn't that clever?

LOUISE: Um... won't that really annoy people? Especially when they buy the album and it doesn't have "...Breed"?

CAT # 2: Trust us, it's great marketing.

LOUISE: Sounds bloody daft if you ask me.

[The meeting deteriorates into a shouting match; Louise stomps out in a huff, certain that Arista is going to kill her band; meanwhile, in the vast wheat fields of middle America in the shopping malls, zombified consumers buy the album -- not bad in its own right -- in droves....]

The title's appropriate indeed; the kitchen sink is where it sounds like it was recorded. (Not surprising, since it's a demo....) I can't tell a damn thing either of the two singers (they take turns) are saying, but that's okay; this is METAL dammit, the words aren't the key, the GUITARS are! Hah! And the guitars are nice and chunky, thank you. The stop and start, chunked-out guitars are the only holdover from "traditional" metal; the rest of their sound is defined by two loopy singers and a drum machine, so between their peculiar aesthetic and the production limitations, they end up sounding like a sick, sick combination of early Metallica and Throbbing Gristle with Godflesh's drum machine after doubling its clock speed. This... is a good thing. Or at the very least, a DIFFERENT thing, which is always an improvement in this genre. They also employ a lot of samples and weird noises (especially on "Timeshare") They also get bonus points for adopting as a logo not some tired, lame, "shocking" visual aimed at controversy but achieving yawns instead, but a cartoon bunny from a children's book. Finally, a little bit of imagination in this genre....

More madness from the contemplaters of the Uberfish (or the Cheesefish, to be more accurate), this time with somewhat improved sound, particularly in regard to the vocals. "Bingo" features the same trademark spasms of chug-chug guitar, but with an interesting circular lead sound on top of the avalanche; "Better Be Good" sounds like what might happen if the Monty Python weirdos had decided to play thrash metal (in other words, loopy and loud). "Plod" is pretty straight-ahead lurch riffing, but "Irrelevant Steps" steps on the gas and speeds things back up again, with much crazed riffing and twisted, heavy beats. "Cheesefish" is even faster yet, and "User Friendly" is positively obnoxious in both speed and heaviness. I can only imagine how intense they'll sound when they finally get to the point of being able to do a CD and record on a studio system that will do their fat, crazed sound justice.

When I popped this disc in the player for the first time I did a double-take. The album opener "Wishman" starts with a bit of what sounds at first like a synthesizer. Then you realize that it's really a guitar. The guitar is so fuzzy and tuned so low that it sounds like a fucking synth! Now that's a guitar sound! OK, so you're probably thinking... "So they have a great guitar sound going. Whatever. Neddal's probably some sort of easily amused guitar geek or something...." Well, there is more to Sloth than a great guitar sound. They have put together a record that filters Black Sabbath's MASTER OF REALITY and VOLUME 4 through an Electric Wizard prism. That may sound a bit redundant on paper (or on the screen), but in practice it's great. Sloth have produced a record that manages to be completely retro while sounding amazingly fresh. They've also managed to make a record with four songs over nine minutes in length that never feels like it's dragging. That's an impressive feat in itself. [n.a.]

Disturbed garage psych from drunk Finns, by the sound of it -- but not too drunk to actually play their wheezing bass and guitar. Some of it makes me think of an even more devolved version of The Mike Gunn (the opening "Glockenspiel Kitty," for instance), and "Biology Class" wouldn't have been out of place coming from a Houston punk band a while back ago. "Pope/Poop" is pretty weird, though -- incorporated horribly flanged-out drum machine beats, tubby bass nooding, and aimlessly drifting squeaky guitars... i sense absolutely no mainstream appeal here, huzzah.... This is pretty lowbrow, lo-fi, fuzzed-out stuff too, something Eddie Flowers would probably approve of, and the sound... well, the sound is what you get when you smoke too much paint thinner and try playing. Some of it like "Puke On A Cop" is surprisingly catchy, though, in a garage-rock sorta way. "Sharpening the Knifes" is a pretty swell slice of fuzzy harmonic drone and disturbed clattering, and "Technically I Am Not A Man" begins in subdued fashion (against the backdrop of lovely amp hum) like a demented ballet that gradually grows more frenzied and odd-sounding. It may be weird, but it sounds deliberately and intentionally weird, not just the product of people making weird noises and waiting for something to happen. Recommended for all the dustheads.

I like this a lot -- in many ways it's a throwback to classic EBM from the era of Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, etc., but it also incorporates more current ideas about sampling, drones, and noise. The first track, "tooth extraction," could literally have appeared on an EBM compilation back then, but at the same time, doesn't sound dated at all. (This is also true of some other tracks like "e-head,""kranium," "poop from hell," and "tanum.") Get deeper into the disc, though, and the sound starts getting harsher and harder -- witness the blunt death-groove of "stress centre" with its distorted drums and overdriven keyboard riffs, or the sinister cut-up voices and truncated drones that kick off "collous brain." And if the droning intro to "lord of what" that abruptly segues into screaming and other sonic ugliness doesn't get your attention, nothing will. Other tracks like "jingle berry" sound like EBM filtered through trip-hop, a bizarre idea that makes a hell of a lot of sense in this context. Yet another release that bolsters my believe that most of the really interesting music happening right now is coming out on small CD-R labels. This is worth seeking out, and while i know next to nothing about the label itself, based on this it looks promising....

Frank Smith and Amy Clark -- [demo]

An extremely interesting tape has fallen into my hands... fractured sound collage rumbling, like distorted fragments pieced together by hand with a dull razor from the tape shavings of a party held by Gerogerigegege, Nurse With Wound, and the Hafler Trio... strange and oddly compelling stuff indeed. The two artists in question are Boston residents (what is it with Boston, anyway? Boston, Boston, Boston... lately all roads lead to Boston; probably some omen in regard to DEAD ANGEL's impending marriage) have pieced together an interesting assortment of sounds here. "The School of Velocity" is the most interesting -- a long, three-part "meditation" on Amelia Earhart and the role of technology in today's society (the Unabomber would probably find this interesting). Purloined sound sources include an Earhart documentary, portions of Czerny's piano piece "The School of Velocity," bird sounds, and unidentifiable eerie stuff. This is an extremely strong piece, with well-structured composition and repeating motifs running throughout all three parts.

"The Fall of Rome" is a bit more, uh, "traditional" -- falling somewhere between techno and industrial with weird coiled-spring noises, a thumping beat, and bizarre dialogue from a woman worrying about just what her boyfriend is doing in a bathroom in Rome (apparently giving blowjobs, as it turns out). Other commentary comes from the pope and a gay porn video, which makes for an interesting mix, don't you think?

The last piece, "We Are Different," focuses on the dangers of self- obsession; it samples heavily from quotations provided by a preacher and a serial killer and is considerably more "industrial" in sound and structure than the other two pieces. Like the other two, it is extremely powerful and well-thought out. It's too bad that this isn't actually available on CD to a larger public, for it's every bit and good and interesting -- maybe more so -- than most of what passes for "industrial" at the moment. At the moment, though, the tape is available solely from the duo themselves, who rarely perform live, thus making them (undeservedly) more obscure....

Frank Smith -- SCHIZOID RHOMBOID [demo]

Sappho's Fist has gone the way of toasters designed in wind tunnels, alas... but Frank Smith, head sonic deconstructionist behind that duo, is still around. Judging from this two-song demo, he's moved away from strictly avant art-collage into a potentially more interesting niche: combining noise, collage, and found sound with techno. The first track, "bulbous body with 8 arms," lives up to its title by grafting weird noise loops, scratchy sounds, bell-chimes, and other disorienting sonic effluvia onto a thumping techno drum track. The sounds spin out in all directions at once, with more stuff to hear on repeated listens... most promising. The other track, boasting the amusing title "your kung fu is inferior to mine," opens with a minimalistic but thumping drum track offset by a stuttering loop (a broken keyboard? a skipping record? who knows?); as the track progresses, various other stuff creeps in, from mournful flute loops, backwards scratching, and ominous bass throb. The results are somewhere in the ballpark of what Takako Minekawa's up to lately, only less synth-happy and not as frantic. (Plus, of course, no vox. Apparently Frank has decided against vox for the moment.) The results are hypnotically grooving, although i'm not sure it's fast enough to get the pierced-bellybuttom children out of their seats and onto the dance floor. Besides, even though this is practically crass commercialism for Frank (at least, compared to his wildly bizarre work in Sappho's Fist and Vox Barbara), it's still weird enough to be off-putting to some techno enthusiasts. Their loss, though.

This is either the most brilliant, or most deranged, idea to waddle down the pike in some time, depending on where you stand: taking old folk-blues standards and arranging them as ambient-techno tunes. I side with brilliant, mainly due to the cooler-than-ice-cubes vocal delivery of singer Anna Domino. Now, i'm not talking about traditional techno with slamming beats and lots o' frippery noises; that would be truly obnoxious. No, the duo (her husband Michel Delory fills in on all the stuff she doesn't do; they have help here and there from a few studio pals) keep the beats spare, the sound spacious, and mainly invoke the techno mantle through the feel of the machines and the strategically-placed inclusion of odd sounds. Most of the backing instruments, however, are from the folk idiom (guitar, dobro, banjo, etc.), with a few saxes borrowed from cool jazz. There's a lot o' slinkness radiating from the grooves; i'm betting Ennio Morricone is a big influence, among other things.

The best thing to like, from my perspective -- outside of the phenomenal songwriting sensibility -- is the fact that the carefully-chosen songs are all exquisitely morose; fully seven of the ten songs here revolve around characters who die, and the other three are shame and lonliness. Okay, so it's not a party album. It's still an eerie experience to hear thoroughly modern versions of "Frankie and Johnny," "This Train That I Ride" (a variant of what Peter, Paul and Mary popularized as "500 Miles"), "John Henry," and "Tom Dooley." The other songs are wise choices as well: the opening "St. James," which introduces the album with the cheerful lines "I went down to Saint James infirmary/ To see my baby there/ She was stretched out on a long white table/ So pale, so cold, so fair," is one of the creepiest things ever cross the air, and "Rising Sun" is just an epic swell of self-pity so grandiose it deserves to be heard at least once by everyone in the world. It's interesting to hear "Laredo," clearly the inspiration for Marty Robbins' phenomenal hit song "El Paso," and stuff like "Black Girl" and "Pretty Horses" are swell creepfests as well. And after hearing "Banks of the Ohio," i'm about eighty percent convinced that was the inspiration for Neil Young's "Down by the River." So there's a sense of history unfolding here, made even more interesting if you've ever heard earlier variants of these songs and suddenly realize how much folk songs are unlike pop songs -- they change and mutate as they're passed down from one generation to the next, with bits being added as others are discarded, yet always retaining a recognizable core. This very malleable format makes them ideally suited for updated tinkering in modern fashion.

Let there be no mistake, though -- this is definitely not a novelty album. The duo's arranging skills border on the genuinely scary; they know exactly when to bring in and subtract new musical elements to accent the lyrics (delivered by Anna Domino in gorgeous ice-queen fashion), and the music itself is never less than stellar in its imagination and execution. If the Golden Palominos made folk albums they would sound like this. Possibly the most unique album of the year, and amazingly listenable. I await the next one. Hurry! Hurry!

Snyder / Thompson -- DAILY DANCE [New Frontiers/Warm-O-Brisk]

This is an interesting reissue... originally recorded by Doug Snyder and Bob Thompson (probably while hopped on equal doses of drugs and Stooges records, a dangerous combination to be sure) in 1972, this was originally available on the Frontiers label and has now been out of print for the past fifteen years. The historical aspect of this recording is pretty straightforward -- Doug Snyder, largely as a result of this crazed album, later went on to become a member of NYC's avant weirdasses Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, whose members also happened to include Donald Miller (Borbetomagus, Lhasa Cement Plant, Miller/Schumaker), and since somebody in that bunch is apparently responsible for the label on which this has been reissued, ergo, it all falls into place, doesn't it?

So anyway, listening to this disc is a weird experience, especially in light of when it was originally released and how well it fits in with current noise-making practices; it's hard to believe this was actually recorded before Nixon was ousted from the White House. The sound on this disc is obviously influenced by the likes of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, maybe even the MC5, but it also points toward free-jazz/avant-noise practitioners like of more recent vintage like Skullflower, Fushitsusha, and William Hooker. It's certainly noisy enough -- a lot of it sounds like guitars being blown off a rumbling subway track -- and it amuses me greatly to wonder what it must have sounded like to people back when hippies were still taken seriously. (It does seem to have been rather forward-thinking of CREEM's Richard Riegel to have given it high praise back in 1977, though, which may be why they've reprinted his flattering commentary on the back of the disc tray.)

Musically, chaos is the order of the day -- lots of hyperkinetic drumming, thick guitar hum followed by crazed flailing, el distorto del rancho grande, you get the idea. The drumming (courtesy o' Thompson) is beyond power-mad, although it rarely leads the way; most of the time, as on "Living With the Crocodiles," mutant guitar noises and almost random string-knashing set up the structure before the drums eventually come in and crush everything in their path. (Actually, to be more accurate, "Crocodiles" is entirely guitar noises... but it leads immediately into "Time Overlaps Itself," which is filled with plenty o' power thumping.) And it's really interesting to hear "Soul and Universe," because the drum sound and guitar tone at the beginning are very much reminiscent of NIN's "eraser," which makes me wonder if Trent Reznor has heard this album. Of course, it almost immediately degenerates in chittering feedback and sporadic, guess-that-beat drumming more in line with Ascension, but the initial similarities are striking. For that matter, "Hit and Run" clearly points the way to early Skullflower, and i don't have any problem believing that Matthew Bower's heard this album in its original version. So already it's pretty clear that the album has been influential.... Definitely intriguing.

Society Gang Rape -- s/t [Sound Pollution]

Do they listen to the Dwarves in Sweden? They MUST, for this CD speeds through eight songs in about twelve minutes. If you get up to take a leak, when you come back the thing will be OVER already.... However, since i've never actually heard the Dwarves, i can't say if this band listens to them or not. I CAN say that they must have an extensive collection of thrash and speed-metal albums in their shelves at home (or, more likely, scattered across the floor and buried beneath piles of weeks-old dirty clothes). The group's main claim to "fame" is that such vicious, hardcore filth is played by GIRLS! (Excuse me, women -- although from how young they look, girls is actually probably more appropriate here.) Well, they have a guy drummer, but otherwise they're all of the female persuasion and they look real grungy and they play really fast and loud and their singer sounds like she just swallowed a basket full of razors that soaked overnight in a foul mixture of Drano and gasoline. Light a match next to her mike and she'll probably explode!

So... is it any GOOD? The answer is: Sort of. If you like crunchy thrash- metal with a severe death/mutilation/political bent, then yah, it rocks, dude. But there's nothing especially groundbreaking or outstanding about it either, so if you're looking for that then you've come to the wrong place. And as for the lyrics... well, no one can tell what the hell she's saying so we have to look at the lyric insert... uhhhhh... let's see.... "I know you betray me / Don't try to make me / Believe all of your lies".... "Discriminate / Disintegrate / Enemy state is the aim for you".... "I don't wanna be here / You tourture my body / The pain is severe / You're killing my soul".... Did I say they must be listening to the Dwarves or Kreator or something? Excuse me, I really meant to say they've been listening to Lewd. But on a really fast phonograph. Hmmm.... dunno... and they lose bonus points for the banal and obligatory PETA photo of an innocent li'l bunny gouged in the name of science. Zzzzz. I'll bet they totally crush live, though. They probably measure gigs by the number of broken limbs in the audience afterwards. But i think i'll stick with music that moves at a bit slower speed, thanks....

This is one of those records that is so good it's depressing. For those of you not familiar with Solace, they are a New Jersey band that play a mixture of doom, rock, punk, and heavy metal. While there are many bands treading similar ground, Solace set themselves apart by filtering out all the bullshit and taking only the best elements of each genre. What this means is that you get a band who are great players without being wankers, who are raw and intense but not sloppy, and whose riffs are thick as molasses but not turgid.

On 13, their second record, they've refined their sound even further. Guitarist Tommy Southard, always a great player, has outdone himself. Riffs fold seamlessly into solos and back into themselves again. Vocalist Jason sounds like he's trying to tear his way through your speakers and the rhythm section of Rob Holtz and John Proveaux pound along mercilessly. Add in a guest shot from Wino (ex-Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, currently of Hidden Hand) on a few songs and you have an almost-perfect record. [n/a]

Solarized's debut disc, NEANDERTHAL SPEEDWAY, was a good if heavily Monster Magnet-derived record. (Although it has to be said that it was hard to hold their Monster Magnetness against them -- Solarized are from the same area of New Jersey as M.M. and some members had played in a pre-Maget band called Daisycutter.) On DRIVEN they've dropped almost all of the Monster Magnetisms. This is good. They also seem to have discovered Corrosion of Comformity's BLIND. This is also good. They also seem to have picked up Metallica's LOAD and RELOAD. This is not so good.

