THE FOLLOWING IS A COLLECTION OF SHORT ALBUM REVIEWS THAT I HAVE WRITTEN FOR SUCH PRINT PUBLICATIONS AS YRB (YELLOW RAT BASTARD), CAUSTIC TRUTHS, CITIZINE, CALIFORNIA POP, DIRT CULTURE, NEW YORK WASTE, RANT, WILSHIRE GAZETTE, SNAGGLETOOTH, SPARK AND READ. THEY ARE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY BAND NAME. FEEL FREE TO ENJOY IF YOU HAVE THAT KIND OF FREE TIME!

Band: 30 Years War
Album: Under The Gun EP
Label: Substandard

I'm 30 years old, and I too feel like I've been a war for my entire life. A war against TERRORISM!!! 30 Years War agree with me, playing hardcore punk and screaming. Santa Cruz, CA is their name and being under the gun is their game. All of their songs are under three minutes, whip up pounding and speed with a loud, exciting two-guitar assault and cry out for a better world. This is punk-derived, but the guitarists are pretty talented guys and chunka-chunka like a metal band a lot. And here's the singer: "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Band: 40 Below Summer
Album: The Mourning After
Label: Razor & Tie

Nu-metal band 40 Below Summer is back with an album that they insist has "elements of nu-metal, elements of old school metal, elements of hardcore and straight-up rock and folk and even some jazz and funk." And for once, I'll agree. There are some terrific quieter, more suspenseful chorus-laden "clean" guitar lines on here that'll send shivers down a man's spinebone (to his ASS! HEEEHHEE!). Plus, even the loud distorted blasts of guitar generally play a creepy turn of chordness with more in common with Alice In Chains than Korn. There sure are some generic two-chords-and-yelling parts though, and my main man, that's nu-metal. And that's why nu-metal xuckx so bad. But hey - to be fair, they never CLAIMED to not at ALL be nu-metal. They're just (rightly) eager to prove that they're more diverse than your average everyday modern metal radio band. And they are! There's even a power ballad or two on here! Could this be the beginning of the end of the Zionist One-World Government?

Band: 46 Short
Album: Just A Liability
Label: GoKart

Speedy speedy speedy they go! From hardcore's heartland (Los Angeles), these rip-roaring speed demons (46 Short) play hardcore punk rock the way its founders (Bad Brains, Black Flag, Minor Threat) intended. God -- I honestly really like this CD. It's angry. But Catchy! And the singer has kind of a slightly sneering vocal approach, as well as a great screaming youth shout. And he's Angry! Not Wimpy! Nothing about girls! Just anger and disilluion! No ska! NO FUCKING SKA!!!! FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING SKA!!!! THIS MUSIC IS MAKING ME SLAM DANCE!!!! I'M SLAM DANCING ALL OVER YOU WITH MY HARDCORE PUNK ROCK RECORD REVIEW!!!! FUCK YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR.

It's a fuck year. No, hang on! LEAP year. That's what I meant. So if you're sick of assholes with their shittyass asspunk music, get back to where you once belonged with a politically whiny and socially bitchy young band of loud fast chord players named 46 Short.

46 Short? Wait a minute! I just REVIEWED a band named 46 Short! I guess they'll have to change their name.

Band: 1208
Album: Turn Of The Screw
Label: Epitaph

Nobody has ever written me a postcard explaining why, but the "minor chord" evokes feelings of sadness, angst, confusion and pain. It's a very emotional style of playing that has nothing in common with the happy, cheerful sound of big corporation major chords. 1208 know all about minor chords, and they're going to make sure that their guitars' emotions affect your soul's emotions with an emotional form of punk rock that can only be called "emot." This "emot" punk rock band features Greg Ginn's nephew Alex Flynn on lead vocals, as he will be reminded by every 1208 record review he reads for the next ten years. They don't depart terribly from the general Epitaph slicked-up punk rock sound, but then neither do Bad Religion and they sell millions of albums so who's running this show? God? Hardly. Why would he support a band called "Bad Religion"? Think these things through before you read them.

This is 1208's second album, by the way, and they are a three-piece from California. And not to "bust anyone's balls," but as a professional public relations guru, I have to call attention to this description in Epitaph's pitch letter: "Pumping out music with an edge and intensity sorely lacking in the genre these days.." What genre are they talking about here? Mm-hmm. And what genre does Epitaph specialize in? Mm-hmm. So then what are they saying about all the other interchangeable shit they release?

Band: A Small Victory
Album: The Pieces We Keep EP
Label: Lobster

The world feels emoey, and A Small Victory is the result. Ringing midtempo punk rock chords of emotion merge with melodic notes of feeling and heartfelt vocals imparting youthful pain like "I'm not certain that I can take on this world without you" and "I remember that new morning when the sun never came up. I remember that look in your eyes" and TOO MUCH ROMANTIC PAIN FOR ONE MAN TO BEAR. If you like to cry, you "can't lose" with A Small "Victory." (do you get my hilarious joke!?!?!?!?) Very solid emo-punk.

Band: A Trunk Full Of Dead Bodies
Album: My Smile, Her Corpse EP
Label: Dressed To Kill

Now THIS is a weird band. Look at the band's name and album title. Then check out the bloody cover art and sickening murder-obsessed lyrics ("I hear your crying through the tape/Blood rolls down your face and your eyes are saying goodbye"). Finally, expectations set, put the CD in the player. IT' S EMO!!!!!!!!! The melodies, the instrumentation, the way the guy sings - they sound like they're playing songs about losing girlfriends and pursuing unrequited love, but it's MURDER music!!!! Admittedly, the singer shrieks insanely a few times (in his less inspired moments), but most of this music is FAR too sensitive-girl-and-nice-guy-sounding for anyone to ever suspect that he's actually singing, "Rope burns callus on my neck and deeper in my wrists, as you hang above the light switch on my wall." These guys are MUCKED!!!! Mucked in the ABB!!!!

Band: A18
Album: foreverafternothing
Label: Victory

As far back as I can remember (high school - before that, it's all a blur), I've gone through these awful, lengthy periods during which I get a headache at the drop of a pen - to the point where I honestly cannot imagine EVER being able to enjoy loud, aggressive music again. These periods generally last a few weeks, then I go back to normal for a few months at which point I return to Headache Town, OW for another few weeks.

Unfortunately, I entered one of those periods just yesterday, so it is REALLY hard for me to listen objectively to A.18. SUBjectively, they sound like a pretty basic modern hardcore band (meaning that they play a lot of midtempo, pounding metal in addition to the really fast "old school" hardcore stuff) with a painful screamer heading up the assault. The Pantera-style screaming - tuneless, one note, gravelly, LOUD, angry. In fact, without the singer, I think there's a good chance these guys would be considered just a chord-heavy hard rock band. Or even motorcycle punk. But the larynx-shredding vocals can't help but make the rest of the band come across as "hardcore" the same way they'd come across as a new wave band if Stan Ridgway was singing for them or a gay pride band if Billy Corgan was singing for them.

Bottom line: If you like angry chord sequences of any speed, A.18 are one of many bands that play them. And their really fast ones kick really good ass (I just wish that there were more fast ones on here). Most importantly, they're from Southern California! That's where YOU live! Not to mention that, according to sources, the message of the band is not to wallow, but to face your problems head on and never give in to obstacles. That's a good message for a band to have. And they do it without even playing happy pop chords and going "Woah-oh-oh!" like a Positive Youth Hardcore Band would do!

Band: A18
Album: Dear Furious
Label: Victory

When I heard these guys''sss''s debut LP a couple years ago, it gave me a huge headache and I sold it on ebay like an asshole. But either my ears grew a brain or their talent grew alarmingly because this is a GREAT album. It's intense, mean, screamingly shout-bloody throated metalcore, true, but the song constructions and noises and chord sequences are really really excellent. Original, blasting, interesting - if I were their teacher at school, I'd give them "18" "A"'s!

(did you get that hilarious play on number-and-letter?)

One thing's for certain - you may find this for sale on eBay, but it sure won't be my copy! I'm putting mine right where it belongs - in the CD cupboard between A Trunk Full Of Dead Bodies and Abruptum.

(It would probably be best if you didn't alert the police to my trunk full of dead bodies.)

Band: Acceptance
Album: Black Lines To Battlefields EP
Label: The Militia Group

Have you ever arrived early to see a delightful motion picture (ex. "Bend It Like Beckham") and found yourself staring at Coke ads disguised as movie trivia games while listening to the latest "modern rock" tracks by sad little boys over-singing poignant little lyrics over interchangeable little guitar lines? Did you ever notice how similar such "alternative" music is to the old FM hits of Survivor and REO Speedwagon? It's the same exact empty throwaway crap - the same manipulative vocal melodies and "rockin'" guitar chords, just with a less strident vocal approach and up-to-date production values. Don't fall for this crap or it's all you'll be getting for the next ten years. Acceptance is surrender.

Band: The Adicts
Album: Songs Of Praise
Label: Fall Out

This is what British punk rock sounded like in 1981 - sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always melodic and performed with a thick British accent. Just like every mid-`60s garage band on the legendary Nuggets box set (Hombres, Five Americans, Seeds, etc), every early-`80s punk band on the fantastic but only semi-legendary Punk and Disorderly compilation (Adicts, UK Decay, Blitz, etc) recorded one or two amazing songs during their lifetime. However, very, very few of them possessed adequate creativity to fill out a whole album on their own. In other words, I'm not sure why you would need a full CD by The Adicts. Unless you're British and on the dole because of Margaret Fucking Thatcher, the fucking cunt.