What it all means is that while you have songs like "Meanspirit" which kick all kinds of ass, you also have songs like "Born of Fire," which bears a spiritual resemblance to Metallica's FUEL. These songs do not kick any ass. Luckily, the majority of the songs on this record are of the ass-kicking variety. [n/a]

I know next to nothing about this band, other than the fact that they're worshipped in stoner circles and Neddal seems to think they're pretty damn swank. After hearing this, i can see why -- they're heavier than a bulldozer dropped from the sky on your pointy head. On first listen (especially on the opening track "The Hunted" and "Losin' It") they strike me as a less fuzz-dependent, more structured answer to Electric Wizard, only with disembodied vocals and a groove that marches more than it swings. They're definitely enamored of stoner toys (wah-wah, giant stacks o' amps, big thumpin' drums, downtuned everything), and some of the songs like "I'm Gone" sound like an updated take on seventies heavy metal in the Sabbath vein. "Cold City Blues," with its lumbering fuzz bass and remorseless drumming, is one of the heaviest things i've ever heard ooze from my speakers, while "Tankard II" sounds much like Sleep with fewer riffs to keep track of and more "structure." The epitome of heaviness. I can only imagine the scary eardeath potential of seeing them live on a bill with Electric Wizard. Yow! This is the way i like my punishment (well, i could do with a wee less wah, but i have wah issues). Check out the swagger -- just make sure your speakers are reinforced first....

I know nothing of SOTE (outside of the fact that they're pretty fearless, going by the currently-unpopular political sentiment of the insert, a reprinting of Dena Al-Adeeb's harrowing poem "Veiled Oppressed Silenced"), but they're seriously down with glitch electronics. "XOXO" is pretty much nothing but hard, skeletal beats and glitch electronics for the counterpoint, nice in its minimalism; "Musick" is a much denser and grittier piece of work, with plenty of hard beats but also lots of grinding-gear glitch rhythms and various other additions. On the flip side they get their chopped-up krush groove on with a bit of help from their friends (Fatback on "Lovegong," Cherilenairin on "Scratch My Pain Away"). The sickness they put in motion on "Lovegong" is... um... both hideous and entrancing, like watching a madman slowly disembowel himself in a karoke bar. This is a seriously unhinged song, both in concept and execution. Fortunately for your sanity, it doesn't last too long -- most of side two is taken up by their collaboration with Cherilenairin, a series of drones and pulses (and occasionally more of the disturbed vocals that made the previous song so unnerving) over which somebody (maybe the dude with the difficult name, who knows?) uses for the background as he scratches and bleats. It would have been much better to my ears without the vox, but perhaps they thought it needed to be said. Whatever it is, um, that they're saying. Swell, swell drones and constantly-evolving electrogeek moves, though. Bonus points for the thuggish drones toward the end and the lopsided washing-machine beat. Hep glitch and noise beats, but I'm still not too sure about the whole vocal thing....

North Carolina's Soulpreacher specialize in the downtuned, plodding sludge kicked out by bands such as eyehategod, Cavity, Corrupted, Warhorse, and Electric Wizard. A lot of bands seem to have jumped on the sludge bandwagon in the past couple of years. Soulpreacher manage to distinguish themselves in several ways.

The singer, Anthony, knows when to shut the fuck up and let the band ride a riff. As a band, they know what to leave out... they have a good sense of dynamics... the rhythm section knows when to hang back. In songs like "Kingdom" and "Last Prayer" Mike, the guitar player, drops intro riffs that seem to hang in space. The intro to "Last Prayer" in particular sounds like it's on the verge of being sucked into a black hole. They also seem to understand that if you're going to crib from Black Sabbath, VOLUME 4 is the record to study. Put all these elements together and you have a band that stands above ninety percent of the "play slow/scream loud" bands out there. [n/a]

(TG and C12 are crawling madly through a baffling series of air conditioning ducts as fire and death reign supreme in the Command Center far behind them. Fortunately for C12 and his bulky exoskeleton, the Hellfortress has large vents -- the Headless Sno-Cone Girl likes her offices chilly. Within moments, however, they are hopelessly lost, crawling blindly in the dark in the hope that somehow they'll stumble across a safe place to exit eventually.)

C12: You are certainly a genius, Henriette. (sniffs at smoke wafting behind them) Soon there will be hardly anything left of the Hellfortress to rule over, and now we're lost. We'll most likely die of starvation here. They'll find our decaying bodies when the rancid stink grows too difficult to miss....

TG: Shut the fuck up and turn on your searchlight, okay? It might help if we had some light here.

C12: Certainly. (hits a switch and the vent is flooded with light) Now we can more clearly see that we are lost. Excellent, don't you think?

TG: It's beginning to cross my mind that I could kill you and not have to listen to your whiny mouth anymore.

C12: Ah, but then you'd have no light, unless you intended to carry my body with you....

TG: All right, forget that. Throw on a CD, you idjit. Anything to take our minds off this mess.... (CD plays)

C12: This is extremely loud. Even for a band from the South.

TG: This is one heavy-ass record -- hardly surprising, given that Liz 13, former ax-grinder for legendary doom metal band 13 is on board, turning her guitar into the sonic equivalent of scorched earth. (Plus their singer sounds really evil. And they're heavy on the Sabbath/Vitus axis. These are all good things. Did I mention that Liz really beats the shit out of her guitar? (wrenches a vent loose) Nope, don't want to go there... nothing left but rubble in that room....

C12: This filthy fuzz-bass on "Dirty South" is most reminiscent of Electric Wizard. (grunts as they squeeze through a tight opening)

TG: Yeah, but the guitar is pure LIz -- piles of feedback melting into crunchy tarpit chords. They lurch around like a brontosaurus having kittens, especially on "Gone," where the slo-mo crunch speeds up halfway through only to slow down again. Outside of that they have a tendency to move in low gear, but that's okay with me -- more time for the wall of dirt to hit you like a colossus of destiny.

C12: Are you so hard-up for review material that you have to crib from Melvins record titles now?

TG: I'm going to ignore that. The middle of "Snakerunn" is just plain brutal -- another burst of speed -- and the Sabbath roots are really upfront here, even though they do it their own way. And just when you think it can't get any heavier, it does on "Plead the Fifth" -- Liz's punishing guitar immolation is every bit as punishing as it is loud. And it's real fucking loud. Brace yourself, we're going to have to drop down...

C12: ARRGH! (lands with a complete lack of grace at the bottom of a vent shaft) I swear.... This one, "Burial," is creeping up into the territory of pure white noise, actually, the chunky riffing aside. I'm amazed the speakers didn't all implode during the recording session.

TG: What's really good is that while Liz may get plenty of attention due to her prior association with the godlike 13, the rest of the band is just as good and together they sound like a slaughtering machine capable of shearing skulls at fifty paces. This is a worthy acquisition to the Hellfortress listening library. I wish I could have been there when the Moon Unit saw them live.

C12: I'm told that their opening band, Southern Gun Culture, rocked every bit as hard as well.

TG: No doubt. (eyes a tiny opening leading out to the game room) Hey, I think we can get out here.

C12: How? That vent opening is far too small.... (the vent is rocked by a deafening explosion) Oh, never mind, it's much bigger now, I see.

TG (crawling through the jagged, smoking hole): Why don't you throw out another one of Sienko's reviews while I see if the area's secure?

C12: Certainly, certainly... I do believe I have one right here....

TTBMD: A solid ep from this veteran band that originally hailed from Wilmington, North Carolina. Those were the days....

TMU: This is heavy like the grunting of Yog-Sothoth. I totally worship Liz13 and her guitar of apocalyptic frozen doom. T-Roy sounds intimidating before you even see him and then instills in you pure blinding fear. The rest of the band is pretty hep too. Did i mention that Liz13 is a bad-ass motherfucking guitar player who sounds like every note she plays is dipped in concrete?

TTBMD: Yeah, Troy and Liz are the core of this band.

TMU:These are seriously heavy tunes. They do not sound like they are particularly concerned about being "discovered" or "understood" or any such pretentious poo -- they crush your tiny skull and let you worry about the other stuff while they go have a drink.

TTBMD:  To truly experience this band, you must see them live.

TMU: That is the fucking truth, o my brother. When i saw them last, drinks on tables levitated with the beat.

TTBMD:  You can pick up their upcoming release, WILL TO MANGLE, on Southern Lord later this year -- songs re-recorded with Billy Anderson. Check it out.

TMU: "Black Zorlac" fucking destroys my entire inner psyche. I fucking worship this song. I would cut your girlfriend's throat to be able to sound one microscopic fraction as heavy as Liz13. She should be allowed to decide if people live or die.

TTBMD:  You need to hear this. They cover Pentegram too -- "Forever My Queen."

TMU: You are not worthy to hear this, but need to hear it anyway. We say go forth, young lads and lasses.

Jumbo-sized sounds of the working man -- just what you need. What you get here are four boss tunes by Austin's finest purveyors of melodic heavy rock and four equally rockin' tunes from their grittier pals Superheavygoatass. Just to add a little bit of unity to the proceedings, SGC drummer Trent Parker also pounds the cans for Superheavygoatass here. Good news for fans of ROOM 65: Southern Gun Culture's sound is greatly enhanced here by considerably better production, and the songs this time around are even better and more concise. They've continued to refine their vocal sound, in which all three sing at one time or another and frequently in unison, with excellent results. Big riffs and anthemic choruses feature prominently in "Martyr" and "Present," and in between them, "Siddhartha" -- an instrumental that would have fit in nicely on the first or second Sabbath album -- and the barn-burning "Just Cause" provide a nice contrast that keeps everything moving. It's a well-chosen selection of tunes, too, because you get one song from each member plus a stylin' instrumental -- they cover all the bases without even sweatin', you know what I mean? Their lyrics also continue to be introspective and of almost spiritual bent -- they're really big on themes of karma, working out your differences, and generally trying to stay on the right side of the Wheel o' Life. Fans of bands like Trouble and Spirit Caravan would be wise to check them out.

So what I'm getting at here is this: By the time the bad motherfuckers in Superheavygoatass start to lay their devil grooves on you, you best be ready to rock, okay? And groove they do, especially with Brent's bass in heavy rock overdrive. They share certain similarities of sound and style with SGC, but their sound is bluesier and more turbocharged, and as titles like "Crack Cowgirl" readily attest, they are less about spiritual concerns and more about ass-kickin' raunch. They kick off with the grinding riff that introduces "Green Means Go," and build up to hefty-sized slices of guitar manliness over a heavy groove as Russell sings his words of wisdom while strangling his guitar into submission. It's taken me a while to get used to the idea of this band as a four-piece, but this song alone shows how much more room Russell has to move with a second guitarist picking up the slack. Derek's style as a ferocious thunderbolt of rhythm also adds plenty of chunk to the proceedings, amply demonstrated on the juke-jumpin' rock of "Crack Cowgirl." The thunder of "Automatic" is driven as much by early Z. Z. Top as it is by pure blinding doom metal, and "Defender" is such a man-sized display of down-home southern boogie rock that you know it could only be happening in Texas. After a while they don't even bother with words anymore and they just settle into the business of blowing off the barn doors and burning the whole thing down. This is the real deal. Accept no cheese-flavored substitute.

Sotto Voce is Yoko on piano, Onnyk on sax, Noizu on guitar, and Akira Obara on drums; together they explore the boundaries of their instruments in three long improv pieces recorded between July, 1999 and October, 2001. The first one is loose, sparse, with plenty of space to hear the individual instruments as they move around each other, taking turns as the focus of attention as the others work freely behind them; on the second (and earliest of the three recordings), they all play percussion, with loud and often cacaphonous results. The third piece is closer in spirit to the first, only driven more by the piano and complemented by wailing sax lines. All four allow plenty of room for improvised exploration, and together or separately they all get a great sound, even when their opposing rhythmic structures threaten to collide and collapse. Fine, fine sounds, and more evidence that Public Eyesore is rapidly becoming the bridge to the East that Charnel was in the nineties.

Sound Asylum -- s/t (Nitrous Records)

Sounds like a cross between a more hyperkinetic Little Feat and Spyrogyra, which sort of makes me twitch since for four seasons at Six Flags i had to endure one or two Spyrogyra songs played endlessly over the park PA, until now the mere "toot" of a horn fills me with dark, atatavistic dread... but that's hardly Sound Asylum's fault. Nevertheless, it's not something that i warm up to real easily, since it's basically Dixieland jazz... the kind of thing i have to be in the "mood" to listen to. However, this is hardly a bad album; it's just something i don't really "get." Fans of Little Feat and Spyrogrya (or similar outfits) would probably like this. It's kind of laid back most of the time, and even if it does remind me of a bizarre flashback to 1975 or something like that, there's no faulting the musicianship. I have a feeling that if it weren't for the aforementioned Spyrogyra dread, i probably could grow to like this a lot... most of it, anyway. Definitely more a thing for the Dixieland jazz/New Orleans/Mardi Gras, crowd though.

Whoa -- this is seriously old-school country death folk, traditional tunes recorded so faithfully that if I played this for my grandmother (either one would do; both of them are old enough to have actually heard a lot of these songs when they were first released as country 78s), she'd never know it was being performed by people probably younger than I am. Even if I told her, she'd believe I was pulling her leg. This recording sounds like something that could have been unearthed on a series of obscure shellac 78s hidden in a box in a hillbilly farmer's barn, then assembled and issued as a full-length album. It's actually the work of Timothy the Revelator and Sarada of everybody's favorite American psych band Stone Breath (and a few other co-conspirators here and there), peforming traditional songs like "God Bless the Moon," "Tom Dula" (which some might recognize as "Tom Dooley"), "Walkin' in the Parlor," "House Carpenter," and more, all in their original style using traditional acoustic instruments such as banjo, squeezebox, and mandolin. Songs I especially like are their versions of "God Bless the Moon" and "The Cuckoo," but really, everything here is brilliant. To give you an idea of where their heads are at, some of the other songs include "A Conversation With Death," "The Bone Collector," "Thirteen" (yes, the Glenn Danzig song, sounding perfectly at home here), and "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down." In other words, they're singin' about some heavy shit, dig? Ah, but they sound so lovely when they croon of death and destruction.... The packaging is amazing -- it comes in an elaborate foldout sleeve with inserts and lots of detailed artwork; in fact, everything looks like it was done by hand. (Well, okay, the lyric sheet is typeset.) Now that's what I call hardcore. Just for laughs, play it for somebody who owns the Smithsonian FOLKWAYS boxset and watch them try to figure out who it is, suddenly worried that there might be a traditional band they don't know about....

Spickle are another all-instrumental crew based in New Orleans. [tmu: What, are all the musicians around Bourbon Street too pickled to hold pens to write lyrics? Never mind....] On this, their debut EP, they toss out eight jagged, twisting, whirling, driving cuts in 27 minutes and 16 seconds. This is a record that hits you in waves. Starting iwth the hyped-up "Millenium Falcon," through the trippy-crushing-trippy "Two Shotta Sake," to the moody "Appliance," this record draws you in as it ebbs and flows. I should also mention the playing. These guys play their asses off. They jump in and out of odd meters, weave solos into the songs without detouring into Satriani-land, and go into jams without putting you to sleep. The only other all-instrumental band that I can think of that plays with this sort of economy is Karma to Burn. Anyone wanting to start an all-instrumental combo should check out this record to get an idea of how it should be done. [n.a.]

This is very loud and very heavy -- but it's comin' at ya courtesy of the whacked-out blown-ears freaks at Berserker and Crucial Blast, so you weren't really expecting Henry Mancini, were you? Interestingly enough, it's a disc full of instrumental tunes... all the better to hear the bone-crushing thud o' the drums through the white-noise guitar 'n bass without any pointless yammering to get in the way. (Perhaps the title is a sardonic hint at their voxless state... you think?) One of the things i like about this band (outside of the fact that their drummer apparently wants to kill his drum kit) is that they are okay with actual melodic content -- it's turned up to eleven and half of that melodicism is the result of white-noise harmonic distortion, true, but this is not a problem. They even plunk away at acoustic guitars on a couple of songs (although not for long), like on the cheerfully-titled "It's A Nice Day To Die" (where the overamped classical-at-high-volume passage turns into something on the order of mutant metallic jazz when it segues into "Valve Cover"). They get a nice hypnogroove going at the beginning of "Backbreak" too, where the guitars get thicker 'n denser as it goes until they just pile on the deathpig sound and bury your pale weak ass in tons of bricklike noise spoo. Nifty! On "Psych" they let the bass player take the lead for a while while the two guitarists make like they're the second coming of Wes Montgomery or something while the drummer twitches all over the place, until they suddenly remember they're a metal (well, sorta) band and start to pick up the pace and get heavier and faster. "Cadence," driven by a rattling snare and drums like Godzilla pooping in industrial-sized dumpsters, lives up to its name. But my favorite song is the last one, "Gherkin..." -- because it combines all of these approaches over a lurching mess o' riffola with lots o' blasting distortion and totally ridiculous uberdrums and, at last, lots of crazed thrashing about, with the result that they sound like they're being gradually swallowed by the black hole of their sick, festering din. If you don't grok this, well, you are wrong. Capice?

Spinanes: MANOS (Sub Pop)

In a recent article in ALTERNATIVE PRESS on the Japanese noise scene, David Hopkins (whose Public Bath label provides an American outlet for many Japanese underground bands) offered the opinion that part of the reason for current interest in the scene overseas is ennui: "Americans are interested in Japanoise because of their own boredom with current music... [they] know that the musicianship, and especially composition skills, are much better in this underground."

So what does this have to with a pop band from Oregon? Not much, except that if more American bands could consistently deliver such exceptional work as what you'll find on this album, listeners in this country might not feel quite so compelled to look overseas for high-caliber music. While there are plenty of technically proficient players scattered across the record labels in America, songwriting skills in the past few years have often unfortunately taken a backseat to exercises in attitude and retro-guitar skronk, often with disappointing results.

Not so with the Spinanes. This album has no fancy guitar doodling, no weird posturing, no dubious politics, no silly and pretentious, half-baked art concepts -- just one guy and a drum, one girl and a guitar, and more really cool songs than you shake an army of swizzle sticks at. Cool? You couldn't get any cooler if you were standing on a glacier in Antarctica pissing ice cubes.

Basic is a key word in this band's style; with only two instruments and a voice, they have no filler and no room to hide. Only the strongest of songs can survive such naked scrutiny, and fortunately for us, there's plenty of them here. In fact, there are no weak songs on the entire album. Period. Somebody should give them a medal or a kewpie doll for this alone. The songs are all about real people caught up in real life struggles, from the pensive doubt of "Entire" and "Shellburn" to the disintegrating relationship in "Sunday," and the happier moments of "I Love that Party with the Monkey Kitty" and "Epiphany." Scott Plouf's steady drumming provides the beat for Rebecca Gates' guitar lines, and whether she's slashing away at jangly, stinging chords like she just heard R.E.M.'s "Radio Free Europe" for the first time or turning down the volume with gentle strumming, the arrangements are always catchy and memorable, making you want to hear them again and again until you drive your roommate crazy. This is one of those albums where it takes you forever to get around to hearing the last few songs because you're too busy playing the first ones over and over again.

I could say more -- for pages and pages -- but you get the idea. I'm willing to crawl over an acre of broken glass just to be first in line to get the next album when it comes out after hearing this; maybe you should do yourself a favor and find out why, don't you think?

Oh goody, more Spinanes! Here we have remixed versions of "Noel, Jonah and Me" and "Sunday" that don't sound all that different that the versions on MANOS. Rebecca Gates' voice is mixed up a lot higher on the first song, and the guitars weave in and out a bit more more; the version of "Sunday" here has her voice mixed up higher as well, and the sound is a bit thicker. Otherwise, not all that much difference.... The big reason to snag this, though, are the covers. "Fame and Fortune," originally by Mission of Burma, rocks harder than anything they've ever done, and the cover of Crackerbash's "Bad Karma" is pretty nifty too. This is out on SupPop, but apparently the German subsidiary, so I have no idea how available it is. Spinanes fans should seek it out....

Spinanes -- STRAND [Sub Pop]

Wow, have these guys been listening to lots of ambient and noise between their last album and this one? It sure sounds like it -- "Madding" kicks off the album with ambient sea noises and other stuff before swelling into an actual song, a slow burner complete with a distinctly dark sound that's almost a throwback to one of their first efforts, "Halloween Candy." Slow and dark, in fact, is a pretty good summation of the entire album; with only a few exceptions, this is even more subdued than their debut. "Azure" sounds a bit more like the sound they established on MANOS, with sharp, chiming guitar lines, but "Lines and Lines" opens with vibrating hum that builds into frenzied guitar squibbling -- shades o' Skullflower or the like! -- before the big, heavy drums start tubbing away and things get sort of more poplike again.

Songs like "Meridian" and "Punch Line Loser" drop the album back down into lower gear again; on the latter, they strategically deploy waves of sound (tidal waves, perhaps?) across the stereo field just to rattle you a bit, to interesting effect. They pick up the pace again on "Valency," which which centers itself around some serious drum thump and Rebecca's patented slash and burn guitar fury. Possibly the weirdest song on here is "Luminous," driven by more crashing wave sounds, a dribbling beat, and various odd noises buried under the guitar; sort of like Skullflower meets Coedine, if you can imagine such a thing. The surprise is that it actually WORKS.... And then it's time to get up and move again, as "Oceanside" cranks up the volume, tempo, and poison content, spitting out lines like "call me coldhearted, but i'm just disgusted / and i could care less." Of the last three tracks, "Winter on Ice" and "Watch Down" are just flat-out morose -- a good thing, since Rebecca excels singing these lonesome dirge blues -- while the last track, "For No One Else," is a little bit on the goofy side, possibly to offset the stark bleakness of the rest of the album and remind people that they really DO have a sense of humor (well, sort of) or something.

Lest ye miss the point, by the way, this is a brilliant followup to MANOS. It took them a while, but the wait was worth it. By far the best band on Sub Pop (well, with maybe the exception of the Fastbacks), and an early contender for album of the year. DEAD ANGEL gives it the Golden Pee Dog seal of approval....

Spinanes -- ARCHES AND AISLES [Sub Pop]

Well now, maybe they should call the band Spinane from now on, seeing as how drummer Scott Plouf has apparently floated off into the wild blue yonder, leaving guitarist Rebecca Gates as the only permanent member. Not that she's really gone the solo route or anything; she's merely enlisted the assistance of various musicians to fill Plouf's drum stool and further augment the sound.

This album pushes the sound of STRAND even further into sophisticate territory, often resembling cocktail jazz lounge music far more than the stripped-down postpunk slash and burn of the first (and still brilliant) album MANOS. Between venturing into torch-vamp territory and copious use of a Moog, mellotron, piano, and keyboards, the sound is certainly a far cry from the early material. But it's a move that works; Gates' songwriting skills are up to the push forward, and just to hedge her bets, that instantly identifiable razor guitar serves as an anchor to most of the best songs. Still, the only songs that bear any real resemblance to the first album's signature sound are "Leisure Run," Love, The Lazee," and maybe "Reach vs. Speed."

But that's okay, because this album is not only a staggering collection of strong tunes, it has a unique sound and identity that's far more interesting than most things happening in pop music right now. Plus the arrangements are so brilliant, so carefully layered and textured, that they defy description. From the descending guitar lines at the end of "Leisure Run" to the riveting ascending circular riff at the center of "Love, The Lazee" and the unusual textures in every song, it's clear that Gates spent a lot of time into making each song a carefully constructed epic in its own right (you know, just like the Beatles used to do, back when bands still relied on craftsmanship and talent instead of just fuzzy power chords and not much else). It doesn't hurt, either, that her singing -- always one of the more attractive parts of the Spinanes sound -- has never sounded better or more soulful.

This is already by far my leading contender for album of the year. I suspect, sadly, that it probably won't fare well in the marketplace, since it's not bloated with angst or latched to some dumbass electronica trend or anything. Too bad, because it's an album that deserves to be heard by as wide an audience as possible.

I can't believe this finally exists. I've been waiting on it for literally years. O happy shiny moon unit! I do find it kind of odd that it's on Merge and not Sub Pop, though... did Rebecca jump ship? Or did she just get tired of waiting for Sub Pop to get around to releasing this and hand it over to Merge? Who knows? Not the moon unit....

Once upon a time (in a land far and wee), the Spinanes released two amazing singles on the obscure Imp label that not only got them lots o' critical slobbering and mucho attention, but also made it possible for them to sign to Sub Pop, where they have always stood out from the label's grunge-heavy roster. Around the same time they also recorded a song for the I-5 KILLERS VOL. 2 compilation, along with one other song that never ended up on any release. All six of those songs are on this EP. The beautiful part of this collection is that i can now play these staggering songs ("Halloween Candy" is one of my top-ten favorite songs of all time) without further risk to my itchy, scratchy vinyl copies. (For the record, the singles tracks are "Suffice," "Halloween Candy," "Rummy," and "Hawaiian Baby"; the compilation track is the wonderfully-titled "Messy Shitty"; and the previously unreleased track is "Handful of Hearts.")

If you've heard their debut album MANOS, then this will sound familiar -- the songs here are in the same spare, slashing style they perfected on that album, albeit a smidgen "rawer." This is especially true of "Suffice" and "Rummy," either one of which would have fit in perfectly between the album's "Noel, Jonah and Me" or "Spitfire." The other two tracks are a bit more mysterious. "Halloween Candy" is not only the spookiest, most ominous thing they've ever recorded, it's one of the creepiest songs ever, with a ghostlike skeleton on melody and lyrics of understated (yet clearly bitter) loathing. This is the song that really caught my attention when the single first appeared, and while they've improved immensely as a band over the years, i'm not sure they've ever matched the harrowing quality of this one since. "Hawaiian Baby" seems to be the more well-known favorite, which is understandable, since it's a brilliant song of long-distance heartbreak that builds to the bittersweet chorus "this is my heart / and it doesn't fit yours." As always, Rebecca's voice -- somehow simultaneously wispy and steely -- is half the listening pleasure; the other half is pretty much evenly divided between Scott Plouf's on-the-dot drumming and Rebecca's straight-ahead mutant chording.

The other two songs are interesting, although nowhere near as earthshaking as the first salvo from the singles; i get the impression that they tacked these on just to mollify potential listeners who might be rankled by spending $$$ on a CD with only four songs (which would have been fine with me, actually). "Messy Shitty," originally recorded for a compilation appearance, is possibly the closest they have ever come to a traditional rock tune (this may be the one that was supposedly inspired by listening to too much Aerosmith), and even includes an actual distorto-squidgy solo of sorts. "Handful of Hearts" is more sedate, with a church-organ vibe; the only thing that makes it really recognizable as a Spinanes song is Rebecca's smoke-laden vox.

For the price and brevity, this makes a pretty good intro to the band for those who've never heard them, and for those who have heard the full-length albums but missed out on the initial singles, it's a pretty essentially purpose. Personally, i think it would have been nice to release a full-fledged compilation scooping up all their compilation appearances and extraneous singles tracks, but perhaps that was too difficult to coordinate... ah well, i certainly can live with that for the opportunity to have the initial singles on disc....

Spinanes -- "Madding/10 Metre Platform" [Sub Pop]

Well, this doesn't really offer anything illuminating that you can't already find on the full-length disc -- just a mildly cleaner, shorter version of "Madding" that's nowhere near as intriguing as the album version, backed with a drowsy li'l thing that may be the weakest thing they've ever done (which, uh, would explain why it's not on the album). Perhaps i'm being too harsh, but i'm a bit disappointed... i expect BRILLIANCE from Rebecca and Scott, and this isn't quite it. The a-side song is really good, tho, even though the album version IS better. A good introduction to them if you've never heard them, but otherwise... buy the CD instead... see below for why....

Spinefolder -- THE DESECRATION OF THE FIRMAMENT [self-released]

As i live and breathe... it's TECHNO! Yee haw! But it's GOOD techno, full o' big, thudding beats, stuttering keyboard runs, and -- this is the most important part -- actualy dynamic shifts. Instead of standard-fare techno that just gets in the groove and stays there, which rapidly becomes tedious if you're not actually on the dance floor shakin' it with some primal goth muffin in leather, it moves and breathes; on Arctalicus," for instance, the beat comes and goes, with synth movements in between to act as a "breather" before the sound gets pumped up again. "Sentient at Last" opens with ominious synth bleats before getting frantic in a hurry -- i don't know what the BPM count is here, but it must be substantial -- and is aided by droning robot vocals. While most of the tracks that follow, like "Khartoum," are solidly in the techno vein, others move in a different direction. "Solitaire" is more of an orchestral movement with occasional nods to techno, powered mostly by solo piano, beautiful and ominious, and possibly the best track on the album.

"Rawxid" and "Kerguela" are undeniably technoish, but of a more restrained sort for the most part -- quieter, more keyboard-dominated, and yet full of plenty of pulsing beats. Most cool. The last track, "The Opened Fist," is an epic clocking in at 12:16 that opens with swirling noises and other strange sounds that gradually decrease in speed, like a Walkman running out of juice. Gradually squawking noises enter, then keyboards, then a beat, then... BOMBAST! All right! Viva le slow build! Good stuff, in other words.

I raved about Wino's newest project, The Hidden Hand, last issue. I never really paid much attention to Spirit Caravan when they were around. It's not that I didn't like the music, it's just that for some reason it didn't grab me. Now that the band is over and their full-length's out of print, Meteor City has issued this collection. It's not quite a "best of," nor is it really an "odds 'n sods" -- I think "retrospective" might be the right word. The two discs compile pre-Spirit Caravan recordings (recorded under the name Shine), 7"s, the two full-length, and unreleased tracks. Keeping in mind that almost anything Wino does is ten steps ahead of your average band, Spirit Caravan still don't do a whole lot for me. The three tracks from the band's last sessions, "The Last Embrace," "Brainwashed," and "Dove-Tongued Aggressor" show Wino heading towards the overly politicized lyrical stance he's taken with The Hidden Hand. Other standout tracks are "Melancholy Grey," "Kill Ugly Naked" (with its bizarre, for Wino, major-key 12-bar blues-based chorus), "No Hope Goat Farm," the reworked version of The Obsessed's "Spirit Caravan," "Retroman" with its echoes of St. Vitus' "Born Too Late," and "The Departure," taken from Rise Above Records' RISE 13 compilation. Fans of the band will be all over the rarities and for the casual listener this makes a great introduction. [n / a]

I find it kind of interesting that the bass player for Fugazi is so down with this, the quintessential stoner band -- but then again, SST was the original home of St. Vitus, and this band is the new home of Wino, guitarist/vox bleater extraordinaire of said slo-mo depressive metalheads and The Obsessed, so maybe it makes more sense than i thought at first. Speaking of Wino, elements of the guitar moves he used to make in both of those bands crop up here, but overall Spirit Caravan is far more blues-drenched and heavily on the demi-jazz tip favored by Black Sabbath, St. Vitus, and more recently Clutch -- plus the other members are considerably different in personality and style than Wino's mates in previous bands. Bad-assedness abounds across all eleven tracks, and while i think i still prefer St. Vitus (i like my guitar pokes slow 'n low), Wino and pals have nothing to be ashamed of here. Fine, fine stuff. My favorites are "Retroman" (about being a stone-cold stoner badass), "Cloudy Mirror" (sounds like faster, bluesier St. Vitus), "Elusive Truth" (dig that funky riff, baby!), and the slo-mo blues-funk pummel-shuffle of "The Departure (of Quetzalcoatl)," which really sounds like St. Vitus, only with way better production. (Speaking of which, the production on this disc is hefty and balls-out from start to finish -- nice to hear after hearing so many muffled St. Vitus tunes). Get with the Spirit if you want to hear the sound of the freak flag still being flown after all these years.

This disc kind of took me by surprise. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't dark, catchy sludge-rock. * Spiritu have to the be the only band going that simultaneously sound like Tool, Iron Maiden, and Kyuss. And I don't mean over the course of a song, I mean all at once. It's bizarre. You get "this band sounds like x jamming with y while z produces"-type reviews all the time. Usually it means the writer is past deadline and needs to grab something NOW! In this case it's true. They actually do sound like Dickenson from Maiden jamming with Kyuss and Tool. So is it good? Yes, but.... And there is a but -- while the disc starts and ends with some strong songs, the mid-section of the record is marred by a song called "Glorywhore" which has some absolutely brutal (and not in a good way) lyrics, AND IT GOES ON FOR NINE MINUTES!!!!! Also, there's a cover of Sir Lord Baltimore's "Woman Tamer" that seems a bit superfluous. Other than that they have a good thing going. [n/a]

* Notice that "rock" is underlined. This is sludge rock, not sludge core. There's a big difference.