Band: Agalloch
Album: The Mantle
Label: The End

Guess where this album belongs? That's right! On your MANTLE! Your mantle of GOOD ALBUMS, that is! This is the second album for this band from Portland, I'm told. They describe it as a grand multi-dimensional opus featuring dark melancholic metal with post-rock and neo-folk elements. I TOTALLY disagree with this description though. To me, it comes across as a majestic diverse composition including gloomy despondent rock in the company of after-metal as well as new-fangled acoustic rudiments. I also find it intriguing as hell the way they (whether they intend to or NOT) conjure up images in my head of living out in the middle of the woods with some somber Viking cult that must prepare to fight its enemies to the death. This band does "solemn" in a way that would appeal to a lot more guys than I think Antimatter would. It's not just that they have male vocalists - it's that the music is more technical, completely guitar-focused and also that some of the songs feature one of those high scream/whispering black metal vocalists. If Antimatter reminds the wife of Portishead, then Agalloch reminds the husband of mid-to-late period Swans mixed with Tiamat and Led Zeppelin III. I like it, in other words. THEY say it conjures up the sounds of Pink Floyd, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sol Invictus, Ulver, Dissection and Fields of the Nephilim, but half of those band names are probably made up, I mean look at the damn things. No one would name a band Ulver, it sounds like that fuckin thing dangling down the back of your throat.

Which reminds me - do you have to chew on your wife's vulva right there on my respirator?

Band: The Agony Scene
Album: The Agony Scene
Label: Solid State

"The Agony Scene" seems an unlikely choice for this band's name. Don't most people love having a guy shrieking in their ear while death metal music is pumped up so loud that the bass drum gives the listener a migraine headache within the first 45 seconds of the CD? If not, what the fuck is wrong with people? Are they gay and/or have ball cancer?

Band: Aina
Album: Days of Rising Doom: The Metal Opera
Label: Transmission

Although I personally have never quite understand the concept of taking really loud evil tough distorted metal guitars and then burying them under soft old-timey acoustic instruments like pianos, cellos and chorales (a rare medieval instrument made up of the voices of DEAD PEOPLE), but there are those who have always considered metal to be the offspring of classical - and here they are! A multi-celebrity task featuring current and former members of Deep Purple, Helloween, Blackmore's Night, Dream Theater, Black Sabbath and eight hundred billion other heavy metal bands, Aina are dead set on forcing you to believe that power metal should be taken seriously. Especially by nerds, who will enjoy the wonderful tale of Torek, Naschtok, Aina, Talon, Oria, Sorvahr and Lalae Amer - all former U.S. congressmen! It's melodically rich, instrumentally diverse and the vocals (especially the female ones) are note-perfect and stunning. You really have to be into power metal though, so don't buy it expecting sexxxy grindcore by which to make love to your sweet virgin wife.

Band: Alabama Thunderpussy
Album: Fulton Hill
Label: Relapse

Sounding much less like Nashville Pussy than you would naturally expect, Alabama Thunderpussy's only real rednecky quality is the (now departed) vocalist's insanely scraggly non-musical moonshine-brewing child-touching delivery. Musically, the `Pussy play thick heavy chords that alternate between sweet soul swagger, stunning symphonic smarts and seriously slamming shipkickery, with a few Southern rock licks and dual-guitar harmonies sploshed about every now and then again. Song titles include "Lunar Eclipse," "Sociopath Shitlist" and "Three Stars" - which incidentally is what I give the album itself.

Yes, I give the album a lunar eclipse. Sorry if it briefly inconveniences the rest of you!

Band: All Or Nothing H.C.
Album: What Doesn't Kill You.
Label: Rodent Popsicle

.YELLS at you! Just like label owners Toxic Narcotic, All Or Nothing HC specialize in high-speed, mean-spirited, headbanging hardcore punk rock. And just like classic HC legends The Avengers, they have a female singer. However, they wasted their only chance to call themselves The Toxic Avengers, an unforgivable offense under any reign (especially Idi Amin - that guy ATE HIS WIFE!!!). So Alanis Morrisette is marrying Burt Reynolds and All Or Nothing H.C. are using their own band name to tell you what kind of music they play - just like The Jazz Passengers and The Pop Group before them (and the Red Rockers) (and Metal Church).. The singer woman alternates between a low muggsy blurble Sheryl Crowe blues croon and a really awesome (and adorable!) high-pitched scream reminiscent of that woman in Nausea whoever the hell she was. The musicians (two bassists, guitarist and drummer) beat the pissed-off angerness out of their instruments, and Renae the singer is cool enough to include explanations and background for her lyrics, giving them much more heft than you would normally allow punk lyrics to have. For example, "Lead, Follow or Get Out Of Way" was inspired by the graduate courses she took in educational administration, "Erase" is about her biological father, and "Knife To My Neck" is about her own personal 9/11 nightmare - two years later, but every bit as horrific. If you're into these modern kids and their loud distorted fast punker motorcycle rock, All Or Nothing HC have a CD out and as far as I can tell, you don't own it yet. Why is that? Could it be that your sexuality is threatened by their female singer? Face it - you're gay. Just admit it. Nobody's going to make fun of your hilariously small penis. It's perfectly natural to ejaculate before you get your pants off. You can't go on blaming your inadequacies on the women of the world. Nobody's going to laugh when they see these pictures I have of you sticking your finger up your butt.

Band: All Out War
Album: Condemned To Suffer
Label: Victory

As much as I love hardcore punk and metalcore, I don't understand the appeal of brutality without melodicism or complexity. And I find melodicism in DRI and Converge, so it's not like I'm some power pop fan complaining here. Six of these twelve songs start with the EXACT same chord - and don't go much further. They just pound, scream and run through the same HEAVY chords (and occasional notes) over and over. Plus, too much of the disc is devoted to midtempo pounding and bellowing, rather than the fastness our youth so enjoys. Supposedly this is a cross between NYHC and metal, but all I hear is the metal - and it's suspiciously "nu-metally" to me. It's definitely angry if that's what you're looking for, but aren't there already about a billion other bands doing the same exact thing? Didn't Pantera sound just like this about ten years ago? And enough with the damn kick drum! Don't you people have ears???

Band: Allergic To Whores
Album: Life Through Death's Eyes
Label: Rodent Popsicle Records

Caveat emptor! That means "Gew„hrleistungsausschluá!" This CD is only 19 minutes long! But what would you expect from hardcore kids out to make a quick buck? Out to tackle the FM airwaves with their two-minute-long "instant radio classics' with radio-ready lyrics like "The blood runs and stains. Her skull is broken with her heart." Man, this band is FUCKED UP! The music alternates between regular old speedy-ass hardcore and early-Fugazi-style tight-funk-hard-rock with a guy that sounds like Ian MacKaye shouting. But the lyrics are a strange, disconcerting mixture of emotional response with cold-blooded violence. It's hard to tell where the imagery stops and the reality begins. It appears to be a concept album, but what it's about remains unclear. A werewolf? A man who kills his lover for spurning him? Suicide? Love? Hey, someone who understands poetry - what's this about? I like it!

Band: Aluminum Babe
Album: Aluminum Babe EP
Label: Mother West

If, like me, you've ever had sex, you probably agree with me that girls are pretty and have nice voices. That's why Aluminum Babe comes as such a delight in this rock and roll world filled with pain, horror and men. Three members of this band are male, and wear priests' frocks in the album artwork (even in the in-concert photo!), but the singer is a woman with a really cute voice! I mean, REALLY cute! As cute as Dee Dee Ramone's wife who drove him to kill himself! And the music is uptempo fun punk rock with a SMART bubblegum pop sensibility (as opposed to the braindead "melodic"-but-hookless approach of most "pop punk" bands). Plus, five songs is the perfect amount, because they're ALL GREAT! Just like five seconds is the perfect amount of sex - because women hate sex and would rather be out shopping!

Band: Amazombies
Album: Bitches & Stitches
Label: Go-Kart

Motorcycle goth girls playing speedy sloppy reverbed-crunch-guitar, live-drumming-soundin' garage punk. With girls. Nothing but chords, chords, chords. And one guy. This is for folks who love the old '77-'78 style of punk, but with oil stains. The riffs are as standard as they get, and yet again I'm left wondering how it is that so many bands like this get record label contracts and I don't.

(Hint: They develop fan bases through live performance, and nobody likes my music).

Band: Amon Amarth
Album: Versus The World
Label: Metal Blade

Augh! A bunch of scary blonde long-haired guys! From SWEDEN! (Size: 449 964 km2, of which 54% forested, 16% mountainous, 8% agricultural land and 9% water). This is their third album, it seems, and apparently they're into the whole "Viking" thing (interestingly, in that part of the world, a "Viking" is considered to be a strong warrior, and not just. you know. GAY), with uplifting tunes like "Death In Fire," "For The Stabwounds In Our Backs," "Down The Slopes of Death," ".And Soon The World Will Cease To Be" and "Thousand Years of Oppression."