Spoon -- THE NEFARIOUS EP [Fluffer]

I like this a lot just because it sounds like cool early eighties punkpop; if you didn't know better, you'd think this was recorded back when Blondie was still together and the Talking Heads were still interesting. The fact that they cover (splendidly, at that) The Godfathers' "This Damn Nation" certainly doesn't hurt, either. The other thing i like about them is that unlike most "alternative" Austin bands, they actually write SONGS as opposed to stoned, rambling freakouts that just wander around without end (does the name Ed Hall ring a bell?). Most of all, they remind me mostly of the Jim Carroll Band, and since J.C. was vastly underrated then and almost totally (undeservedly) forgotten now, this is definitely a good thing.

This tape actually features a different lineup than the one currently making the rounds, because it includes Wendel Stivers on lead guitar, who's now playing in the incredibly overrated Sincola. (The group now plays as a trio.) All the songs are great, though, and the playing is all on-the-spot without being clinical or anything (meaning they're not sloppy, another lamentable Austin hallmark). As for the sound itself, it's pretty much straightfoward crunch-pop with a punk edge and vaguely paranoid lyrics railing out at the government and authority in general. "The Government Darling" and "Primary" are riddled with churning guitars, while "Nefarious" is anchored by a rumbling bass and alternately sinister/anguished vocals. "Not Turning Off" is a great anti-authority rant marked by genuinely eccentric, memorable riffing. By far the most interesting thing i've heard come out of Austin in a while. Great barking at the end of "Not Turning Off," too... and they get bonus points for the label name. DEAD ANGEL approves of fluffers....

Spoon -- TELEPHONO [Matador]

Spoon is mostly a guy from Austin, Tejas by the name of Britt Daniel and additional personnel (drummer Jim Eno and bassist Andy Maguire on this record; Maguire left shortly after it was completed); the band gets compared to the Pixies a lot for some reason, although the comparison is only actually warranted in a few places -- i actually think they sound more like the Jim Carroll Band, but what the hell do i know? (Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question.) One of the more intriguing aspects of Spoon's sound is that Britt plays through a horribly-overamplified acoustic guitar, which gives him a seriously distinct sound, mon.

Beyond that, the main reason to pay attention to Spoon is that Britt writes some pretty good, straightforward songs that are twisted out of shape by his overamped guitar fuzz and bizarre vocal histronics. Best stuff here: "Not Turning Off" (even though i still prefer the original version on their earlier EP, NEFARIOUS); the slash-and-burn fury of "All the Negatives Have Been Destroyed"; the fiercely overamped robot-riffing of "Claws Tracking"; the so-bitchy-it's-destined-to-be-legendary "Dismember" (about Sincola vocalist Rebecca Cannon; more about the Sincola connection momentarily); the hard-rockin' "Idiot Driver," which should be the theme song for Austin; the overamped (my, that word seems to come up a lot here, doesn't it?) spaghetti-western-gone-surf groove of "Theme to Wendel Stivers" (another Sincola reference!); and the out-of-control "Primary," another remake from the first EP that just bounces off the walls here.

There's a few other songs here as well (including a remake of "The Government Darling" from the first EP; i liked the original version better, even though this actually sounds much better, and no, i can't explain that), and while they're not quite as brilliant as the bunch above, none of them are bad, either. Which makes it a pretty solid disc, certainly one of the best to come out of Austin in a while... and certainly better than anything by the vastly-overrated Sincola, the band to which Spoon's original second guitarist Wendal Stivers (hmmm, where have we heard that name before?) defected in Spoon's time of need. Hence the ridiculous guitar pyrotechnics of the instrumental "Theme to Wendal Stivers"; if it DID have words, they would probably be something along the lines of "Hey, you left my band 'cause you were so HOT, but now look, i'm BETTER than you, so kiss my ass, LOSER." As for "Dismember," well, if you've ever seen Rebecca Cannon live, it's not hard to imagine making fun of her, is it? ("Look! My eyes are getting REALLY HUGE! I'm have a temper tantrum! LOOK AT MEEEEE!")

So: Bottom line -- we have acoustic guitars that sound as loud as anything in Skullflower, vicious bitchiness, carved-in-crystal pop hooks, ranting, pyrotechnics... all perfectly valid reasons for owning this li'l treasure, don't you think?

Catchy, guitar-driven indie rock that sounds a lot better than the crappy bleat i hear on the radio these days. My knowledge of them is spotty to nonexistent, although they're from Louisiana (but not New Orleans -- this has nothing to do with the NOLA thing, whatever the hell it is). I have no idea if they have anything to do with this supposed rock revival thing (Strokes, White Stripes, Hives, whatever) people keep yammering at me about lately, but i know this is some seriously catchy shit and it rocks, o my li'l rock children. Judging from this and other like-minded albums in this issue alone, i'd guess it's suddenly okay to like melody again. Does this mean nu-metal is finally dead? O pleez pleez tell me it's true, Auntie Em! Squint favors their rock uncomplicated but driving, with plenty of melody and catchy choruses for all. They also have the attitude down, but it's largely angst-free, which is a good thing. This is old school power-pop with punk velocity, frankly, and it beats hell out of the nu-metal angst and whining racket. It also sounds really good, thanks to production from Ed Stasium (you know, the guy who worked on all the good Ramones albums) and dead-on playing by the band. They're touring from time to time (and were supposed to play Austin at a club that's since become defunct, a regular occurrence these days -- no idea if they rescheduled somewhere else), and if they show up in your town you should check them out. Don't forget to bring your rock mojo with you (most people find the back pocket a convenient storage place during the show).

All of a sudden it's okay to like pop again. I wondered how long it would take everybody to get tired of listening to whiny dudes in baggy pants slappin' away at guitars with too many strings on them and chunkin' badly everywhere. Now along with the rest of this so-called "retro rock revival" going on with the Strokes, White Stripes, Vines, blah blah blah, here comes Squint, with a new album full of short and pointy pop fuzztunes, all polished up by Ed Stasium and sounding like a modern Ramones with poppier chords and better singing. The songs are all short, catchy, and to the point; my favorites are "Glimmer and Phrase," "Postergirl," and "A Glimpse of Why." The one drawback to this album is that the songs, while plenty rockin', don't have a lot of variety, and its consistently uptempo drive gets a tad relentless after a while. While the songs themselves are fine (if a bit samey), it wouldn't hurt at all for them to throw in a few curveballs next time around. On the plus side, they're certainly consistent, and a sound like this almost guarantees a rockin' live show. There's nothing here you haven't already heard, but it's rare these days to hear it done this well, and at least they're smart enough to avoid trying to reinvent the wheel. Just because it's familiar doesn't stop it from rocking.

Yow -- for someone creating such fine yet minimalistic sounds, Karen sure carries a lot o' gear around with her, mainly percussion instruments and a wide array of gongs and cymbals, but also such oddities as German egg beaters and -- I quote -- "goat toes." I'm sure I don't want to know.... Karen sounds like she's from the old-school avant-garde, down with guys like Lamonte Young and Steve Reich and maybe even Alvin Lucier. There are five pieces on this amazing slab of VINYL -- yes, children, VINYL, the heavy-duty audiophile grade, not that cheap shit they used to make that horrible-sounding Iron Maiden album you're currently using as a coaster -- two of which are parts of a lengthy improvisation with Ann Dentel, two of which are Karen performing solo, and one (the last track on the album) of which is Karen as source material to be gruesomely abused by Die Elektrischen at the mixing board. The loud, piercing drones she attains on these pieces, mainly through bowing cymbals, will be familiar to anyone who's ever listened to the "Pure II" dronescape that closes out Godflesh's PURE cd. When she's accompanied by Ann Dentel, the homemade percussion items come into play as more traditional percussion items are hammered and struck, even as one of them beats the cymbals and gongs furiously. And then there's the track remixed by Die Elektrischen, in which these sounds have been pitchshifted down and distorted to add a grinding mechanical pulse to the drones, one that rises and falls, rises and falls, like the mothership in interstellar overdrive. Swell, swell stuff. Mondo props to Dan Voss and Drucifer for the immaculate recording, made with some really nice equipment (including a Studer board and Neumann mikes). It shows. I foresee great things ahead for both Stackpole and Dielectric.

Richard Stanton -- GRUNDLICHKEIT VOL. 3 [Corprolith]

Corprolith goes ambient? Now there's an interesting move... although not an entirely unexpected one, given some of the more noise-reduced passages in recent Separation works. And in any case, this is a peculiar and somewhat noisy brand of ambient sound... hell, maybe it's not even ambient at all, but merely low-key. "Tagging the Megalith" runs with a looped, subhuman drum pattern and sprays lo-fi napalmed rumbling over it (but at reduced volume); the result is sort of like the sound of tectonic plates shifting over a relentlessly hypnotic beat. The relentless beat motif -- a bit louder and more pronounced this time -- continues in "Fall Under the Faux Hammer," which includes weird doodling noises that might be from a guitar or an organ or a Jew's harp, there's no telling. The whole thing's probably klezmer-influenced anyhow, in a mad sort of way. "Songs for Broken Guitar and Drum Machine" sort of reminds me of Ministry's "Abortive," only not as loud, with weirder sounds, and no misappropriated samples of the doomed Challenger flight. More weirdness happens after that, although i'm not sure if it's all one song or several songs grouped together or if something was left off the label, but regardless, the rest of the first side is pretty weird and (yes) hypnotic....

"Roll Massive" is considerably more ambient, mostly just a largely unwavering rumble of sound like a city bus circling your house for five minutes or so. Then "Phoenix Eater (Sunrise Mix)" becomes a devolved hypno- dirge with high-pitched cycling noises buried behind the unvarying beat, reminiscent in some ways of Godflesh's biomechanical remix of "flowers" from MERCILESS. It goes on for quite some time, which could be either relaxing or irritating, depending on where you stand.... The last bit of the bunch, "Effortless," expands on the biomechanical Godflesh reference in much louder, noisier fashion, weaving shards of disembodied vocal samples, guitar hum, more crumbling noises, backwards effluvia, and other weirdness around more cyclotron noises.

So... maybe it's not ambient after all, but it's still intriguing. One of the many different soulful moods of Mr. Stanton, who perhaps should next try his hand at true death metal... i'm sure that would be fun too....

Stapelton & Tibet -- MUSICAL PUMPKIN COTTAGE [United-Durtro]

As individuals, Steven Stapelton is best known for his work as Nurse With Wound, and David Tibet as Current 93. Stapelton and Tibet are close friends and often appear on each others records. At times, the differences between projects is a little murky. Generally, their contributions are orchestrated by whomever is directing the recording project at hand. Then, a few years back, both worked on a directly collaborative recording called THE SADNESS OF THINGS. That album was particularly excellent because it demonstrated a clear balance in setting together their individually developed musical skills. MUSICAL PUMPKIN COTTAGE is very much a follow-up album, mapping a surrealistically psychedelic journey through destinations and worlds, flowing through a soundtrack from the stuff in dreams. Musically, this album represents a clear example of how their own individual skills have matured over the years. On top of this, there is a generous nod to two of their musical influences -- Amon-Duul (both I and II) as well as Sand. Astute readers will notice the record label name change. Both Stapelton and Tibet ran their own record labels which are distributed by the World Serpent collective. Now they have joined forces to become United-Durtro. From all indications, this is a permanent change. Back to the album... It comes in two formats -- CD and 12" vinyl. Note that the tracks on the LP release are remixed and significantly different from the CD. Also, the vinyl is pressed in a limited edition of 1000 copies. An interesting marketing ploy -- certain to be consternating to some - but in fact, both are worth owning. [yol]

You know what puts a big smile on my face? When I throw on a disc and it sounds like the only record in the band's collection is Black Sabbath's VOLUME 4. This is one of the best Black Sabbath records that Sabbath never made. (I say "one of" because both sHEAVY and Sleep have also had a go at the "lost" Sabbath records and come pretty damn close.) It's funny, as much as I complain about lazy-ass bands recycling riffs, I'm a total sucker for all-out Sab-worship, especially when it's done this well.

The star of the show is "The Futurist," which sounds like "Wheels of Confusion," "Supernaut," and "Hole in the Sky" rolled into one. Other highlights: "Eyes of Fire" with its nod to "The Wizard"; "First Dawn" with its monster opening riff; and "Truth," with its Obsessed and early Trouble-like riffs, making it easily the most "modern" sounding thing on the disc. To top it off, the disc sounds like it was recorded in the early seventies. I have a feeling that producer Jesse Herrin is going to be in-demand within stoner circles. The band gets bonus points for listing themselves as "Guitarian / Vocaler," "Bassian," and "Drummernaut" in the liner notes. [N/A]

The Starkweather Fix -- WHAT THE SWEDISH BUTLER HEARD [Neg. Air Research]

In a page ripped straight from the Oblivians' Playbook o' Dirty Trix, these guys got my immediate attention with the CD cover: a gawgeous woman with truly enormous hooters and a big, black... microphone... sandwiched between said golden globes. So right away we know they are shameless. Flip the case over and check out the titles... "Miss September," "Fucked Up," "Girl With a Toke," "Eerie Psychosexual History," "Easy Lay," "Dirty Fuck"... ah, they must be a trashy garage band!

They also have mighty odd ideas about how trashy garage rock is played, which is actually more interesting that all the lowbrow scuzziness imparted from the CD graphics. For one thing, they appear to have two bass players; they also have a guitarist, although he doesn't seem to play very often -- i get this great image of them all bouncing around the practice room while the guitarist stands around smoking Lucky Strikes and every so often he goes, "Oh yeah, i got this here guitar strapped on, i guess maybe i should, like, PLAY something" -- at which point he generally rips off crazed runs like one of Buck Owens' stellar sidemen possessed by the Satan of Surf. They also have a sick fondness for connecting the short blasts o' primal steak with odd bits culled from bad science fiction flicks, which is truly hilarous. This last bit really turns into an art of its own on the last track "Edin Na Zu," in which -- after spending 24 tracks play stripped-down short blasts of trashy rock and roll, they reveal their REAL ambition: to be the poor man's drunken Yes, waffling on in a rambling, stoned jam for a time roughly equal to all the rest of the songs put together, interspersing said rambling with occasional deluded (and hilarious) quotes from more bad cinema. A stroke of sheer fucking genius if you ask me.

So let's see... highlights.... the lurching, death-metal-meets- rockabilly groove of "Fucked Up"; the jumpin' sock-hop groove whose wasted innocence is quickly soiled by the dirty lyrics in "Mutant Cock Rock" (which features a tremendously nifty guitar solo worthy o' Dick Dale); the jumpy bass throbbing of "Shiveraltitude," followed by the guitar wailing that pops up midway through, sounding like the wailing at the end "Spirit in the Sky," only as done by someone drinking lots of high-tension booze. Then there's the eerie, ominous bass rumbling and creepy arppegiated guitar squealings of "Tourniquet"; the grinding roar and feedback of "Eerie Psychosexual History," which sounds like maybe they managed to set the amps on fire while playing; the crawling kingsnake shuffle of "Death Trip"; more Oblivians-style raving on "Too Late"; more time-warp sonic trashiness in "Bad Back".... Jeez, the whole disc is pretty damn suave, although they get a little to excited for their own good (not to mention listenability) on the hyperkinetic "look at how fast we can play!" numbers, which are thankfully few and far between. These drunken white trash scumlords are better at the slow groove thing....

It must be said: This would be excellent background music for taking over a hotel party on the thirteenth floor to drink all their beer, open the windows, and test the dynamics of Einstein's Theory of Gliding Hotel Furniture. Strictly BYOB, though... i get the feeling they don't share....

Apparently the time has come for minimalist death-rock, eh? You know about this band. This is the band led by the guy with the upright hairdo that looks like radio signals triangulating. Their formula is pretty stark and simple: take bite-sized snippets of old, good Metallica riffs, weld them to simple juggernaut beats, subtract everything else, repeat endlessly with as much of a machine-groove as possible, and howl. Reductionist metal, truly a concept whose time has come....