They play the DEATH metal, but in a very stately, mature, sad, cold way - with killer dark riffs and VERY heavy, fuzzed to hell guitars. The vocals are just your basic throwaway hoarse screaming crap, but the music rises above it, whether it be slow, fast or blastbeat grindcore pounding. I consider a lot of metal "hard to get into" or "bad," but one out of every, say, 5 or 6 bands really reaches through and grabs me by the lapels, or, if I'm not wearing lapels, sews on a nice pair of lapels and grabs them, and says, "Hey! We're smarter than the others!" I get that feeling from Amon Amarth. As crushingly heavy as they are, you can tell that evocative melody is of great importance to them. There is, as is quite often the case in this genre, an overreliance on the "dismal" minor keys, but at least they try to do a little more with it than give you chord sequences you've already heard a million times. The moods are more emotional - more sad than threatening. Even while kikkking your As! But it's still a pity that nobody has managed to come up with an innovative vocal style for this type of music.

Band: Anal Beard
Album: Din Noir
Label: Boss Tuneage/West Pier

I've just discovered the most British band in history! Every single song is so full of British cultural references, I don't understand a single joke on it - and I LOVE it!!! It's like TISM for the UK! Song titles include "Millicant and Nesbit Theme Day," "I Feature (Prominently) in Three Blyth Power Videos" and "Befriend a Binner Scheme (I Joined The)." I'm all like "the fuckity???" In comparison, Ray Davies and Mark Smith were born in Alabama! The music itself is hilarious speed pop novelty zaniness with a singer that sounds like John Lydon's friendly nephew at the circus. In fact, I loved it so much while drunk last night, I went to the band's web site, ordered their other full-length CD and sent them an email telling them how much I love them! There's even a semi-Motorhead parody on here called "Eight Of Spades." I LAUGHED AND DRANK AND DRANK SOME MORE!!!

Band: Anata
Album: Under A Stone With No Inscription
Label: Earache

Is it death metal or noisecore? No! You're wrong! It's both! Heavy, brutal and growly as all your favorite bands from Florida (including Miami Sound Machine), but with the mathematical quirky guitar wrenching intelligence of the Coalescing Dillinger Plan. No better bands have been heard in recent years - don't miss out on Anata! The hilarious thing is that one of the songs is called "Sewerages Of The Mind," and I thought it said "Beverages Of The Mind." I was all doped up for lyrics about Banana Coke and Sprite With Urine In It! Either way, this is an excellent, skilled and heavy band.

Band: ...And Oceans
Album: Cypher
Label: Century Media

Finland is a cold place far far away where everybody has fins. They swim around in the cold water and play heavy metal with their flippers. So far they’ve formed two bands.

…And Oceans like to be kooky odd, and what they do on their latest release is give each of their songs three different titles separated by semi-colons (e.g. “Angelina: Chthonian Earth: Her Face Forms Worms”), and combine metallic guitar with seXXXy trance-electro industrial dance synth drum chattering noise. “Cypher” appears to be their fifth album and believe me when I tell you this – the bassist goes by the name “Q” and the guitarist goes by the name “T.” Put ‘em together and what a QT! (cutie). Also, they sing (scream) stuff like “Smell me! I am a slave! Release me! The impure flesh I am!” and “”I love this world and your goddamn sun” and “Smile! It’s all falling apart! Plunge! Into catastrophe! That was today! That remains the same!” It’s a pretty neat CD once you get past the stupid techno bullshit.

Band: Anthrax
Album: Music of Mass Destruction: Live From Chicago
Label: Sanctuary

My wife wants to "live in Chicago," so believe me, I'm closer to this CD than you are. Interestingly to all, I was just listening to Anthrax's latest studio CD We Have Come For You All this morning and thinking to myself, "Man. They really just don't remember how to write a memorable riff, do they?" Apparently such is the case. This live CD captures them live with current singer That Guy From Armored Saint, and some of it is certainly great (Joe Jackson's "Got The Time," "I Am The Law," "Antisocial"), but the newer tunes just trudge and shout along with no direction. Having said that, it comes with a pretty cool DVD. Also, the first album with this new singer guy (Sound Of White Noise) is probably my favorite Anthrax CD of all time, so do try and grab a copy of that one. It's loud catchy grunge metal! But we're talking about this. It's okay. If you're an Anthrax fan, you might appreciate the inside knowledge that the double-disc set of DVD and CD features tracks in this percentage: 5 from We've Come For You All, 2 from Persistence Of Time, 3 from Among The Living, 2 from Sound Of White Noise, 2 from State Of Euphoria, 1 from Stomp 442, 3 from Volume 8: The Threat Is Real and the Public Enemy cover "Bring The Noise." Don't start punching me in the back of the head because they didn't play anything off of Spreading The Disease or Fistful Of Metal. I know you're a huge Neil Turbin fan, but that has nothing to do with me. As far as I'm concerned, that guy is a door-to-door carpet salesman now (even though he supposedly has been in bands called Kuni and DC To Daylight). (Those are just his night jobs. During the day, he's a door-to-door carpet salesman.) And don't you want to hear Mr. Big Voice add his own quirky style to the seven songs that Mr. Hair Metal used to sing? Mr. Hair Metal has a name, incidentally. His name is Joey Belladonna and he's a door-to-door carpet salesman.

Band: AngelStorm
Album: Rise From The Ash
Label: Set-Fire

Who has more in common with Jesus Christ: the shifty short-haired shitheads on Church TV or the long-haired, golden-maned love disciples that make up White Metal combo Angelstorm? Seriously! If Jesus and his father, God, weren't dead, they would LOVE the tight heavy riffs and professional lead vocals that drive this outfit's Pure Light sound. From the opening "Genesis To Revelation" through the ass-kicking "Music Of The Angel" through the unnecessarily parenthetical "Don't Judge A Book (By Its Cover)," Angelstorm prove again and again that you don't have to worship drugs and Satan to create good hard old school metal.

(Although you may have to be some church-going loser to LISTEN to it!)

Band: The Ankles
Album: Kill Themselves
Label: Magadee

I'd literally cry you an actual river if Jersey City, NJ's The Ankles actually DID kill themselves, because they're a gosh darmed good band! They play melodic, chiming Indie Rock, and are one of the few newer bands that honestly remind me of the genre's early-'90s heyday (Superchunk/Pavement/Sebadoh) without sounding like an imitation of any bands that have come before. Their melodies are honestly melodic (rather than noisily shitty like the Archers of Loaf), their guitar technique is somehow both beautiful and piercing,, and best of all, the vocalist can't sing!

Wait, that's not "best of all" at all! Who replaced my cliche' guidebook with this rotting sea sponge?

Band: Anti-Flag
Album: The Terror State
Label: Fat Wreck Chords

Political Johnson! That's what you'll find on this sixth album by Pittsburgh's punk rockers Anti-Flag. They play hard rock and metally riffs every once in a while, but the politics are strict left-wing hardcore anti-war goodness. Looks like George W. Bush is doing such a shitty job, he's becoming a Reagan-type figure for a new generation of disgruntled and disgusted punk rock youth! The very first track accuses him of being a Turncoat, Killer, Liar and Thief, and this attitude continues through such great anger anthems as "When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want To Kill You," "Sold As Freedom," "Mind The G.A.T.T.," "Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.)" and "You Can Kill The Protester, But You Can't Kill The Protest." A lot of people reminisce about the early days of U.S. hardcore punk, back when we had REAL enemies like Reagan to yell about. Well, look again, youngsters. The current administration is as corrupt or even MORE corrupt than that one in oh so many ways. I'd hate to think anyone would need a hardcore band to point this out to them, but if such is the case, you can't do much better than Anti-Flag. They want to educate you - let them! Better Anti-Flag than fuckin' Bill O'Suckcockly!

Band: Antifreeze
Album: The Search For Something More
Label: Kung Fu

Beautiful sad power pop songs. Although they have spikey hair and are on a "punk rock" label, this isn't punk rock at all -- it's just very pretty, sad songs (midtempo or slightly uptempo) played with distorted guitar chords. It sounds to me like what the Lemonheads would sound like today if Ben Deily had taken them over instead of Evan Dando. Just very heartfelt emotional songs about pain and disillusion, sung by a young person with a pleasant voice who feels no need to imitate Billy Joe Armstrong. This is their fourth album, and had I heard the first three, I would totally be telling you how it compares to them. Wanna hear the hilarious thing? I think they live in Appleton, Wisconsin!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH WHAT A BUNCH OF LOSERS!!!!!

Best,
Bill Welch
President
Appleton, WI Chamber Of Commerce

Band: Antimatter
Product: Saviour
Label: The End

The wife heard me put a new CD into the player. How could such a rare occurrence be missed? It's not everyday that the world-unknown music critic Mark Prindle is so intrigued by a new disc that he is willing to remove Billy Joel's KOHUEPT (Live in Leningrad) from the stereo system for a few brief moments. But tonight was no normal night. Tonight I had a CD where the album cover was some sort of naked woman angel figure with a skull head with its back to a cross. And I was determined to hear this woman angel skull thing play some ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!!!!!

The wife knows more about music that isn't stupid guitar rock than I do, so I will quickly guide you through HER reactions before giving you my own:

"Is this Portishead?"
(5 minutes later) "I like this! It's like Portishead with a groove!"
(5 minutes later) "Man, this is a total Portishead ripoff."
(5 minutes later) "Why do people even bother forming bands like this? Bands that just completely rip off other bands?"

As previously hinted, I don't know a thing about Portishead except for the Jefferson Airplane cover or whatever the hell that thing was they did ten years ago. "Fade Into You" or whatnot. So I'm going to give you my own impression now.

(hunches over, makes fingers into "V for Victory" signs) "I am not a crook!"

Now then, let me tell you what this album sounds like to me. To put it subtly, Saviour is depressing depressed music for depression. But with some really pretty guitar here and there. All tremeloey, vibratoey electric moodmaking and/or pensive, questioning acoustic pickage. Electronic drums and synth mood washes support the SCREAMING AXEWORK, while a sad woman with a straight unpretentious singing voice sings "Whose water drowns the others?" and "You'll be seething going down" and "Careful not to drown" and "Close your eyes when you feel you're going under" - in four different songs. (?)

The songs ARE all about fear of death, sad betrayals and hearts growing colder. And the backdrops remind me of the slower songs on the second Cure album - simple. direct. lots of space in the mix, motifs taking their time. And, at its best, eerily effective. It's really hard to listen to this whole CD in one sitting and NOT get depressed (and I don't mean that in a bad way - I mean that the moods they create WORK). However, taken song for song, I would say that only three of these really grabbed me, shook me, taught me how to go up an escalator without my shoelace getting caught at the top and made me go, "Jeez! Good song!" For your records, these songs are entitled "Holocaust," "God Is Coming," "Angelic" and "Flowers." Those four tracks are the three songs that I GODDAMMIT

If you're a gother, buy the damn thing. It's a new project by Duncan Patterson of Anathema! What are you doing, not owning it??? And buy every Nick Cave album too. I love Nick Cave.

Band: Antimatter
Product: Lights Out
Label: The End

To me, the most interesting thing about this release is that I received it from a zine editor instead of directly from my contact at The End Records. I can't help but conclude that I've been removed from their mailing list! Is it because I implied that their Dionysus album would appeal only to people who "love permed mullets"? Or because I put three "K"s in the name of their band Nightingale to make them "look really racist so they'll get death threats and stuff"? Surely it can't be because I reviewed the LAST Antimatter album with a quote from my wife: "Why do people even bother forming bands like this?" Therefore I must assume that the owners of The End are just too depressed by the sorrowful suicidal trip-hop goth feel of this CD to toss a copy in the mail for me.

As it is, I'm llistening (pronounced "yistening") to a zine's copy and am bored constipated (shitless). Antimatter are filled with sorrow, but an empty, uneventful sorrow that feels more like teenaged self-pity than a universal emptiness. Track two is robust and gorgeously sad, but the rest are so underwritten, they not only add nothing to the world of music -- they actually take songs AWAY from you when you listen to them. See, here's track 6 - oh no! Where did "House Of The Rising Sun" go? It's GONE! (heh heh - a little Antimatter humor for the quantum physicists out there)

Sum: Atmospheric minimalist synths and a Tori Amos woman. Occasional man. Slow. Cliched. Boring. And that's not just my opinion - that's a fact I read in the menu at Arby's.

Did you know "Arby's" was named "Arby's" because "R.B.'s" stands for "Roast Beef"? It WAS! Isn't that clever??? And Domino's Pizza got its name from the chunks of Fats Domino that they bake into the dough!

Band: Antioch Arrow
Album: Gems of Masochism
Label: Three.One.G

This is actually a re-release of a very bizarre goth/punk/noise record originally issued in 1995, but now's the time to enjoy it! Antioch Arrow's music is built upon both male and female vocals, odd galloping/stomping rhythms, loud cymbally drums, distorted bass, crinkly guitar notes, dark piano plunking and a painful squawking organ. It's interesting! Even the mix is quirky, accenting strange parts at different times throughout the songs. I'm all for interesting, although I don't understand why people even bother since, according to the latest Rolling Stone poll, nobody has recorded an album as good as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the last THIRTY-SIX YEARS.

Band: Ape Has Killed Ape
Album: Acid Reflux
Label: True Classical

If you're looking for clever music, sometimes you have to dig way, way down through the underground until you find some guy in his basement recording stuff on a 4-track. That's where you'll find Matt Stein, the mattstermeind of Los Angeles' Ape Has Killed Ape. He has guitars, a synth, drum machine and theremin, as well as a friend playing bass guitar for him. The songs weave through different noisy, pot-smoking styles and his voice reeks coolness - but like ACTUAL coolness, not detached Beck-style affectation. I 'd call it homemade indie guitar hero psych for the "Now & Later" Generation, which doesn't actually exist because those things will rip your fillings out but I like them.

Artist: Ape Has Killed Ape
Album: Another Fraudulent Hoax EP
Label: Self-released

Home recording giant Matt Stein is back with another diverse collection of marijuana-head classics. His Krautrock synth, his jangly post-hippy guitar, his threatening samples, his blasted low-key distorted sing-speak vocals, his heroic LSD psych-blues leads: they've all returned! I once called Matt Stein the "king" of "under..." ground mu "...sic," and that goes double for the new EP (hot on the heels of his second CD Acid Reflux, a sleeper in any language). The country-western "Down River Meltdown" treads too closely to that Wilco No Depression pisspump for my philosopher's taste, but I understand his desire to capture youthful fancy by pretending to be "one of them," so I'll resist making any unnecessary Beck comparisons.

Especially since Beck, by all indications, has never written a good song in his life.

Band: Arch Enemy
Album: Anthems of Rebellion
Label: Century Media

It cracks me up how these guys are always rebelling. There they go again! Heh heh. Anyway, Arch Enemy plays bleeding bloody death metal with female vocals. In a bizarre twist, the female vocalist doesn't sound at all like Melissa Etheridge, choosing instead to shriek like a male death metal vocalist. On the music side, your fingers would have to be tied together with a piece of string for them not to be tapping out the kickass rhythms that Arch Enemy plays in killer high-speed rockers like "Silent Wars" and "Despicable Heroes." But this album isn't about velocity - it's about dynamics. Midtempo stutter-stutter Sabbath guitars, ambient black metal synths, sorrowful acoustic breaks, Boston-style guitar harmonies (triplets? Iron Maiden?), even the pound of nu-metal can be heard once or twice in these anthems of rebelness. It's so good that how can I but wittily conclude, "With Arch Enemies like this, who needs friends?"

Band: The Arm
Album: The Arm
Label: Last Gasp

Energetic drumming, cheap keyboards, swoopy bass lines, scratchy reverbed guitars, KILLER hooks and a guy shouting - put it all together and you've got a The Arm band! How could you NOT love a band with the good taste to write the lyric, "Good evening! We are not The Fall!"? Maybe they're not, but they're smart enough to create exciting new music in the same sort of vein as that greatest of all British bands (The Fall, not The Beatles). For two specific examples, "We Are Bright Young Men!" is driven by a white-hot guitar lick from angst-pop Hellven, and the melodic white noise organ/guitar wash of "Give Up While You're Young!" is one of the most untraditionally beautiful pieces of recording I've heard this year - and I'm talking fiscal year, not calendar year! I really like this band. If you're into that old late `70s experimental type of punk rock and no wave (The Contortions, Gang of Four, Pere Ubu), you'll welcome The Arm with open arms. For a total of three arms.

Band: Armitage Shanks
Album: Urinal Heap
Label: Damaged Goods

Alleged Billy Childish prot‚g‚s Armitage Shanks play a crude, rusty and possibly inept style of garage punk that somehow sounds unique even as it breaks no new ground whatsoever. The singer sounds like a big half-educated lout, and the band plays scrankle-skrinkle UK-punk '79 guitar chords on this collection of brand-new speedy originals and inspired cover tunes ("Hold On I'm A-Comin'," "Circles (Instant Party)," "Knock On Wood"). Also please note: the album title is a take-off on the name of long-forgotten '70s shit-rockers Uriah Heep. What kind of human being would bother to make fun of Uriah Heep in the year 2004 of our Lord?

Band: Arson
Album: Lacerate The Sky
Label: Resurrection A.D.

Music - H VY! L D! S M T M S V N F ST! TH S NG R SCR MS T M CH TH GH ND T'S R LLY RR T T NG FT R WH L ! B ND S T GHT ND M V S Q CKLY B TW N D RG AND H RDC R . TH S NG R S NDS L K H `S V M T N G LL V R Y R W F TH GH. H Y S NG R! S Y T, D `NT SPR Y T!

Hmm. The doctor said I'd feel a lot better after I cleared out my vowels, but it doesn't seem to have done a thing about the deck of cards stuck up my ass.

Band: Asgaroth
Album: Red Shift
Label: Peaceville

These Metal bands of today! What is it they want? To rock me or shock me? To thrill me or kill me? To dazzle me or

(seven and a half hours later)

can "razzle" be used as a verb? As to my point, Asgaroth are a metallllic band from Barcelona, Spain ("It's great to be back here in Barcelona. Take it, CJ!" "1,2,3,4!" BA-NA-NA-NA-NA- NA-NA-NA-NA-NAH!!! "HEY HO! LET'S GO!" GOD, I love the Jefferson Starship!) who take DEATH metal and add in keyboards without turning everything into gothy VIKING metal. It's still DEATH metal (with some POWER metal in there), but with hints of BLACK metal, yet with some real kickass guitar parts that sound like THRASH metal or SPEED metal, and then out of nowhere they'll start playing a complicated bass/guitar interactive kind of PROG metal, but the keyboards are more like CLASSICAL metal (they play notes, not just washes of boredom). But one thing's for sure - no matter how you slice it, these guys play POWER POP.