Tragically, the very minimalism that makes them initially appealing gets kind of old in large doses. Without any melodic content and a tendency to turn everything up to ten and leave it there, the songs all kind of bleed into one another -- very few of them, outside of the big radiio hate thing "Push It," have any real recognizable character. After a while the songs all sound pretty much alike. They're all crunchy, spiteful, bludgeoning hatefests to be sure, and while this is a good thing, I generally like my crunchy bowls o' death to be readily distinguishable from one another. It is true that a couple of them do stand out a bit from the rest, such as the charmingly crass "Love Dump" ("i really hate you / love dumpling / now my bowels ache"), where they manage to break upon the endless stream o' riff damage with violent stop 'n start movements, riffs built around vocal lines rather than over them, and an evolving barrage of metallic synthvomit. If the entire album were as focused and sharp as this one and "Push It," they'd have a hands-down winner. As it is, what they end up with is a promising start. There are a couple of other strong offerings; "Stem" is what NIN might sound like if Trent weren't such a self-absorbed weeper and had grown up listening to Metallica instead of Skinny Puppy, while "The Trance Is The Motion" is what White Zombie might have sounded like had they given up the campy monster-rock fetish to just gear down and pulverize people. One thing I do know: if they come back with a second album that features improved songwriting and is still this heavy, they will rule the earth. When they're on, mon, they are some seriously heavy shit with no excess filler... just what the world needs today, trust me on this one....

This five-track cd-ep is a bit out of place among DEAD ANGEL's goat-licking black metal and cryptic noise 'n dronefests -- Steele is more on the R&B and hip-hop tip, i think -- but he sounds like he knows what he's doing, he's from Houston, and the more i listen to this the more i actually kind of like it, so here it is. I'll admit right up front that my knowledge of R&B pretty much begins and ends with Otis Redding and The Fifth Dimension, and i'm not even remotely up to date on the state of the art in rap, so i'm probably out of my league here before even stepping up to bat, so bear with me.... The opening track, "Get Down," is an agreeable enough radio-friendly pop tune leavened by R&B vox and subtle rap beats in the background. I like the fuzzy stacked-up (or possibly overcompressed) guitars sawing away during the choruses -- the whole thing sounds like Nirvana if Cobain had adopted R&B as his religion instead of punk. "I'm Free" is more of the same but with a gospel swing, a concept that works a lot better than it should in theory. "I Got To" and "Everything" lean away from the rock and more toward the "urban" sound, which is where my attention starts drifting a tad, but the last track (and first single), "I Feel U," brings back the fuzz and the rock power, plus that lovesick crooning thing that the li'l girls understand. It may not get constant airplay around the Hellfortress Beneath the Ice (we're too obsessed with playing Harvey Milk's second soul-crushing album over and over again at the moment), but i can easily imagine it getting plenty of airplay on R&B radio stations....

Stilluppsteya & irr. app. (ext.) -- TPITH OR TETAPTH [Fire Inc./Some]

More weirdness, mon. This time it's courtesy of one guy (or guys) from Iceland, one crazed American, and one shrieking Japanese girl (Yasuko from Melt-Banana, who really gets around -- she's on the Yona-Kit album too, and several others whose names i can't think of right this second). And no, i have no idea what the title's supposed to mean. I think cryptic revelations are the order of the day, don't you? Sure you do. To begin with, the number of tracks don't match the number of titles (the third track on the disc is actually about 15 seconds of nothing), for no real good reason....

This album is a bit more linear (in other words, less chopped-up) than the irr. app. (ext.) CD reviewed earlier in this issue, and drones a whole hell of a lot more; i would assume that's the Stilluppsteypa part at work. Although there are some pretty abrupt endings -- the first track, "language shots," builds to a pretty soothing drone, then gets chopped off without warning, at which point "very useful" begins with another drone (leavened by weird whistles and tinkles) starts to build. About halfway through it's violently disrupted by a thundering loop/drone that'll really jolt you out o' your seat if you aren't careful. Things take a bit more of an ambient turn on "pricked membrane articulates discomfort," where a chiming loop competes with intermittent pulses of what sound like a cathederal in a long-forgotten cavern. Eerie and beautiful at the same time, and very unearthly... wait, maybe that's actually "under cover of night, the locust train bears away your fondest dreams." It's kind of hard to tell. Still swank either way, though. Hell, maybe it's "reply offers quotations." I... i can't tell....

The irr. app. (ext.) tip shows up prominently on what i think is "the grapefruit tree (what is its real name?)," in which a garbled conversation takes place over a bed of drones and chimes. The next several tracks run more or less together and since the titles are all anagrams of the same thing, i would assume they're supposed to be reconstructed versions of the same source material. (But i could be wrong.) These tracks have more of the irr. app. (ext.) stamp on them, although the chugging drones make an appearance again about midway through the whole shebang. The last part of the series is a pulsing, repetitive beat and various chiming ghost noises and wails. The final track is a series of high-pitched wails (sort of) against a low throbbing drone (again, sorta) that's hard to describe (like a busted calliope in hell, perhaps?) but sounds mighty hep indeed. The sound eventually gives way to munched fragments of conversation and then thunderous crashes before the drones return, only to vanish again in a sea of fractured droning again. A fine way to end a puzzling but ultimately interesting album.

Stimbox / A.U.M. / Death Squad - ENJOY HAPPINESS [Hebi Like a Snake]

Whenever my ears get burned to a crisp -- for instance, following a lengthy dose of Death Squad -- I'll ease up the pressure with something a little more ambient. One of the key features about ears is that you're supposed to hear with them. I'm not stupid, you know. Stimbox fills the void to a T, though I often find myself later reflecting, 'with ambience this harsh, who needs noise?' I still haven't recovered from the last Stimbox session, and here I am reviewing a split he's released with his harshead counterpart. Stupid is putting it mildly.

ENJOY HAPPINESS sounds like good advice, especially in light of the coming apocalypse, which is due Any Day Now. If this CD is any indication, The Four Button Pushers of the Apocalypse are suffering from a fairly bad case of itchy-finger. They have my sympathies: I sent Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping a copy of EH as a get-well present and he reduced his stereo into a pile plastic gupe. I think that's the 5th sign, but don't quote me on that. (Sources suggest the 6th is Mr. Clinton flipping off the Chinese National Assembly, but again don't quote me on that. Just in case though, I advocate middle-finger amputation as a prerequisite for presidential candidacy. Signs like these can't be taken lightly. (The 7th is, of course, Merzbow taking a month off for medical reasons.)

With the End as Nigh as it is, loss of hearing seems a small, and rather petty sort of sacrifice. But the Noisehead can't be choosy. It'll take what It can get. "Love and Truth" might be a good place to start: mildly psychedelic, pulsing heartburn meets accelerated dumpster avalanche, alternately munching and crunching away at fleeting whistles, spasmodic creaks and shimmering, squeaky grinds. I'd like to have used the phrase 'cascading waves of electronic turbulence,' which fits this Stimbox submission to a T, but some bastard already took that one. Fading quite naturally into a not-overly distinguishable "Electronic Chattering," the dumpster avalanche assumes control, spasmodic creaks assume the position, and bit by bit, the whole messy spectacle gets levelled into somewhat stringent chop-suey.

Japan's most lovable eccentric makes a special guest-star appearance next. Stimbox and Death Squad collaborate on "AM 1476 kHz" to give our man A.U.M. his due. We even get to hear the old devil rant before squealing, piercing, radio signals get mixed up and gassed into a stratospherical stir-fry. Following the prescribed path to enlightment, legions of paranoid bomb-squaders converge, shrieking in fake-castrato voice while an automated dry-hose detoxes their overstimulated nervous capacities, runs out of ammo and gets switched to manual control. I feel healed already.

Death Squad wastes little time unveiling his own little shockfest. Up goes the blow-out ante and "Communique Shoko" takes aim: monotonic air-raid buzzdrone gets razed raw by intermittent, ultrashrill, severely overmodulated, crystalwhip. Contreras' almost blows it, though. Destined to go down as the cheesiest intro in noise history, a little snippet from TERMINATOR 2 preludes. Fortunately, Contreras follows with a short but incredibly brutal bleachbath that makes you forget all about that. "Theological Genocide" presents Judgement Day like you've never heard it before: raging nuclear cyclones turn needlepoint grit-iron and steelgirded fundaments into seething infernos of agonized abrasion. Hell on Earth never hurt this good. "Electro-staticsphere," the de-cheesed closing supplication, speaks for itself. It says, 'piss off.' Spewing radiation and good will, writhing masses of mechanized corpses sputter and twirl through leftover static-generating fields and cyclone holocaust. [JK]

Stinking Lizaveta's III is one of those records that, if you happen to be a musician, makes you think "Fawwwk... why can't I play like that?" Stinking Lizavete core members Yanni Papadopoulos (guitars), Alexi Papadopoulos (basses), and Cehsire Agusta (drums, keyboards) are ALL OVER their respective instruments. Guest players John Schenk (esoteric effects contraptions) and violinst Gloria Justin are no slouches either. Instrumental prowess alone isn't enough to recommend a band -- there are a lot of people who can play but whose music is almost unlistenable (see Yngwie Malmsteen, other guitar hero types), but Stinking Lizaveta write real songs. (Yes, I'm on a "song" kick this month.) The songs on III, while loose enough to keep a jammed-out sort of feel, seem to be carefully orchestrated. There isn't a note out of place, which gives them and the record as a whole a vibe similar to a good movie soundtrack.

Two-line summary: A good record to get lost in. Think an all-instrumental Jesus Lizard kicking around Slint at a Black Flag show. [n/a]

Now that Abunai! and John Fahey have tragically shuffled off into musical history, Stone Breath may be my favorite American psych band (although Austin's own Primordial Undermind, on a good night, comes close). I certainly can't think right offhand of anybody else doing this as consistently and as well. As usual, the Camera Obscura seal of approval turns out to be frightening in its reliability. Stone Breath are a trio of Timothy the Revelator (guitar, vox, other stuff, vision thing), Sarada (vox, flute, etc.), and Prydwyn (harmonium, vox, flute, etc.) playing old-school country death folk music with a distinctly psychedelic flavor. They're not complete purists -- they include a snowbound preacher's rant in the introduction and background of "A Bottle of Breath," a move worthy of Fahey as much as Godspeed You Black Emperor! -- but they're not generally inclined to deviate from the old-school sound and reliance solely on acoustic instruments. The fat-ass booklet is literally a work of art; with the exception of the credits page, the pages are lovely and sometimes inscrutable paintings that include the lyrics and titles in the artwork (the same is also true of the tray). Just like the sound on the disc inside, the packaging is as elaborately homemade as you can get in the age of mass production. The sound itself is as mysterious and of another time (the same time chronicled in, say, the AMERICAN FOLKWAYS collection) as its packaging. Bonus points: My drummer, normally the harshest critic of all that he hears, raved to no end about the album's genius after hearing it. (I think he wants to "indefinitely borrow" it, actually.)

TG: Will it help convince you if I take off my top? (squeezes chest suggestively) Then you'd see that I'm definitely all woman....

N/A: I don't trust you! It's a trick! I don't wanna end up like that fool in THE CRYING GAME....

TG: I'm telling you, if I take off my skirt....

N/A: The skirt stays ON!

TG (shrugging): Whatever you say, big boy. So I guess now you're going to review for me?

N/A: Stone Breath and Fit & Limo contribute two songs each to this 7". Stone Breath's contributions are two ominous stripped-down death-folk songs. The instrumentation is extremely sparse: voice, banjo, and a recording of crows. Creepy stuff. It's amusing that all those doom bands who go to all sorts of trouble to sound "cult" can be out-doomed by two people and a banjo. Fit & Limo's contributions, while not exactly orchestral, are almost ostentatious by comparison. Flutes, Jew's harp, acoustic guitar, percussion, and what sounds like a church organ, give their songs a medieval / renaissance sort of feel -- the perfect soundtrack for an evening of reading LORD OF THE RINGS.

TG (scowling): That was more than three sentences.

N/A: So what are you gonna do about it?

We fade out on TG attempting to manhandle N/A in a most unseemly way as he struggles to escape.... [n/a]

Fade back in to Neddal backed up into one corner of the room, hiding his face in his hands as TG starts to strip. He's sobbing, trying to hide behind his now-rumpled copy of DOOM PATROL. Tucking her Freem Gun in the extremely tight waistband of her rubber skirt, she peels off her skimpy rubber halter top to reveal an amazing set o' tatas.

TG: See? SEE? One hundred percent NATURAL, motherfucker! Don't you wanna come PLAY?

N/A: No! Stay away!

TG (wiggling out of her skirt): Oh, you gotta see the whole thing, huh? I can do that....

N/A (rapidly): It's not every day that I get a demo from Romania. Stone Fiction play a pretty typical hybrid of doom rock and metal. This stuff seems to be quite popular in Europe. While the songs are all fairly well-written and the band seems capable, it's difficult to get a good idea of what they sound like as the guitars and drums are buried in a bass and vocal-heavy mix.

TG (delightfully): Too many sentences! I get to make you play Simon Says! And now Simon Says come over here and GIVE ME A SQUEEZE! (She throws her skirt to the ground and stands naked except for a way skimpy leather thong bulging at her crotch.)

N/A: DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TAKING IT OFF!

Making rude gyrations like a stripper, she reaches inside the thong.... [n/a]

Subarachnoid Space -- DELICATE MEMBRANE [Charnel Music]

Oooo, side-project mania abounds! Here Mason Jones o' Trance sticks to the guitar while three others (Melynda, Jason, and Michelle on guitar, bass and drums, respectively), work with him to create fuzzy, psychadelic space jams (sort of like Skullflower with the volume turned down a bit and an actual sense of structure). "Karoshi" features some nifty sidewinding guitar wail that continues unabated as the band comes and goes; "Talking Tina and Her Mechanical Frog" manages to achieve a weird kind of psychadelic funk and includes a background guitar that, indeed, sounds very much like a robot frog. My favorite is probably "Slow Boat to China," which sounds like it could have been an Angel'in Heavy Syrup track before being run through MOUNTAINS of reverb and had the slo-mo drone guitar dropped in for good measure. "Doomed Megalopolis" brings Skullflower to mind again, especially in the drum department. The guitars in "Something Wicked" sound almost like flutes, as the bass walks up and down in the background; nice.... Then there's the closing track, the meandering yet hypnotic "Lidocaine," which marches on in a funeral procession groove while the guitars drone and chatter in the background, occasionally bursting into frenzied chatter. Suave... very suave...

Incidentally, while you'd never know it from listening to the CD, this an improvisation band -- meaning they make it up as they go -- and all of the songs on this CD were essentially composed on the spot while recording live and in the studio. Definitely worth investigating, especially for those into Skullflower who like to minimize their chances of coming down with a bad-ass case of tinnitus....

Subarachnoid Space -- ETHER OR [Unit Circle]

I have to confess up front that while this is a swell disc, I think i prefer the first one. Not for reasons that have anything to do with the music on either disc, probably -- it has more to do with the fact that between hearing the first disc and hearing this one i had the opportunity to SEE the hallucinogenic SS when mein own "band" opened for them last September. The overzealous fog machine... the thunderous drumming... the hypnotic swirl o' sound... the blinding strobe lights... Mason's really nifty hat that i still wish were mine... never mind the fact that i was probably inadvertently 3/4 stoned thanks to all the hippies in the audience with their ganga smoke (and my God, i have NEVER seen so many go-go boots in one place, they romp with sinister dementia through my sweaty dreams even now), the truth is that their live show is so tremendously, immensely, stupendously BOSS that it's kind of spoiled me for having to listen to just the CDs now. It's just not quite the same without the spectacle....

This... is why i don't go out to concerts much anymore. (Well, it's one reason, anyway.)

Nevertheless, this is a nifty chunk o' spaced-out improvisatory psych jams. "circular motion" sounds pretty much like the name implies: looped, skittery guitar drones in circles with other stuff wails around, and -- eventually -- the drums come in, trundling in pokey fashion, and everything sounds like they all just took a sizeable hit off the bong and sat back and let it be. The stoner groove solidifies into an actual "direction" (well, sort of) on "whispers of momentum," although the funny noises are still very much in abundance, along with a truly slinky guitar line weaving through the rubble like a wee snake in search of a field mouse to eat. The cloudly reverb overtones and hollowed-out drums of "shady character," along the shimmering, chiming guitars, brings to mind an image of them playing in the fog while ghost lights flicker in the background. The beat gets much more upbeat in "a collection of smoke," amid psychotronic warbling guitars and the vague bass pummeling; in fact, midway through it takes off, speeding up considerably while the sound builds in intensity toward an increasingly frenzied climax before dropping back into lower gear again. The last track, "don't look in the mirror," is all ominous bass rumble, occasional drum clattering, and dueling hocus-pocus slo-mo smoke guitars.

It's worth mentioning that "circular motion," "a collection of smoke," and "don't look in the mirror" were all recorded live on stage, although it doesn't really make a difference since everything they do, in or out of the studio, is essentially live and improvised on the spot. Check it out, then see them live to get a grip on the bigger picture....

Subarachnoid Space -- ALMOST INVISIBLE [Release]

Hot on the heels of ETHER/OR comes this fine chunk of psychadrone, their first for the Release label. Like the previous two discs, this is all live material (the next album will be a studio effort). This collection of six tunes (four from a show in Oakland, CA and two from a show in Los Angeles) neatly demonstrates both what makes them an interesting addition to the psych field and what sets them apart from the rest. The interesting part comes from their tactic of often having one guitar lay down a highly repetitive, hypnotic collection of riffs while the other guitar wanders through an entire catalog of spaced-out sounds as the rhythm section ebbs and flows, gradually intensifying then backing off, as is the case on the opener "Shut Inside." What makes them a bit different is the relative harshness of their sounds; where most psychadelic bands strive for clear, bell-like tones and overaching, dreamy sweetness, Subarachnoid Space buries a healthy chunk of jagged noise in the mix, with a resulting sound that is often far more sinister than most other psychadelic bands. A large part of the credit for this probably goes to guitarist Mason Jones, given his background as an agent of freeform noise in Trance, and i'm betting the most psychotronic hellsounds being emitted here are coming from his axe.

"Shut Inside" flows into "Hidden Outside," which is more or less an inversion (or winding down) of the first, as the title indicates. It all resolves into a glacial drift overrun with cranky noises and minimalistic drumming, as if the slumbering cyclopean giant unleashed at the beginning is settling back down for another nap. That, in turn, segues effortlessly into "Floating Above the Skyline," where the drums pick up the pace and everything starts to take off. An ominous bass rumble in the background keeps it from floating away, and eventually it all gives way to the dark hollowness of "Below Any Border," one of the best tracks on the album and my personal favorite. Lots of building reverbed chime-guitars and hypno- riffing make it sound like marbles rolling around in a cyclotron at the far edges of space (in other words, real cool). At eleven minutes it's also the longest track from the first set, another definite plus.

The two tracks from L.A. are more of the same, only a bit darker and even more ominous. The seventeen-minute "Outlined in Rust" is a slow- building assembly of droning thundercloud bass, eerie processed noises, swirling guitar, and at times almost dub-like drums. The rhythm section leads the way in this one, providing most of the song's forward motion as the guitars just circle and shimmer, occasionally contributing a few wonked-out noises just to keep you from totally nodding out to the hep drone of it all. The last song, "Calm Fever," starts out with a guitar figure that's quite a bit faster and more uptempo than they generally go with, making it stand out, although it soon peters out into more of the glacial slo-mo drone and chittering loop guitar.

This disc is a lot closer in spirit and execution to the godlike show i saw them put on in Austin last year about this time; as such, it is highly recommended. I have to admit, though, that i'll be curious to see what they sound like in the studio as opposed to on stage....

Subarachnoid Space -- ENDLESS RENOVATION [Release]

The latest from the psychedelic swagmasters from SF turns out to be the best one by far. Continuing in the tradition of their earlier albums, this collection o' improv jams benefits greatly from being recorded in a traditional studio (a first for the band) as opposed to the stage. Here, with the opportunity to pause and reflect over recorded parts and add extra bits, they end up greatly expanding their sound. Nowhere is this more evident than on the opening track, "Will You Make My House a Carnival?," where the opening salvo of hum 'n drone suddenly gives way to the deep, resonant rumbling of an organ. (!) The organ accompaniment for the rest of the song transforms it into a sound most befitting the song's title.

The middle tracks -- "Square Wheels," "Good Grief?," and "Stereo Saturation" -- were all recorded at the Subarachnoid rehearsal space, and thus are bit closer in sound and design to the earlier albums. "Square Wheels" is the most "space-like" of the bunch, with churning drums and a wailing, shrieking distorto-guitar trailing through the background like a comet -- but about halfway through the bottom drops out without warning, taking on a sinister early-Swans vibe, before eventually returning to the thump and wail, an unexpected development that, coupled with the devlish noise guitar circling from speaker to speaker during this subhuman-stomp section, takes the song in a completely different direction. The overamped guitar tone of "Good Grief?," executed at a funeral pace, is an interesting diversion as well. The real secret weapon of this disc, however, is the ambitiously extended psychotronic suite of "Safety in Numbers" and "Twilight Sleep," which together account for almost half the CD's length. The first opens with quiet, bell-like guitars; gradually, slowly, washes of guitar drone sweep over the bell=tones and a melodic bassline paves the way for the drums as the song inexorably builds in strength, volume, and textural density. After a brief interlude of guitar shrieks and drones, they jump right back in, moving toward something akin to heavy psychedelic jazz. The sound is rounded out by periodic appearances of violins, hammer dulcimer, cello, and even a waterphone (courtesy of Dave Wright, on loan from Not Breathing). Eventually it all winds down into the slow, chiming hypnosis of "Twilight Sleep," a low-key affair that may well lull you into submissive sleep.

It's good to see that they haven't been crippled by exposure to a "real" studio -- and even better to see that, judging from what's already in the pipeline (more performances culled down to disc, including a collaboration with Walking Timebombs), that they are continuing to move forward with each new album. I'm definitely looking forward to more....

At long last, after many delays, Elsie and Jack springs this suave document upon us. This material is from a live recording of Subarachnoid Space in Houston on October 1, 1996, with illuminating assistance from Scott Ayers, former guitarist of Pain Teens, now hep to his own gig as the Walking Timebombs. Approximately half of the tracks here were recorded live at Emos in that city; the other half were recorded immediately thereafter at Scott's home studio. Amazingly, it's largely impossible to tell which tracks are which without delving into the liner notes -- the results are that seamless. I'm willing to go on record right now that this is by far the best thing either band has ever done. It is beyond bad-ass and well into the realm of the purely otherworldly.

Subarachnoid Space are constantly compared to Fushitsusha, although i don't know why -- they sound almost nothing alike to my ears (and besides, i'm still halfway convinced that Fushitsusha is kind of overrated). Rather, i think they sound more like an intensely more spacy answer to Nisi Period, especially on this disc. I find it interesting that Scott's playing on this is hard to spot -- i know he's there in spades, but he's blended into the group so well that he doesn't stand out, which is intriguing, since the previous WTB material has been distinctly different from the band's spacy hypno-rock. Oddly enough, the overall feel is not far removed from the Space's last disc ENDLESS RENOVATION, which is really bizarre since this is the original lineup here.

An almost-formless, efx-laden introduction gradually gives way to "the sleeping sickness i," an immensely entrancing mantra of hypnotic subterranean bass lines and squiggly pinwheeling guitars soaked in reverb and delay; the song sounds like a small fleet of hovercraft sailing out over the ocean, skimming toward the horizon and into the setting sun. Things take a slightly more ominous turn on the slower, moodier "sick and sleeping," with battling phased-out guitars competing with the growing death-rattle of the drums. Scott Ayers stands out for the first (and maybe only) time on "no sleep for the sick," where his psychedelic swamp style is obviously recognizable... but then he's swallowed up by the watery sounds emanating from the rest of the band, and eventually blends back into the band environment, where he generally remains for the rest of the album. Nice bass thrum on this track too, by the way -- like the sound of a great machine pulsing away in the background. Then comes "the sleepless sickness," sounding like a mad cross between F/i, Savage Republic, and Joy Division (check out those high-end bass notes, mon!), and finally "the sleeping sickness ii," a more metallic answer to the earlier track of the same title, a grinding psychedelic sludgefest occasionally shattered by more of Scott's bizarre guitar stylings. Even more swank, at the end it devolves into a miltary death-beat accompanied by warbling guitar chimes and drones, like Killing Joke on really bad acid. The headless sno-cone girl approves. O my yes.

Of all the discs to come from E+J (all of them excellent), this is by far and away m favorite. In fact, it's one of the best things i've heard all year. To pass this one up would border on the criminal....

This is actually a super-ambient / noise release from Subarachnoid Space. Lots of drone and tripped-out guitar. Real noisy. No real direction. The drums are far, far away and it seems like they were trying to do something unlike anything else they have done before. The Bardo Pond is just great. Fuzzed-out space rock. This band can't go wrong. Super-sexy female vocals and heavy tones. [TTBMD]

Sugar -- FILE UNDER EASY LISTENING (Rykodisc)

Hmmm... I'm not sure the world's ready for a "happy" Bob Mould, are you? Of course, happiness is relative here -- meaning that, while he doesn't sound quite as tortured and ready to hurl himself (or someone else) off a bridge as he has on recent solo/Sugar albums, he's hardly turned into a happy-go- lucky guy. Personally, I don't think this one cranks anywhere near as much as COPPER BLUE (one of my favorite albums of all time) or BEASTER, but it's still not bad... just more "accessible," I guess (meaning that people who buy their albums primarily at WalMart might actually like it along with those of us with discerning taste). They make the usual moves here: the powerpop crunch stuff ("Your Favorite Thing," "Gee Angel"), the semi-acoustic "pretty" stuff ("Panama City Hotel," "I Can't Believe What You're Saying"), and angry loathing ("Can't Help You Anymore," "Explode and Make Up"). In fact, that's part of why I'm kind of lukewarm on this one: it doesn't really make any forward movement on the band's part and, as I pointed out already, it doesn't crank like previous albums. Guess the band's in a holding pattern or something. Still, that doesn't explain or forgive the truly stupid "Granny Cool" -- what were they THINKING? Oh well, guess even Bob isn't infallible.

A most intriguing cd-r of hypnotic sound and cryptic samples, assembled and perpetrated upon an unsuspecting world by one Christopher Paul of Seattle, WA. The opening gambit, "The Manes," is anchored by a steady, slowly-pulsing drone and trebly guitar (banjo?), then overlaid with an extended conversation on manic depression and treatment; as the song progresses over nearly 13 minutes, other material is added, and the backing track subtly mutates to keep things fresh. On "Wendigo" it becomes obvious that yes, that is a banjo back there, along with some exotic-sounding efx. As "Icewind" makes clear, he's not above sneakin' in some taped conversations, which I like. (The fact that it unwinds over what sounds like soundtrack jazz doesn't hurt.) There are some interesting sounds on this one. Out of eight songs, two are under three minutes and three are over ten, so there are a varied range of lengths in which to experiment with sound 'n rhythm. In the territory of Scanner, maybe, but no so cold and and with a better sense of humor. A good understanding of collage at work here; check it out for yourself.

You don't really listen to music like this as much as you wallow in it. Ideally, you smoke a couple o' bowls, put the speakers in all four corners of the room, and face 'em diagonally toward the center of the room, where you lie down and let the substantial ass-quake roll over you like an auditory visitation from worlds where the earth never stops moving. This is what God was listening to when He created tectonic plates. Seriously, we're talking about severe fraying of the speaker cones. They sound like they tuned everything down a full octave. The title should have been THE ETERNAL ASSQUAKE. Scary, scary sounds indeed....

Judging from all the other reviews i've read of this disc, i gather that it's a legal requirement for me to mention that these guys are heavily influenced by Earth. They worship Dylan Carson to the point of having named an entire song after him on an earlier release. Think of them as an Earth tribute band that writes original songs (or maybe they're actually covering Earth tunes; with all that ass-rumble going on, who could ever tell?). The air definitely moves like you're playing an Earth record, that's for sure -- the disc opens with "Richard," in which a massive, lumbering, detuned bass makes the speakers levitate as fuzzed-out guitar drones somewhere in the background, like barely-controlled noise. It's a sound like an avalanche happening in slow motion, taking the people and the snowplows along with it. As it happens, this is pretty much the pattern for all of the songs that follow; the only real differences are in the riffs, and even then it's all happening so slowly that it tends to sound pretty much alike. Which is simultaneously the album's immense drawback or main selling point, depending on where you stand -- if you were already hep to Earth then you'll marvel at this band's sound and appreciate how consistent they are, but if you're not into the earthmover sound, you'll find this totally impenetrable. And possibly aggravating. (Fortunately for moi the Earth-moves are totally swank by me.) They also cover the Melvins tune "Rabbit's Revenge," but since i've never heard it i can't tell you if their version bears any resemblance to the original or not. I can tell you that i really like the singing, almost violin-like guitar distortion in it, though. They also get bonus points for referencing the godlike genius who knew that space is the place on "Ra at Dusk," although i'm pretty sure Sun Ra would have been utterly baffled by this droning, subterranean gust of speaker-death.

This massive belch o' air disruption, much like Godzilla farting but with a better sense of rhythm, comes to us courtesy of Greg Anderson (on loan from Goatsnake) and two guys from Burning Witch, Stuart Dahlquist and Stephen O'Malley. Who plays what is a mystery to me, and given their ambition to mainly sound like tectonic plates shifting, i'm not sure it matters. Petra Haden (of That Dog fame) is yowling away in the background somewhere on "NN O)))" too, a fact i find exquisitely surreal. Not for everybody, but well worth the extreme trouble you'll have hunting it down if you're an Earth devotee.

This is an extremely evil-sounding album, all the more impressive when you consider that it's largely bass and guitar -- extremely overdriven, subsonic bass and guitar -- that powers this outing. The men o' Sunn O))) are heavy on the dissonance tip, which is how you get that heavy voice-o-satan sound on "Mocking Solemnity," a song whose grossed-out tone and jagged bursts of dissonant, shuddering feedback will either scare the living fuck out of you the first time you hear it or make you heave. Listening to this makes me want to go out and kill people slowly. I approve of this heavy-evil vibe.... "Death Becomes You" is essentially more of the same -- every bit as good, yah, but with inhuman vocals crawling like lice in the shuddering waves of feedback. Gruesome stuff indeed. Two of the tracks here, "O)))BOW1" and "O)))BOW2" are nasty exercises in droning feedback, buzzsaw screech, and pure white noise, all saturated in a heavy pile o' bass shudder. When the screech machine kicks in, your ears may catch on fire.... "F.W.T.B.T." (the "secret" subtitle says unkind things about a certain loudmouthed drummer from a band that used to be good until the wrong guy got thrown out of the bus) is heavy like an elephant shitting lead. (They actually have drums in this one, albeit in the most minimal fashion, a brilliant move in itself.) As far as i'm concerned this disc takes an early lead for heaviest album of the year. The bar has been set, we shall see what attempts to displace it....

TMU (returning to seat): Wow, that's some serious fuckin' low end.

TTBMD (turning it down to more reasonable volume): I like this. I fuckin' like this. Harsh electronics, lots of curse words, throbbing low end....

TMU: What's generating that low end, do you think?

TTBMD: I don't know, but it's fuckin' low. (brutal sounds of breaking, torture, violence) Robots fighting each other. This is good.

TMU: Wow, i really like these big-ass explosions and stuff. This sounds like total fucking war outside our window or something. THE ISRAELIS ARE HERE! RUN! RUN!

TTBMD: I definitely want to get more of Superfuckers. I wonder if anybody will have the balls to press this on vinyl.

TMU: They sound very... very... i'm kind of afraid of these people.

TTBMD: Don't fear the reaper.

TMU: This is like Sutcliffe Jugend --

TTBMD: Better!

TMU: This is disturbing shit. I am glad i'm not doing acid right now. What the hell is this scary shit called?

TTBMD: "Black Elk Shits."

TMU: This is in the same sonic ballpark as Never Presence Forever, maybe The Grey Wolves. Lots of throbbing fucking doom in those heavy electronics, man. Like machines advancing through the night and crushing everything in their wake.

TTBMD: Fuck yeah. Covers all areas. It has everything i look for in a noise album.

TMU: I think this is closer to Gerogerigegege or Contagious Orgasm than to, say, Merzbow or something. Hey, go to four, I have to hear "Sandblasting Bonnie Tyler's Throat." (listens) Is that a plague of electronic locusts?

TTBMD: I think so. The insects rise, and swarm inside your head. Cocoons form within the walls of the cerebellum, and you become... enlightened. Enlightened to the plague of man. Save your prayers, humans.

TMU (tear forms in eye): That was fuckin' beautiful. I... i am OVERCOME with grotesque emotion! (falls to floor, weeping)

TTBMD (listening): I think the drill went through the skull just now.

TMU: This last one, "No Secrets," sounds really painful.

TTBMD: Flurries of white noise. And coughing... from bong hits, perhaps?

TMU: More like the sound of some poor fuck coughing up blood with the drill finally goes through all the way. RRRRR! Oh pleez mean mister torture fucker don't fuckin' do that no ARRRRRRRGH OOOOWWW HAK HAK  * BLOURTGHCH * (up comes lung)

TTBMD: Calm the fuck down! I want to hear the rest of this damn cd!