Come on, let a hilarious man tell his tale of fibbery. Say! Last night in my dream, I dreamt in my dream that I created a parody metal band that I decided to call "Tutelage Of Sin." For some reason, that name seemed really really funny in the dream. Like we're so evil, our songs will tutor your children in the ways of sin. But enough about my dreams! I know you just want me to get to the part where I nail Ronald Reagan Jr., but it's NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU SON OF A SACK OF BASTARD???? IT'S NOT GONNA --- OH GOD, I'M BUTTFUCKING RONALD R - NO!!!! IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!

To your point, Asgaroth provide a really cool mixture of a bunch of different types of metal, includiNg CINEMATIC metal. In the year 2000 (when all of the computers in the world broke because the clocks weren't programmed right), a Spanish magazine called Hell Awaits conducted a readers' poll in which Asgaroth won Best Band, Best Album and Best Keyboardist. You really should check it out if you're into the kind of black metal that has lots of keyboards in it. These guys put together some awfully well-written horror movie constructions, containing not nearly the amount of clich‚d melodies that many a band of this fine genre have been known to do in their day.

I'M TALKIN' ABOUT YOU, THE J. GEILS BAND!!!!

Band: Asperity
Album: The Final Demand
Label: Arise

Power metal shall live forever! Asperity creates big heavy metal songs to hail Satan to while holding your Viking sword aloft and growing your hair short in front but long in back. I'm still astounded by the fact that this clearly 1980s-era style of songwriting still finds so many champions, but indeed it does. Do the women still have big permed hair? Do the men still have big permed hair? These are questions for wiser sages than meself. Asperity is a Swedish band featuring two former members of Carnal Forge (YUCK! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF SICK BAND NAME IS THAT!?), and this is their debut album. The lyrics involve internal demons and darkness, and the music is very heavily driven by heavy distorted guitar chords (mostly minor keys like Iron Maiden, but HEAVIER like Black Sabbath) and the occasional keyboard. The singer could have been either in or on Survivor, but they would have thrown him out for kicking too much ass. Asperity 4ever!

Band: Atmosphere
Album: Seven's Travels
Label: Rhymesayers/Epitaph

Jesus Christ! "Trying To Find A Balance" is a rap song built on top of an old SPOOKY TOOTH song!!! And not even a slightly-well-known Spooky Tooth song either, but the title track to 1974's The Mirror, now all but disowned by the band. I, of course, did the right thing and sent Spooky Tooth an email making sure they knew about this complete ripoff of their great, long forgotten track. Hopefully they'll get trillions of dollars from Epitaph records for it, because I've just about had it with people reciting poems over great old stolen riffs and being hailed as urban geniuses. As for the rest of the CD, there are no other Spooky Tooth samples as far as I can tell. He probably stole every other riff from a white rock band though. It's too bad there's no lyrics sheet included - that would save you the time of having to listen to the whole goddamned ripoff CD. Open letter to rap artists: WRITE YOUR OWN FUCKING MUSIC.

Band: Atreyu
Album: The Curse
Label: Victory

This great band has one singer who belches all his words out in puddles full of retard drool, and another singer who sings like those sweet boys in `N Sync. They developed this fabulous approach through years of Linkin Park idolatry. They're from Orange County, which is why they're so awesome. Orange Country, I call it. Orange COUNTRY. Because it's so great, it's like a whole country. I don't live there, but you people do (or you live semi-close, or something), so you know what I'm talking about.

But Atreyu are really awesome and they demolish the barriers between rock, melodic hardcore and metal. Sometimes the singer and screamer guy do their bullshit at the same time and it's awesome how untalented the screamer guy sounds. They recorded the CD in GGGarth's "killer studio" (it's filled with a cyanide gas) and the music is about 400 billion times better than the vocals. When I call a band "great," I don't bullshit and fuck around. The instrument players sound like they've been listening to as much Slint as Korn - their interplay is intelligent and well-written in quite a variety of styles (metalcore, math metal, funk metal, post-rock). They may need to rethink their vocal approach though, unless the singer's really cute and helps sell records, in which case give him a solo deal so he can gargle phlegm over some session musicians' horsecock music instead of ruining an otherwise awesome band.

That was an assholish thing to do, singling out one weak link like that. Especially since his buffoonish moron screams might appeal to stupid people. See, that was another asshole comment. I'm going to be a moral human being now finally and say this: I hope he develops another vocal style, because I don't think he does justice to himself or the band by yelling in what basically amounts to a "hoarse little kid trying to imitate a screaming Muppet" voice. If it's any consolation, I can't sing or scream worth a shit either. I sound like a nervous wiener-washer with my nose stuffed with foam rubber. I'm even worse than this fuckin' guy!

Band: Audio Karate
Album: Lady Melody
Label: Kung Fu

Most successful pop-punk bands are too busy starting their own clothing lines or getting regrettable tattoos to actually focus on making good music. But when Audio Karate's 2002 album Space Camp was labeled generic sounding, it had only one way to go...up. So, they dipped into the records of their older brothers, the Pixies, and quietly reinvented their sound for this sweet Lady Melody. The songs are well-crafted and a unique take on what melodic punk has been defined as in the past decade, and the passion in the vocals is undeniably infectious. Still, this roughness fits well with the overall feel of "Melody," a fine album that shows what can happen when the unpolished grit of youth is augmented with actual talent. On Lady Melody, their second album, this California quartet careens through 11 satisfyingly dynamic tunes, each containing a handsome melody and a rhythmic attack more varied than you'd expect. But Lady Melody's mercurial mix of emo bluster and '90s indie-rock guitars (think Treepeople, Dinosaur Jr. or Superchunk), even at its most mundane ("Gypsyqueen" and "Hey Maria") is still more energetic, passionate and interesting than the music of many of the band's SoCal punk rock peers. They mix angular melodies and scratchy, thrifty vocals on rockers like "Party at the Lexington Queen" and "Ms. Foreign Friendly," hitting a creative high on mid-tempo "Catch and Release" and putting themselves more in line with exploratory rock bands like Sparta and Hot Hot Heat. Similarly, there's more than the typical three-chord "I lost my love" bullshit most bands of this genre fall back on. Actually, harmonic may be a better description of Justo Gonzalez's bass playing: His ability to hold down roots with clacky straight-eighth pick work shows punk-rock training, but he really shines when he colors tunes like the title track with numerous chord tones, highlighting the band's musicality. The new record, "Lady Melody" (due June 1), won't stir up too many comparisons to Good Charlotte or even Bad Religion. "Lady" is so different from "Space" that Camacho complained some writers have completely missed the inspiration for the new stuff: "One guy compared us to the Strokes," he said. "I have two Strokes albums. We sound nothing like them." Initially, the biggest turn-off about this disc is the vocal approach. Maybe I've been too spoiled by listening to pop-punk lately, but the rough vocal style is a little grating at first, especially when he's screeching out some of the notes on the edges of his range. Wow. I loved `Space Camp' but I love `Lady Melody' more. This isn't just a follow-up to a great record; it's everything and more. Infact, I'd go as far as saying this is the best record I've heard all year. I labeled these Californians the revelation of 2002 with their debut full-length "Space Camp" on Kung Fu, and although it looks like they haven't convinced the rest of the world of their magnificance yet, I'd really be surprised if "Lady Melody" wouldn't be that final push to get them there. As bland "follow-the-formula" rock dominates MTV and the airwaves, it's good to see that some musicians still spend time writing quality, original and very creative tunes. The guitars are fabulous on this album, combining intricate picking with the perfect amount of bar chords taking care of the rhythm sections. Lady Melody was produced by none other than Bill Stevenson (ALL/Descendents), who definitely brought out a real rock sound from Audio Karate and you'll be sure to notice a deeper, much angrier tone to this album. Their first record, to tell the truth, didn't really impress me that much. It was too cheesy and too similar to The Ataris. Lady Melody is not the map of a house in need of restauration or remodeling but the blueprint of an innovative, renewing, re-vitalising and revolutionary architectural design by 4 people who clearly know what they are doing. But it does take time for you to enjoy it. My first listened, I hated; as with my second try too. But I gave it one more and voila, I fell in love. Think of Jawbreaker jamming with The Lawrence Arms. Sopivan rosoinen „„nimaailma yhdistettyn„ fiilisrikkaaseen esitykseen toimii hyvin, ja saa kokonaisuuden kuulostamaan harkitun spontaanille. Eine gute Weiterentwicklung haben AK jedenfalls vollzogen. Auch wenn mich pers”nlich dieses Album nicht so umhaut wie der Vorg„nger, ,lady melody" geh”rt vor zweifellos zu den interessanten Punkrock Ver”ffentlichungen dieser Tage. Die Latino-Punks aus Kalifornien haben schnell gewonnen, ihre Mischung aus den Vandals und Rancid gef„llt. Stakato-Gitarren, feine Melodien, ein treibendes Schlagzeug, die Songs kommen wie aus einem Guss, eine Note fasst in die andere. Der bisher eher etwas unspektakul„re sound von AUDIO KARATE hat sich in den letzten zwei jahren ein gutes st�ck weiterentwickelt und das ergebnis findet in "lady melody" seinen vorl„ufigen h”hepunkt.