TMU (muttering): The sound of disco... disco duck with a drill in his hand and he's fuckin' pissed... "that whore stiffed me, huh? i'll fuckin' STIFF HER!" GGGGRRRRRRRRRWHHHHHH IIEIEIE IEIIEIIEE EEEE EEEE EEEE EEEEEE A R G H MY E E Y E B A L L *

TTBMD (looking worried): Maybe we should listen to something else now, dude....

Neddal cringes in terror, huddled on the floor with the DOOM PATROL issue thrust between him and TASCAM-Girl, who is hovering over him, reaching into her tiny leather thong. She has a look of crazed, psychotic lust in her eyes.

TG: Are you ready for it? (lunges suggestively)

N/A: GO AWAY!

TG: Oh, you're ready all right... (snickering, she pulls out a cucumber and drops it in his lap)

N/A (staring at the cucumber): What the fuck?

TG: Haven't you ever seen SPINAL TAP?

N/A: You... you... (growing outraged)

TG: What did you think I had down there, a dick? I told you, I'm as girly-girl as you can get....

N/A: I'm not going to put up with this much longer. I'm warning you.

TG: Since you're still putting up with it, how about another review?

N/A: Quite a name they have there. They?re doing the Converge/Meatjack/Dillenger Escape Plan noise/compli-core thing and doing it extremely well. Guitarist types pay attention: This is how you?re supposed to use those effects pedals. [n/a]

Super Junky Monkey -- SCREW UP [Sony]

Are you ready for this? No, I didn't think so. IMAGINE, if you will -- four women from Japan possessed by the thunder of AC/DC, the funk o' Funkadelic, the hip-hop sensibility of Luscious Jackson, and the just plain noisy weirdness of half a dozen Japanese psychadelic/noise bands. Does this sound scary yet? Truly this is a disc that should be destined for greatness, although the masses will probably ignore it in favor of more pap by Mariah "is my T-shirt tight enough now?" Carey and Alanis "is my hair stringy enough to appear on MTV now?" Morrisette.

Even for a Japanese band, their approach is wildly schizophrenic, veering madly from twisted hip-hop with eccentric instrumentation to crazed swing- funk to flat out heavy-metal with a bottom end low enough to crack the center of the earth, often within seconds. Predicting where they'll go next is impossible. The only thing you can do is run and hide under the bed and pray that your speakers will be left intact when it's all over. Describing the songs themselves beyond that is impossible, other than that "Buckin' the Bolts" is mondo heavy and plenty catchy (it's the US single, the closest thing on the album to a straightforward "rock" song); the only thing i can say is that they're definitely adventurous without losing their focus and degenerating into aimless noodling. Forunately, these are four bad-ass musicians who are apparently capable of executing any deranged idea that crosses their minds, regardless of how ridiculously convoluted it might be, so they always manage to keep a pretty tight rein on the chaos.

Bottom line: DEAD ANGEL approves. This is one of the weirdest, heaviest things i've ever heard and it flat out crushes. They are goddesses and should be carried through the streets on tiny bamboo thrones as the masses throw multi-colored candies to them. Mariah and Alanis and Howard Stern should be sacrified to them in an elaborate ceremony for no good reason at all. They should be given the keys to the White House (can't do any worse a job than the past few residents there have done). They should be revered... we can make "Buckin' the Bolts" the official song... i... i... I'M GETTING CARRIED AWAY AND I DON'T CARE DAMMIT.... and i'll tell you another thing, i'd really like to see all four of them get together and kick Pat Buchanan's fat ass, just because he needs it... they can bludgeon some sense into him with their big fat-ass guitars... yah... yah... DO IT... the crowd goes wild... Super Junky Monkey emerge victorious... fezzes and Li'l Miss No-Name Dolls for all as the camera fades to black....

Now if i can just figure out a way to get my nasty li'l hands on their earlier live CD from Japan....

Super Junky Monkey -- PARASITIC PEOPLE [TriStar Music]

Uh-oh... i knew it was too good to last. For the latest album by these ferocious funk-metal women from the Land o' the Rising Sun, their label (for some explicable reason) called in wank-metal producer Ron St. Germain and have essentially sanded away most of what made them so interesting in the first place. The result? Everything is much more straightforward here, with little of the truly crazed genre-hopping that made SCREW-UP so brain- frying; outside of their exceptional instrumental skills (far above what you generally find in metal these days, where wailing on an open E seems to pass for technique most of the time) and their spotty English, there's not much left to distinguish them from your average American funk-metal band. Which is a shame, because they're capable of being far more crazed and mind-blowing than this. I... i blame their record company for squeezing them into a mold that makes them easier to market... or whatever twisted hell-logic TriStar is employing... and what the fuck is TriStar doing putting out records anyway? They're a film company, for God's sake.... Aaaaah, it's all just too fucking scary.... Not that this is a bad album or anything (it isn't), but it could have been... it... it... aaaah, i can't go on... fucking record labels and their insidious marketing ploys....

TMU: I know next to fucking nothing about either of these bands. Except the Supersuckers did some apparently bad-ass record with Steve Earle, so they must be all right. Electric Banana -- excuse me, Frankenstein -- are new to me.

TTBMD: Supersuckers are from Texas, dude.

TMU: Then they must be godlike, obviously. I like this first song, "Then I'm Gone." They gots themselves a real uptempo drivin' rhythm thing happening here or something like that.

TTBMD: I think this sucks. It's just the same old barroom rock and roll... nothing groundbreaking going on here.

TMU: I think this is all right. They're reasonably good at what they do. It's not particularly my bag, this roots-rock shockabilly or whatever it is they're doing -- what do we call this, anyway?

TTBMD: I remember their older albums being better, but on this one it seems like they're jumping on the southern rock bandwagon.

TMU: But they're already a southern band... I think this is okay but not brilliant. Hey, this song is all right, "Devil's Food" -- well, it started out really heavy but now all of a sudden it's the Cramps or something. Which is okay, but kind of... peculiar.

TTBMD: The vocals are annoying -- they're way too upfront. They need to be mixed back some more.

TMU: The rhythm section is pretty hep.

TTBMD: They're competent. But not very original.

TMU: Well, then let's check out Electric Frankenstein... track six... "Sweet Baby Ignorance."

TTBMD: I can't tell the difference.

TMU: Maybe that's why they were chosen to go together... this whole style of singing does nothing for me. This whole album sounds like seventies rock or something. Which is all right if you like seventies rock, but... uh... i don't very much.

TTBMD: On to the next one....

Interesting sounds at work here.... The basic format is dark ambient sound interlaced with glitch electronics. Ten untitled tracks employ a wide variety of sounds, some processed with efx and some unadorned but possibly sampled and looped, to create forbidding soundscapes of dark noise and drone. There are tracks where the ambient sound is organic in nature, the sound of running water (or a simulation of the same) and other sounds found in nature; there are other tracks that are clearly processed sounds. Regardless of the sound sources, the tracks share a common tendency toward the structured funneling of sound (as opposed to freeform-noise). Nearly all of it is instrumental (occasional dialogue samples turn up from time to time, but not often), and much of it is dark and sinister-sounding, like the soundtrack to a new-wave thriller. This sounds like something that could have been released on Drone Records, and would undoubtedly please the ears of many who are down with the lovely butterfly o' drone. The soundtrack for an unfinished movie about heroin-addled gangsters on the run and hiding in the mountains. Black mountain showdown as apocalyptic clouds race across the sky in stop-motion. Bathe in the sound and all will be revealed.

Okay, i'm going to advance a wildly heretical opinion here... namely, that the trinity of albums represented here, commonly regarded as the ultimate Swans albums, are kind of overrated. They're not bad by any means, but they're a bit problematic for me to seriously regard them as the pinnacle of Swansness. I know that half the Swans audience believes the band stopped being any good after Jarboe joined and they started adding keyboards and stuff, but at least those albums have variety, mon; the material here is just an endless list of trudgefests that lumber along like wounded dinosaurs until they abruptly crash in the tall grass. That can be a good thing, but over the length of an entire album? Uhhhhh... i dunno....

On the plus side, if it's pure bludgeoning hate you're after, why, you've arrived at the right place. The wildly detuned guitars are set on french-fry, the basslines exist solely to beat you about the head and shoulders, and the drums are so monolithic that they could be mistaken for cannons. And those lyrics -- those brutal, minimalist slices of loathing presented as lurid advertising slogans -- there we're talking total brilliance, and probably the main reason why early Swans albums, flawed as they may be, are still worth a damn. And every once in a while, when they stumble out of the tarpit for a few minutes and pick up the pace a tad, they actually deliver something totally riveting. COP's "Your Property" is still one of the most mesmerizing slabs of pure dissonant power ever laid down on tape -- one thundering beat, one scorched-earth guitar sizzle, and Gira's endless roar ("YOU OWN ME! YOU OWN ME! I WORSHIP YOUR AUTHORITY!") make for something akin to being repeatedly slapped down by Mike Tyson for nearly five minutes. The looped machine-gun beats of "Time is Money (Bastard)" -- Swans' evil foray into industrial death disco -- are still genuinely jolting, while the echoing guitar squee and slo-mo beats of doom in "Another You" make it really, really clear what prompted the first few Godflesh albums. It doesn't hurt, either, that the two versions of "A Screw" (one essentially instrumental, one not) probably did more to promote the potential power of beat-heavy industrial sound than almost anything else around (too bad the Swans' successors weren't anywhere near as good).

The rest of the songs here, though, are largely so heavy on the slo-mo death drone that they get tiresome in large doses. (I have yet to sit through any of the albums here in one sitting, much less the two-CD set.) While there's no denying the power of the sheer brute force behind these albums, all the crashing about is often just a shade too monochromatic for my taste. If you haven't heard the Swans early period before, ask yourself these questions before reaching for your wallet: Do I have a taste for punishment? Can I endure heavy jolts of minimalist repetition? Am I prepared to listen to something even more extreme in its slowness and detuned density than Godflesh's first album? (Godflesh's first two albums are basically Swans Jr.) Your answers to these questions will lead you to the blinding light of the truth... one way or the other....

And if you think this set o' tunes is tough sledding, bucko, track down a copy of PUBLIC CASTRATION IS A GOOD IDEA and try sucking that one down in one sitting. I dare you.

The Swans reissue mania continues. With this release, all of the original Swans albums (or what Gira considers worth saving from them, anyway) are in print, with a CD of rarities and obscurities forthcoming that will complete the reissue series. The only omission so far is the original four-song EP, but that may show up on the last disc for all i know... i originally thought it would end up tacked onto this one, but instead Gira has opted for including previously unreleased live material from the early days. So what we get is one disc with all of FILTH, the first album proper, plus punishing live versions of six early songs (four of which are from FILTH); and one disc with all of BODY TO BODY, JOB TO JOB, plus a live version of "Raping A Slave" from Berlin in 1984. If you desire early, brooding, monolithic Swans, your ship has come in....

The FILTH disc is a pretty straightforward affair -- the first album appears unchanged, although the mastering does seem to be somewhat better than the original vinyl disc (how much of that is a result of transfer from analog to digital format i don't know); it's certainly a lot clearer to my ears, at any rate. This is good, since several of my favorite early Swans ditties ("Blackout," "Power For Power," etc.) are on here. The live material is interesting, and much rawer than the studio takes; "Strip/Burn" and "Heatsheet" both charge like a badly wounded rhino is search of someone to eat, with shuddering. leviathan bass and unearthly howling guitar that's much more corrosive than the studio discs. Now i see why they were always considered more potent in the live setting. Hell, the overwhelming hum from the guitar and amp between songs is practically mesmerizing in its own right. The four songs that also appear on the album ("Blackout," "Clay Man," "Stay Here," and "Weakling") are radically transformed, sounding far more apocalyptic and ominous, and definitely far more heavy, than the studio versions. All of a sudden picking up more of the early live cassettes they're hawking on the website seems like an excellent idea. I can only imagine how intimidating this gruesome wall o' stink must have sounded to club listeners back in 1984.

The BODY TO BODY... disc is a different thing entirely, consisting mainly of a hodgepodge of loops, studio outtakes, and live recordings made from 1982-1985. The version of "I'll Cry For You" here is pretty forbidding, as is "Red Sheet" (aka "Heatsheet" on the other disc), and the pounding "Mother, My Body Disgusts Me" is excellent, as is "Only I Can Hear, Only I Can Touch," but the rest of the disc is essentially more live Swans, mostly from the COP and GREED period, in versions that aren't terribly different or necessarily superior to the originals. There are several loops spaced throughout the songs (short ones, usually about a minute in length) that are probably also employed in the background of some of the actual songs, although it's hard to tell; the loops are kind of interesting but may wear thin upon repeated listenings, i suspect. Listening to these songs, however, make it real clear where many of the industrial/death bands like Godflesh copped many of their moves, which is certainly educational. The live version of "Raping A Slave" is one of the better versions i've heard; with the drums up and the mix and lots of dynamic feedback skronk present, i think i vastly prefer this one to the original EP version.

Speaking of EPs, that brings me to my only real complaint: Where's the four tracks from the first EP, dammit? I sure hope they're showing up on the next disc, because that's one Swans album i don't own (of course) and the one i'm having the hardest time finding (naturally). Regardless, this is probably an essential Swans purchase, if only to own FILTH on a decent-sounding CD along with the pulverizing live tracks. The second disc probably isn't quite so indispensable, but in light of the fact that the original release is pretty much impossible to find now, it certainly doesn't hurt to have it here either.

Swans -- CHILDREN OF GOD / WORLD OF SKIN [Atavistic / Young God]

Captain 4-Track stormed down the spiraling stone steps with the black guard of the Overmen in fast pursuit. Bullets ricocheted off the sweating mortar walls as he wound his way deeper into the subterranean dungeon. If he was worried, he didn't show it. As he burrowed deeper and deeper into the earth, a thundering rumble gradually grew louder, thicker, HEAVIER, until he was descending into a blast furnace of sheer, throbbing sound. He pressed onward, even as the Overmen -- wimpy as they were, even in their full-dress regulation Cyclosporotron (tm) (pat. pend.) metallic body armor exoskeletons -- were repulsed by the battering waves of sound. He cackled with devilish amusement as he broke down the iron door at the bottom of the dungeon and dove headfirst into the oceanic roar coming from within the tiny chamber. He found TASCAM-Girl there, tied like a mummy in reels of stinking magnetic tape, suspended upside-down between four twenty-foot speakers arranged in a square. As the the sound rotated from speaker to speaker, she twisted in the air like a puppet on a string.

"Ah!" the Captain shouted. "Not only do i find you alive and well, but the SWANS are playing! Truly all is well with the world!"

"AAAAAH! Get me DOWN from here, my insides are turning to Jell-O (tm) from these big, ugly slow-motion beats!"

"But of course." He extracted from his utility belt a Fandangomatic Swedish All-Purpose Stainless Steel Rustproof Guaranteed Free Of Defects For 20 Years Or Your Money Back Multipurpose Utility Blade and cut her down with one mighty sweep. She fell on her head and toppled over, cursing.

As he carefully sliced the tape away from her body, she twisted her head up and screamed over the din, "What IS it with all the REISSUE crap this issue, anyway?"

"Pipe down, sweetcheeks. Mind your manners -- after all, this IS the Swans you're talking about."

"Geez, you and the moonunit are so goony for Swans that i'm beginning to think it's some kind of barely-subliminated Jarboe lust or something."

"Actually, my dear, we're probably both lusting for BOTH of them."

"Yeah, well, you're both a couple of fucking perverts. So what's the big holy damn deal about this double-disc reissue, anyway?"

"Well, CHILDREN OF GOD is regarded by many as Swans' finest moment, the disc where it all came together for one grand statement. Myself, i think WHITE LIGHT FROM THE MOUTH OF INFINITY is a better disc, but nevertheless, there's no denying the historic importance of this release. It was the first to feature Jarboe extensively, and the first full album where they began to expand their sound. You have to realize that prior to this album, Swans demonstrated the mastery of exactly one beat -- excruciatingly slow; here, they graduated to TWO beats: excruciatingly slow and merely slow. Plus they started doodling with synths and acoustic guitars and doing weepy tunes as well. Really, the sheer epic grandness of its morose vision is an achievement in itself."

"Well, I still think the versions of "New Mind" and "Children of God" sound better on the live disc FEEL GOOD NOW."

"They probably do, but that's not the POINT. This is a HISTORIC disc, dammit. Do you want me to hang you back up there and make you listen to it track by track?"

"God no," she moaned. "I don't think my insides can take it. Has there ever been a drummer more inhumanly heavy than Ted Parsons?"

"I doubt it."

"Okay, so I'm sold on the superiority of CHILDREN, blah blah blah. So what's up with including this World of Skin disc?"