Best,
Jayson Blair

Band: Bad Acid Trip
Label: Lynch The Weirdo
Label: Serjical Strike

These nonstop jokers will give you the most hilarious time of your life with uproarious humor gags like "Fascist Fuckwad," "When You Go Madd" and "Beware Of The Little People With Terrible Visions." The singer does zany fake-low-voice Rev. Norb-style antics and the band combines early Mr. Bungle-style circus music with thrash, grindcore and goofy noveltiness. Basically, they do a great job of trying to convince you that they're sophomoric idiots while simultaneously presenting some incredibly challenging instrumental moments. Bad Acid Trip is like a Carnival of Sickness. In fact, if I'd ever used LSD before and had a bad trip, I might describe it as being just like the band Carnival of Sickness. Way to go, Carnival of Sickness with your album Let's Lynch The Landlord!

And vice-versa!

Band: Bantam
Album: Bantam
Label: Heavy Nose

The lead singer/guitarist for NYC's very own Bantam is Gina from the Lunachicks, if you can believe THAT (don't - it's a LIE probably like everything else is a LIE - thank you Charles Manson for showing me what reality really is! Best, Dennis Wilson). But more importantly, the guy who plays bass on three of the songs is GEORGE PORFIRIS! Formerly of the HEROINE SHEIKS! Until he QUIT! Never forget what Godd said to his discifools (IS THERE A HARDCORE BAND CALLED "THE DISCIFOOLS" YET? LIKE DISCIPLES? BUT "DISCI-FOOLS"? IF NOT, FORM ONE. YOU! YEAH, I'M TALKIN' TO YOU! THE ONE WITH THE SHIRT AND PANTS!).

Bantam have a good crunchy motorcycle fuzz guitar sound, which they merge with several well- known genres (punk, garage, early grunge, dark pop/rock, mope rock, Black Sabbathy metal and FM-ready alternative, to name just one of these possible genres) to create a diverse, noisy but melodic, fun yet angst-ridden, manly yet woman-led album that has a song on it called "The Car." Awww FUCK YEAH, "THE CAR"!!!! NOW WE'RE TALKING ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING MOVIES FROM THE 1970S!!!! LOOK OUT, JAMES BROLIN!!!! HERE COMES "THE CAR"!!!!! WHAT EVIL DRIVES "THE CAR"? I DON'T KNOW!!!! BUT TIE UP YOUR DAUGHTERS AND LOCK UP YOUR STORAGE LOCKER, BECAUSE HERE COMES "THE CAR"!!!! BEEEEEP!!! BEE-BEE-BEEEEEP! BEE-BEE-BEEEEP!!!!

Band: Bathory
Album: Nordland I
Label: Black Mark

Bathory is the long-running Nordic metal project of a man named Quorthon. I was all excited about its release because I have this old Bathory compilation called Jubileum Volume III that just RIPS with all this fast, evil, dirty-Venom-guitar-sounding death metal with titles like "Satan My Master," "Crosstitution" and "Valhalla BackingVocals Multitrack Sample." But I guess peoples' tastes change over the course of two decades, because this CD is much slower, much more cleanly produced (guitars are still distorted and heavy - just not as creepily reverbed and antagonistic) and much, much more GOTH than the old stuff. The vocals in particular are like an overflowing toilet of humorless guys with dark slicked back hair dressed in all black and trying to sound morbid. But I've done some research and discovered that he's actually been doing this classically- inspired, dour Norwegian stuff for quite some time, and that the stuff I'd heard before was just his REALLY early stuff. So suffice it to say that I prefer his early stuff, but if you like any of his past several albums, you're bound to like this one. Slow songs with heavy guitars and synths playing Very Serious WARLIKE metal riffs (dark fantasy Dungeons & Dragons stuff). You'll "wig out" to a twisted scraggle tune every once in a while ("Great Hall Awaits A Fallen Brother" has a killer garage death guitar tone until Bob Opera Vocals comes in and turns it into a scary show tune), but - HEY! That parenthetical phrase said it best! These all sound like "scary" show tunes. In a Gothic off-Broadway musical about a Vampire haunting the hills of Sweden and sucking blood out of all the blonde girls with huge 5dood.

(Oh god, please don't hold your monitor up to a mirror - oh god, I am SO DEAD.")

It's a more "mature" form of metal than I personally tend to gravitate towards, with what sounds like a lot of work put into arrangements and dynamics and whatnot. So if classical goth metal is your "bag," consider Bathory your "vomit"!

Wait, that didn't come out the way I meant it. Can somebody fix the English language for me please?

Band: Battles
Album: EP C
Label: Monitor

John Stanier of Helmet, The Mark of Cain and Tomahawk is BACK! Ian Williams of Don Caballero is BACK! Tyondai Braxton is BLACK! Put `em all together and you've got BATTLES! Specifically, you've got a post-rock collection of instrumental gamelan guitar playing, electronic noises and drumbeats joining together to evoke feelings of darkness, soft and light. Song titles include "TRAS2," "IPT-2" and "B+T," leaving the listener questioning his own SANITY! Fans of Helmet and The Mark of Cain might be disappointed by the lack of heaviness, but fans of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Tortoise and what-have-you will have a field day - and I don't mean that album Field Day by Dag Nasty!

Ah, go fuck yourself.

Band: Bayside
Album: Sirens and Condolences
Label: Victory

It's unbelievable that there's so much confusion over the definition of "emo." There's like five hundred billion bands out there that sound like they're about to cry over a girl every second of their lives. Those are "grindcore" bands. Bands like Bayside, on the other hand, play "emo," which (whether punky or poppy - in Bayside's case poppy) involves sadness, desperation, gentle guitar lines, melodic sober vocals and lyrics like "I'll finally understand why time can wash away love like it was made of sand and it's wonderful, the pain that comes with regret."

And that's the main thing about Bayside really - the singer just cries and cries, threatening suicide over and over again without ever following through. Jerks like this need to realize that (a) there are more than one woman in the world, (b) they're blessed as FUCK to be rich white people free of disease (assuming they are) and (c) life's going to kill them soon enough so they'd might as well try to have fun while it's actually an option.

They're awfully good melodicists but Christ, don't any bands form for the pussy anymore? The PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY????

Wait, slow down. What do you mean I'm not Ted Nugent?

Band: Beakers
Album: Four Steps Toward A Cultural Revolution
Label: K

Do you ever get all mad and start yelling, "PERE UBU SUCKED AFTER THEIR FIRST ALBUM!!!"? Well, if you're like me, you generally don't think far enough in advance to yell things, but the Beakers heard your prayer in 1980 and recorded an art-bashing funk wave album that sounds EXACTLY like early Pere Ubu, right down to the exact same scratchy guitar tone and quivery fat man voice! If that's not all, you'll also enjoy the James Chance-style anarchic sax wailings of Jim Anderson, singer and saxophonist. If you think a band that steals their entire schtick from Pere Ubu and the New York No Wave Scene can't possibly be good, you'd be Dead Wrong! The Beakers flirt with disaster, but find success through winning dub bass lines and an excellent crisp drum sound reminiscent of early Fall. And that's not the ONLY connection to The Fall -- apparently the guitarist for the Beakers is none other than Mark E. Smith!!! However, I bet you a dollar it's not the REAL Mark E. Smith, but just some charlatan trying to cash in on The Fall's worldwide success and trick you into thinking MES was ever lucid enough to play an actual instrument. At any rate, this band broke up in 1981.

Band: Beatsteaks
Album: Living Targets
Label: Epitaph

German power-pop-rock-punk on Epitaph. Germany must be a lot like America, because there is nothing at all about this music that sounds like it couldn't have come out of Orange County or Boston, Massachusetts (home of the assfucking ministers!). The chord sequences are basic, the singing is just there, the songs hover around midtempo with just a couple of attempts at slightly speedier emotional Descendents-type punk. But they get lost somewhere on the path to interestingness. Only a few of these songs excite me at all. "Disconnected" has a neat bass line, if you're going to keep poking me in the eye with that nail until I give you an example. The rest of it just drags, with all the high-punk energy of that band that did "Whoa - come on let your light shine" or however that song goes. Corrosive Bland? Aggressive Flower? AH! Collective Soul. That's who I meant. But they're better than this boring crap band. GO BACK TO GERMANY WHERE YOU CAME FROM!

Okay, I'm told that they never actually left Germany. So. maybe they should think about LEAVING GERMANY WHERE THEY CAME FROM! SEEING THE WORLD! PICKING UP SOME NEW INFLUENCES SO ALL THEIR SONGS AREN'T CRAPPY UNEVENTFUL DOUCHEBAGS FILLED WITH A FRESH SEMEN/VAGINAL LUBRICANT MIXTURE!

Say! I've just thought of a fantastic new tag line for a Massengill commercial!

Band: Benny
Album: Finnish Road Junction
Label: Boss Tuneage

How seriously do you expect me to take a punk rock band that does a cover of "Down Under"? If you guessed "not very seriously," you're WRONG! ASS-wrong!!! Like most Americans (not that guy from the Swans), I love to laugh, so the British poppity punk/hardcore glee of Benny is tasty good to my ears. They don't come across as the most innovative band of all time, but if suburban melodic punk and fast angry (but silly) hardcore is (sneakin ' sally) up your alley, don't let this one skip by! How would you survive without "Shit Yer Pants" or "Karl's Dad's Shed"?

Simple! You could simply shit your pants in Karl's dad's shed (assuming you know somebody named Karl whose dad has a shed).

Band: Bestial Mockery
Album: Evoke The Desecrator
Label: Osmose Productions

"Chainsaw Demons Return." "Flash From A Razor." "Necromantic Ritual Desecration (Of A Sacrosanct Angel." "Death Upon The Holy Skies." Shockingly, it's not gospel at all, but DEATH METAL! The singer is a goblin with a throat filled with battery acid and the band speeds up and slows down like a busted rollercoaster scattering bodies all over the parking lot. Blastbeats! What would a really slow blastbeat sound like? Somebody record me a whole album of them and mail it to: Hell. "NECRO FUCKING SLUT! SHE'S A FUCKING WHORE!" That's a Bestial Mockery lyric, just FYI. Very cool evil band on a French label. Oops! Sorry - make that a "Freedom" label.

Band: Beyond Surface
Album: Destination's End
Label: Noise

Debut album by a German metal band. Lots of very pretty guitar playing - acoustic moments, arpeggois, dual harmonies -- harken back to fonder days of yore. A whole lotta minor chord action going down too, as if the band is sad and things are upsetting them. Very prevalent pianos and keyboards, some modern-day production tricks - these guys cannot be pigeonholed! Maybe it's more hard rock than metal, I suppose. They've certainly got greater range than your traditional heavy metal band might have. Some ballad-type songs here and there. Some creative riffage too - good tunes galore! Perhaps a little overserious (German vocalists ALWAYS sound overserious though), but if you're yearning for some melodic hard rock with metallic blasts of fuzz, consider going "Beyond Surface" and reaching your "Destination's End"!

This review is so enjoyably poorly written, I'm going to leave it completely as is. Isn't it amazing how it sounds like I've never heard music before in my life?

That's because I HAVEN'T! I'm completely BLIND!

What's that you say?

So wait -- THAT'S what music is? What the hell is NUDITY then!?

So you're telling me I've been masturbating to a GWAR album all these years!??!!?

That's okay, I guess. Does my wife know?

GAH!!! I'M MARRIED TO BILLY JOEL'S TURNSTILES!??!

Band: Beyond The Embrace
Album: Against The Elements
Label: Metal Blade

Beyond the Embrace is a Massachusetts band with THREE guitarists that plays mostly what I guess is called old-timey Iron Maideny "power metal" (although I prefer to call it NWOBHROTFLMAO) , with fast mean thrashin' speed metal tossed in every once in a while to get the kids on their happy dancing feet. Although the drummer tries to keep things moving by changing rhythm, speed and style several times in each song, the riffs are unfortunately pretty tiresome, relying way too heavily on minor keys, unoriginal chord sequences and twin lead guitar harmonies that scream "Hey, Iron Maiden!" over and over again. There are definitely bits and pieces of genius on here, but it only all comes together in one track - the seven- minute instrumental "The Riddle Of Steel" (btw, have you heard the riddle of steel? Oh it's a killer! Listen at this:

Q. What did the Steel say to the Auto Worker?
A. Don't touch me or I'll call a "Copper"! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! Oh heck. Sorry I peed on your neck there.)

that closes the album. This songbrings together the awesome thrash, acoustic pickin'/strummin', power metal chordness and classical piano, presenting the band in their most positive light. Which is to say, without the singer, who alternates between a sick rasp and a singing style that appears to be based nearly entirely on that of Mr. James Hetfield of Metallica fame.

Band: Big D & The Kids Table
Album: The Ginsy Mill EP
Label: Fork In Hand/Stomp/Household Name Records

I love to brag about hating ska, but I'm starting to think that I don't hate it as much as I thought I did. I don't mean the Specials and Madness and faux-ska bands like that; I'm talking about the LEGIT stuff, like No Doubt. But here I am listening to the "punk-ska" of Big D & The Kids Table from Boston and kind of not hating it at all! Granted, there are probably a lot of folks in Massachusetts who argue the merits of such a band (I call them the "Mass. Debaters"), but for this lonely non-Jewish NYC boy, the bouncy horns, variedly toned guitars (from beatifully clean strumming to ugly tinny scriggling to heavy thrashin') and good solid humor of love are the BEST kind of ska possible, especially considering how stupid you have to dress if you want to be a ska fan. Here's my "ska guy," a new character I've been working on for the past six months: "Hey! Look at my narrow-brimmed porkpie hat, short pants, long socks, checkerboard patterns and skinny tie! Last week I was a Nazi skinhead!" That's all I've come up with so far, but then that little "jik-jik-jik" guitar style is all that the entire ska genre has come up with so far, so who's the real enemy here?

That's right! Osama Von Beethoven!

The Ginsy Mill EP is the absolute EQUAL of the entire Beatles catalog.

Band: Big Iron
Album: Falling Down
Label: Neoblast

Somewhere there's a land where people don't want to listen to detuned heavy metal chords with a guy alternately singing, rapping and screaming over it. In this land, it's said that you can find melodies containing actual notes, and lyrics concerned with more than teen-level self-pity like "The truth is killing me," "Torn up in an overrated mind fuck," "It's hard to sleep at night with so much wasted life" and "all of this made up shit adds up to a life." But you know what? FUCK that world! Big Iron ROXXX and you can really IDENTIFY with their lyrics! Plus Todd the bassist is HOT!

Did you get that "Mass. Debaters" joke I made in the first paragraph? That was AWESOME!!!

Band: Billy Butcher
Album: Penny Dreadful
Label: Outlaw

Australian-looking possibly-Canadian Pete Parker is a ROCKER! His rock and roll is filled with rolling, rocking and roll. Hard rock and roll. Bendy blues solos, primitive Chuck Berry riffs and a goofy normal guy singing lead (that being Pete Parker, who looks a lot like that bald guy in Midnight Oil, plays like early AC/DC and Angel City, yet apparently recorded this album in Vancouver. He's a Southern man with one foot in the country blues and another in a puddle of ink that is splashing all over his body, leaving strange patterns in its wake. If you haven't heard Peter Parker's pickled pecker pickled peppers, you haven't heard Billy Butcher (because that's his band). And if you haven't heard Billy Butcher, you've never been DRUNK!

Band: Blackouts
Album: History In Reverse
Label: K

In their ongoing project to dig up old Seattle bands that sounded like other, more successful bands, K Records has reissued an old early '80s sack of tunes by the Blackouts (or "Joy Division With A Saxophone"). Their cold wave, atmosphreicic badtime riffs will drive you to suicide and back, especially the memorable bass lines, churning drum attacks and Joy Division imitation. They were GOOD though! And the singer guy didn't sound like Joy Divison so much; too pussy to sing low and commit self-murder like Ian Curtis, he instead wigged out all over town with falsettos, herk-jerks, flapjacks and hot doggery all his own. But musically, the dark angry bitter bass-heavy doom-laden drone-rock is totally Unknown Pleasures or Substance or whatever album you like by those jerks. If you think you know Seattle like the back of your hand, you're WRONG buddy! I don't see Mark Arm playing in THIS band!!! I don't see Kurt Cobain's headless gore-drenched torso singing in THIS band!!! I don't see Layne Staley's bloated corpse rotting in THIS band!!

Addendum (4 weeks later): What the hell? No wonder the damn rhythm section is so good -- it's Paul Barker and William Rieflin! Soon to be from Ministry! Christ, I really need to look these bands up before running my bigass mouth about them.

Band: The Blacktop Cadence
Album: Chemistry For Changing Times
Label: No Idea

THE WORST GODDAMNED DRUM TONE I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE. The snare is playing a particular NOTE, for crying out loud. How do you manage to make your drum play a NOTE? I wish I could tell you which note it is, but I'm tone-dumb. All you need to know is that when the guitars play in a different key than the note of the snare drum (which is most of the time), the songs sound completely out of tune. Also, the music is unforgivably draggy. I think they're trying to do a more jangly take on Fugazi/Slint post-punk, but the songs are so poorly arranged and slowly-paced, it comes across more like Fuglousy/.Shit toast-bunk! "Toast" didn't work. I like the viola, but this is heroin music as far as I'm concerned. Which might be why they have "blacktop" in the band name (Tar = Heroin). Also, this CD was recorded several years ago and the band doesn't exist.

Band: The Blank Tapes
Album: Country Western Honky Tonk Saloon Blues
Label: Enipucrop

It took me far too long to realize that the label name is "Porcupine" backwards. The Blank Tapes sound like the Kinks playing acoustic country-western music. The guy actually sounds like Ray Davies! "Drunkaholic" actually sounds like a ripoff of "Sunny Afternoon"! Otherwise, they don't really sound like the Kinks at all. But man, when your voice sounds like Ray Davies', you can't really help sounding like the Kinks! Even a grindcore band would sound like the Kinks if their singer sounded like this. There's a slow, lazy, alcoholic, goodtime, relaxed vibe to this music which would fit in nicely at a college party in Arizona or some other hot, dry place where you feel the desert on your back and the wind of death in your soul.