"Swans are reissuing the best of their back catalog in specially-priced double-disc digipacks to save shelf space and so on. Plus it gives them an excuse to totally redesign all the cover art and booklet graphics, you know. And I must say that the graphics are indeed impressive. The black and white photos of Gira and Jarboe are... dare I say it? Beautiful."

She gestured impatiently, rolling her eyes. "The World of Skin...."

"Essentially Swans Lite, if you will. This compiles varous WoS material onto one disc. Among the highlights are Jarboe covering "Cry Me A River" and Gira droning his way through "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" is superior fashion. The rest of the disc, while not always up to the apocalyptic fervor of the regular Swans material, is certainly agreeable enough."

"So this is, like, a good deal, I gather?"

"Of COURSE it is! It is the SWANS!"

"Uhhhh... okay. Whatever you say. Just let me get my intestines moved back into the right body cavity before you turn that up again...."

There are a few surprises on this, the latest installment in Gira's obsessive quest to rewrite the Swans history and make it a tad more available to the public. For one thing, while this was originally promoted as collecting up the best of THE BURNING WORLD, WHITE LIGHT FRM THE MOUTH OF INFINITY, and LOVE OF LIFE, it turns out that it also dredges up all extra stuff from the singles from THE BURNING WORLD and some of the better tracks from World of Skin's TEN SONGS FOR ANOTHER WORLD. The track selection is a bit surprising as well; "Love of Life" and a few other key tracks from this period are missing, and the order in which the tracks appear across the two CDs is not even remotely chronological. The result is close to being a new, "lost" Swans album. Tracks like "Black Eyed Dog" and "I Remember Who You Are" take on new meanings and dimensions by being sequenced in conjunction with tracks like "The Golden Boy Who Was Swallowed by the Sea" and the spoken bit about hunting from LOVE OF LIFE. (This would probably be as good a time as any to point that the tracks from THE BURNING WORLD appear to have been completely remixed, and that some of the tracks Gira was forced to leave off that album, such as "Pictures of Maryanne," have been included here.) The biggest surprise, though, is the inclusion of one track from Gira's solo album DRAINLAND; the song in question is "Blind," one of the most brilliant things he ever did, and it's a damn good thing he rescued it from oblivion, because i think maybe seventeen people in the whole world have actually heard that album (it's well worth owning, by the way).

Some may well be startled by heavily the final World of Skin album is represented here -- fully five songs from that album are scattered across the two discs ("Black Eyed Dog," "The Child's Right," "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes," "Dream Dream," and "Please Remember Me"). By contrast, there's actually very little from THE BURNING WORLD -- only "I Remember Who You Are," "Can't Find My Way Home," and "God Damn the Sun" made the cut -- but nearly everything from the b-sides of the singles from that album is present. (And yes, the Swans song you love to hate -- their cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart -- is indeed here. I happen to like it, although i'm apparently the only one. The version here is the one by Jarboe .) Material from those singles appearing here include "No Cruel Angel," the Gira and Jarboe versions of "Song For a Dead Time" (as opposed to the Swans version on WHITE LIGHT), "Was He Ever Alive," "Trust Me" (the version from the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single, not the one from CHILDREN OF GOD), "Will We Survive?," and the acoustic version of "New Mind." As an added perk, Gira even generously throws in "You Know Everything," originally on the DIE TUR IST ZU ep.

What's left is mainly material from WHITE LIGHT FROM THE MOUTH OF INFINITY -- i think at least half of that album -- and a major chunk of LOVE OF LIFE, plus the best parts (in Gira's mind, at least) of THE BURNING WORLD. The most interesting part of all this is that the results of mixing all this material together are pretty cohesive, almost as if the songs had all been recorded in one giant session. If nothing else, it demonstrates forcefully just how consistent the Swans were during what was probably their more prolific period (in the years 1988 through 1992, they released no less than 10 full-length albums and 5 EPs/singles as Swans, Jarboe, and World of Skin -- how they ever afforded to record it all is a mystery to me). Since several of the albums represented here are now out of print and/or damn near impossible to find, this package is a major boon for the beleagured Swans collector. It also -- intentionally or not -- makes a fine introduction to the band for those who have never experience the morose grandiosity that was Swans.

The verdict? This is definitely worth seeking out for those who have always been curious about the Swans mythos but have yet to plunk down cash to find out firsthand. It's absolutely essential for anyone who already has the albums in question but not the singles (and good luck finding the singles, mon; i've been looking for years and have only found one of the singles represented here, and it was already claimed, boo hoo).. Hell, it's just plain worthy of your wallet-shaking no matter how you slice it. Buy it now.

Swans -- SOUNDTRACKS FOR THE BLIND [Young God / Atavistic]

By now you're probably aware that this double-CD set will be the last studio release from Swans -- after many years of being crushed by the black hand of fate and slaving in obscurity while dumbshits like Jewel sell all out of proportion to their "talent," Gira and Jarboe have decided to call it quits on a high note. (Not that they'll be abandoning music, o my no; just Swans, that's all.) And really, after listening to this, hanging it up now makes SENSE -- what could they possibly do to TOP it? This monolithic collection of songs encrusted in sprawling soundscapes is quite possibly the best thing they've ever done, and far and beyond more visionary than almost anything happening out there right now. Synapse-shattering doesn't even begin to describe it....

The concept, at its core, is simplicity itself: over two hours of sprawling, eerie soundscapes run together in seamless batches that serve as a soundtrack to the collapse of light in a dying world, with a handful of songs discreetly hidden in the ocean of sound. But the real treasure is in the complexity of sounds and their clarity -- recorded in digital and employing strange, unidentifiable sounds, intercepted phone conversations, monologues from Gira's father and Jarboe's mother, thundering drums that float in and out of the sound at will, and more, there's so much happening here that it's impossible to fully absorb and process even after a dozen listens. Stuff pops up at the oddest moments: halfway through "I Was A Prisoner In Your Skull," the avalanche of sound dies away to reveal a bizarre phone conversation of a man belittling another unidentified man; this gradually segues into the dark melancholy of "Helpless Child," possibly the best actual "song" on the disc, next to "The Sound." Gira sounds most mournful on this outing; it's interesting to see that he and Jarboe have finally completely reversed the roles they had originally established as vocalists -- she's the one doing the scary shouting this time around (on the vicious "Yum-Yab Killers") while he never raises his voice, managing a peculiar morose dignity throughout the album.

There are some odd moments, to be sure -- Jarboe's "Volcano" drags in backwards drums for a bizarre, otherworldly techno feel while she warbles in a voice that sounds strikingly like Olivia Newton John, of all things. Then there's the chilling, paranoid death scenario of "All Lined Up," with its systematic bursts of distorted power chords adding an extra air of menace to an already towering epic of morbid sensibility. "I Love You This Much" is an unsettling fusion of static, drone, and wailing that sounds almost like the lighter side of Merzbow (if there is such a thing), while "The Final Sacrifice," with its invocations to God and Jesus, could be considered a return to their early days if it weren't for the baroque sophistication of sounds employed -- understated violins, chiming guitars, the small details of almost subliminal musical flourishes, and of course, the reverberating drone.

But all of this pales before the grandiose fury of "The Sound," easily the best thing they've ever done and possibly -- maybe, just maybe --the greatest song ever recorded in the history of western civilization. A bold statement, yah -- but an arguable one. Tinkling acoustic guitars and a gently throbbing drone fade in, followed by the slow thunder of drums that come in short measures as Gira intones, "Closed forever is the door to your room / But inside there lives the sound / You despise, but I love...." Then the it proceeds to live up to the title as the song accelerates, the sound expanding out and out and out until it becomes larger than life, and like the shadow of an eclipse slowly eating at the sun one slice at a time, layers of strings, guitars, sheet metal, white noise, wailing, and thundering drums starting piling into the black hole, growing and still expanding in both layers and volume until the Sound fills the entire universe. It's so loud, majestic, and overwhelming, in fact, that by comparison the rest of the album (it's the second song the second disc) seems kind of anticlimactic by comparison. The vertices of folk, rock, electronic music, classical, and noise all converge in a shattering display of the sheer force of will and all is changed forever.

The most impressive thing about this double-set, outside of its sheer massive scope and the fact that it largely succeeds in all respects, is that there's so much musical information buried in the soundscapes that you could listen to this forever and still constantly discover new secrets. An amazing accomplishment. I believe they call this going out with style....

Swans -- SWANS ARE DEAD [Young God / Atavistic]

When I listened to this for the first time, i honestly didn't know what to think. I wasn't even sure i LIKED it, to be frank. But the more i listen to it, the more i see that this is a most fitting way for Gira and Jarboe to bring that which we called Swans to a close -- the only way, really. What they have done here is to present a handful of songs across two live discs (one culled from the final 1997 tour, another from the 1995 tour), mostly songs from SOUNDTRACKS FOR THE BLIND, in such a fashion as to touch on all phases of the band's career. To this end they've radically reworked older material such as "I Crawled" to fall more in line with the sound of later albums, while debasing (in a fashion) some later material to match the monochromatic thunder of their early albums. The entire set, across both discs, flows almost seamlessly from ominous loveliness to jagged thunder and white noise and back again, like a two-hour tidal wave washing up bits and pieces of the different sounds of the Swans' development with each wave. A brilliant way to sum up the band's lifespan in a limited amount of space without falling prey to the "greatest hits" syndrome. Brilliant.

The first disc opens with an otherwise-unreleased track, "Feel Happiness," which confronts my original estimation that the baroque splendor of "The Sound" couldn't be duplicated or matched, let alone surpassed, and proves that belief to be a lie. Where "The Sound" was the swirling auditory equivalent of a door opening one degree at a time to reveal a blinding sun rendering everything invisible in sheets of white light, "Feel Happiness" is the soundtrack to thunderheads on the horizon breaking apart to reveal a glacier implacably crunching its way through a thousand miles of arctic ice. Over its nearly seventeen-minute length, it sets the tone for all that is to follow. After a reworked version of "Low Life Form," they bring on another "new" song, "Not Alone," that comes across as a bizarre industrial folk- death blues, driven by an endlessly repeated guitar riff and a remorseless slo-mo beat imported directly from the era of COP or FILTH. After Jarboe sings "Blood On Your Hands" to an almost nonexistent accompaniment that appears to be mostly guitar hum and runs through a version of "Hypogirl" that rocks considerably harder than the version on SOUNDTRACKS, they do the impossible: they completely rework "I Crawled" so that it begins sounding like an outtake from THE GREAT ANNIHILATOR and ends up sounding like a distorted death-metal roar echoing the first EP. Then "I Am the Sun" is turned into something vaguely resembling a country song (!) -- although a very LOUD country song, true -- and "Blood Promise" is introduced with Gira singing along to an actual country gospel song before closing out the disc with nearly fifteen minutes of beautifully morose doom.

And that's just the first disc.

The second disc is not dissimilar in sound, although its intent is a bit closer to that of a traditional tour document, offering live and, on some, moderately reworked versions of songs (i don't believe that stuttering guitar on "Final Sac" was present on the studio version, although the mix may have deceived me all this time). Nearly everything on this disc is from SOUNDTRACKS ("Lavender," a Jarboe solo offering if i remember correctly, and "M/F" are the two exceptions), including a thunderous recreation of "The Sound," a version of "Yum Yab Killers" even more violent and psychotic than the original, and a long, droning version of "Helpless Child" that charts new vistas in desolation. It all sounds amazing. While there are pretty (if dark) moments, none of it is even remotely wimpy. This is powerful stuff, impressive in light of the fact that after hearing SOUNDTRACKS i didn't think much of it could be pulled off effectively live. Apparently i was wrong. (But then, many people have wrong about Swans. It has a lot to do with why they decided to retire then name and move on to other things.)

There are two things about both discs that remain consistent, both of which i like: one, that it's relentlessly repetitive -- nearly everything here features parts (mostly on guitar) that sound like endless loops, and those repeated elements are often the simplest, creating hypnotic trance mantras; two, that the drum sound is not only immense and cool across the board, but widely varied (not surprising, given that each piece was apparently picked from a different show). In a weird and compelling way, this double-set works not only as a complete work in itself, but as a bookend to SOUNDTRACKS FOR THE BLIND (although i can only barely imagine being insane enough to try listening to both double-disc sets back to back for an unbroken stretch of nearly five hours).

All of which leads to the following conclusion: As bad as i felt about having missed them on their final tour (the day they appeared in Austin was the one day i managed to be so sick i literally couldn't move out of bed), i feel even worse now. But i'm definitely looking forward to seeing where they go from here with the new projects (The Body Lovers, Angels of Light, Jarboe's solo career) on the horizon....

S.W.A.T. -- DEEP INSIDE A COP'S MIND [Amphetamine Reptile]

Totally mind-boggling and truly hysterical stuff from the twisted, sardonic hatemeisters behind APOCALYPSE CULTURE and ANSWER ME! with the help of the guitarist from Austin's own Poison Idea and various other hoodlums. The basic idea is brutally simple and hideously brilliant -- cover a lot of oldies, throw in a couple of new tunes, center everything around cops and robbers, put a mean and cynical spin on it all, and presto! instant satire....

Unlike most "novelty/concept" albums, this joke works largely because they had the good taste to pick cool stuff (although the joke starts wearing a bit thin toward the end of side two) and then had the good sense to enlist the help of real musicians (ie., the guitarist and the drummer) to make sure it holds up on repeated listening. Having the real players on board means the covers sound really good -- the guitarist is surprisingly tasteful for something like this-- and having the zine fanatics along for the ride results in demented pieces like "Cops Are The Only People Left," in which the two writers hold a conversation (completely with poor English and redneck attitude) about how cops are the only ones man enough to wade through the human filth and hence they're the only "real" people left in the world. We also get the treat of the original "Coffee, Coffee, Coffee," with these immortal lines (delivered courtesy of ANSWER ME!'s Jim Goad, who could have a successful singing career if he so desired): "I want a doughnut, I want it now / A doughnut is a policeman's gasoline / Give me coffee, a couple of doughnuts, and a little more coffee / Because you don't want to see a cop like get mean."

Other amusing goodies included a dead-on version of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" that includes Joe Friday snarling "don't try to con me with your mind expansion slop," a deranged cover of "Theme From SWAT" with news audio from the LA riots in the background, a truly possessed version of "The Pusher" (i don't remember the original saying "goddamn" so many times, do you?), a ramrodded and surf-crazed "Highway Patrol," a version of "Formula 409" that includes "modified" lyrics involving the threatening use of hunting knives on the highway, and even more bizarre spew of a similar nature. What I want to know, though, is if Mac Davis is AWARE of what they've done to "In the Ghetto"; i somehow just can't see Davis APPROVING of lines about hookers getting gang-raped while a South Compton cop croons "as the city burns" and the priceless saga of the rich kids headed for trouble ("then one night after graduation / the suburban kids come to town / buy some weed and cruise around / until they meet the wrong gang and they get gunned down... as a rich boy dies....").

Not all of it's equally brilliant -- the cop-paranoia version of "We Can See For Miles" never quite hangs fire, "Hold on Baby" seems out of place, and the demented monologue of "Tony and Xerxes at the Shortstop" is kind of, well, pointless. But this is a small price to pay for the previous songs and a big, bouncy, chugging version of "25 Minutes to Go." And the mere IDEA of doing "Thunderball" from the vantage point (and in the voice) of a backwoods redneck cop is... is... is so BRILLIANT that i worship this bunch just for that....

Have i mentioned that both monologue cuts are intoned over a backing track of "Midnight Cowboy?"

From the ashes of Distorted Pony, formerly one of the better bands on Trance Syndicate, comes this gang of angular postpunks. Think Gang of Four, Wire, Jawbox, played with frightening precision at (mostly) high velocity. Similar in some ways to Jawbox but without that band's obsession with dissonance, the band builds extremely atypical song structures out of complex riffs and time signatures executed with scary dexterity. Far from being a bunch of guys thrashing around with more energy than talent (more the norm for Austin punks, i'm afraid), this band appears to be more like a successful mating of hardcore punk and free jazz. It's hard to believe three guys can make this much racket and do it with this much energy without flying apart like a broken centrifuge, but they somehow manage it. Most swank. They sort of remind me of the Boston band Daviess County Panthers, a band so obscure (and now, apparently, defunct) that i may be the only person on earth who actually has their album. Regardless, it's good to hear that there are Austin bands that follow the "sloppy is good" mantra that often passes for "musicianship" in punk circles around this town. The entire album is great, but personal faves include "shakytriggerfinger," "can you tell that i'm punk?," "oklahoma!," "varsity," "persimmon," and "winslow." Buy this now instead of whatever overhyped bullshit you were going to buy instead. You'll be happier, okay?