FUCK!!! THE SINGER JUST SAID THE WORD "ARIZONA"!!!!! I AM THE GOD OF MUSIC REVIEW!!!! AND I BRING YOU --- MUSIC REVIEW!!!! (*The World of Mark Prindle begins playing fast crazy freakout music while I fling music reviews all over the stage*)

Artist: Amy Blaschke
Album: Amy Blaschke
Label: Luckyhorse Industries

Man alive, does this young woman write and sing some beautiful little guitar songs. Her voice reminds me of somebody, but I can't put my finger on who. Tanya Donnelly? Kim Deal? Wilford Brimley? Whomever it is, that person probably doesn't write songs that are anywhere near this nice, homey, memorable, cute, special, dramatic and mmm... what's that word you use when you like something, it rhymes with "hood," I think. Ah yes! "Pood". She's from Seattle (homo of "grugne" music) and she's bringing a fresh new confessional voice to my strumming dark vocal delivery.

Artist: Blaze
Album: Blood & Belief
Label: SPV

If you've been following the career of Iron Maiden anywhere nearly as closely as the Taliban commanded you to, you'd know that for a couple of years in the mid-90s, Bruce DICKinson was off flying passenger airliners and recording solo albums nobody bought. During this period, the classic Iron Maiden ("Up The Irons!" you might have shouted at the time, or earlier) band became a complete parody of itself, reusing pathetic old riffs while a huge-voiced Vegas Tom Jones guy sang equally stupid lyrics he didn't write on top. And that singer was none other than Mr. Blaze Bayley of Wolfsbane fame (Glenn Danzig produced their album! Wicked!).

Much to my absolute delight as a human being, Blood & Belief (Blaze's fourth solo CD) is much heavier, catchier and "with the times" than the godawful Iron Maiden albums he appeared on (Virtual XI and The X-Factor - DON'T BUY THEM! YOU'LL DIE OF SHITTINESS!), plus his voice is pretty much a normal, thick, melodic singing thing rather than the operatic pile of Atlantic City crap he forced Steve Harris's enormous fan base to sit through nearly a decade earlier. In fact, I'd darn near call this a good record as these things go! It's extremely honest and upsetting lyrically too, as Blaze recounts his last two years of alcohol problems and intense depression in such stunning verbal recollections as "Tearing Myself To Pieces," "Regret" and "Life And Death." Plus, best of all, he totally has a full beard!!!

Band: Bleeding Through
Product: This Is Live, This Is Murderous DVD
Label: Kung Fu

By "Bleeding Through," I didn't know they meant my EARS! OW! You can just forget what you think you know about Kung Fu Records and its sunny youth speed-fun pop punk agenda, because Bleeding Through is a loud, vicious, angry, screaming death metal band of noise, anger, tattoos and body piercings. I even almost got a headache during the bonus pre- and post-show backstage footage -- just because they LOOKED like they were about to scream at me! The singer was dressed like a skeleton with a mohawk, for Pete's sake. Don't they realize that everybody on Earth is over the age of 40 now? We're old! Stop yelling at us!

But for you youngsters out there, this is a live show by Orange County's very own beloved modern hardcore death blast Bleeding Through band. Filmed lovingly, played viciously and inclusive of 11 delightful melodies the likes of "Love Lost In A Hail Of Gunfire," "Revenge I Seek," "Our Enemies," "Sweet Vampirous," "Number Seven With A Bullet," "Turns Cold To The Touch" and Sting's popular "Murder By Numbers," this is one rocking ass good time designed to bring a cancerous tumor to the brain of Ataris fans the worldround.

I'm serious. It gave me a fucking headache and now I can't listen to the new Ministry CD. FUCKING JERKS!

Band: The Blood Divine
Album: Rise Pantheon Dreams
Label: Peaceville

Depressing dark black goth metal that moves really slowly and insists that life is painful and that music should reflect such. Sad string-section-like synthesizers are spread all over the heavy guitars (and moments of acoustic sorrow) and the vocalist, to be quite honest, sounds a lot like the guy in Gwar (an equally sad, sorrowful goth band whose songs include "The Sex-O-Cutioner" and "Black And Huge").

I'm wondering if this band used to be less gothy or something because there are two "unreleased" tracks on here that kick real-life metal AAS without the dramatic pretensions and gothic keyboards that make my razorblade want to rub itself against somebody's wrist just to put it (my razorblade) out of its Missouri.

But the "released" stuff - yeesh. I guess if you're really into the whole Type O Negative scene, this would be good for you. Actually I guess a LOT of people are into the whole depression goth Wicca Satanism scene, so The Blood Divine is bound to have a good sized fan base of interchangeable black-lipsticked teenage girls somewhere, perhaps in jolly Old Englande from whence they came. Or in the alternative frat at your local state University.

If I sound bitter and old, it's only because you're idealistic and young. Some day when you're MY age (add ten years to your own age and that's my age), you'll feel the same way I do.

And I'll still be ten years ahead of you in cynicism. HA! You'll NEVER catch up, and you'll forever be stuck thinking the "OLD THING" is cool! Come on, "The Strokes"? Don't you mean "The Old-And-Washed-Ups"?

Band: Blood Duster
Album: Blood Duster
Label: Season Of Mist

After watching George W. Bush's hilarious comedy search for weapons of mass destruction under his couch in one of the finest "edgy" comedy skits of the day, I thought I'd seen everything. Well, Blood Duster are here to show me that I Don't Know Jack is a boring computer game for losers.

They're also here to show me that I Don't Know Nothing. Do you understand what Blood Duster is/are doing? They're an Australian Southern Rock Grindcore band. Now first of all, I grew up in the American South and I'm telling you -- Australia was generally nowhere to be seen. Maybe they lie about it now and claim to be from the South, but there were no marsupials where I grew up. And you know what a marsupial is? That's right: A kangaroo. And that's ALL it is. A veritable synonym for kangaroo, some might say. So what are Blood Duster (who, incidentally, have umlauts over the first o in blood and the u in duster, but I don't think you can make umlauts in WordPad, which is surprising because it is by far the most advanced word processing software on the market today).

My point is simple, and is as follows: Blood Duster play a zesty combo-nation of greasy oil-covered Southern Rock hard '70s lickage and the brutal blastbeats/lovable "Jim Henson's Muppets" vocal growls of gore-grind-death-crust-core. Supposedly their earlier records are full to busting with album titles like Cunt and Fisting The Dead, so this wussily self-titled effort is presumably a sellout bid for alternative radio success, what with 1 of the 26 songs being over three minutes long (3:01, to be precise) and most of the songs featuring inoffensive pop monikers like "For Those About To Fuck," "Cock Junkie," "Achin For An 'A' Cup," "Dahmer The Embalmer," "Drink Fight Fuck," "She's A Junkie" and "Let's Fuck."

So if you like some personality in your gorecore, mayhaps it's time to Dust you some Blood!

Band: Bloodjunkies
Album: Maladies
Label: Evil One

Conjuring the late spirit of Gun Club founder and proprieter Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Los Angeles' Bloodjunkies combine folksy rockabilly guitaring with stretching-low James Hetfield-Eats-Gordon-Lightfoot vocals and death rock lyrics for a rousting piece of rootsy folk goth hard rock. Three members of this sextet are also in another band, but I can't remember what in Damnation they're called. HAHAHAH!!! JOKES ALL AROUND!!!! PASS THE BARREL OF CANDY SOAPS!!!! Song titles: "The Man Who Ate Himself," "Getting Evil," "This Cursed Place," "Deer Rifle" and thirteen others. If you like dark frontier imagery, are somewhat fond of sophisticated melody and find a sound not quite of this world at least passable, Bloodjunkies might be the best thing you've ever seen!

Band: Bloodlet
Album: Three Humid Nights In The Cypress Trees
Label: Victory

Isn't it pleasant when you accidentally run across a new band that kicks your (I'M GONNA NEED TO CENSOR THIS PORTION OF THE REVIEW, AS I FEEL ITS CONTENTS ARE INAPPROPRIATE FOR A FAMILY AUDIENCE. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) so hard that you feel your (SLANG TERMS FOR BODY PARTS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MUSIC AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS THE FILTH THAT THEY ARE. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) crawl up under your (EVEN IF YOU USE THE MEDICAL TERM, IT IS STILL DIRTY AND STILL SHOULD BE KEPT AWAY FROM IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG PEOPLE, WHO MAY BE INFLUENCED TO RAPE AND TAKE DRUGS. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) and pop out the top of your head? That's what happened with (THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TOO VIOLENT TO INCLUDE IN THE TEXT OF THIS REVIEW. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR). The second I listened to 45 minutes (in one second) of their latest CD, I was so excited, I had to go onto half.com and (THIS PUBLICATION DOES NOT CONDONE THE SALE OR PURCHASE OF USED COMPACT DISCS, AS IT IS KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) one of their earlier CDs. And that one kicked (DRUGS AND BEGAN ATTENDING CHURCH. THAT'S HOW THE SENTENCE WENT. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR). They play that crazy wild show-offy intricate mathematical screaming metal hardcore that always makes me hold my thumb up in the air (I MAY BE A LITTLE LATE, BUT I'D APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DIDN'T USE THE WORD "HARDCORE." THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) and thank the Lord (CHRISTIAN. THANK YOU - THE EDITOR) for rock and roll. If you're into really heavy guitars playing wicked evil dissonant smart riffs while a guy screams at the top of his lungs at you, (I'LL REPOSSESS YOUR HOUSE. THANK YOU - THE AUDITOR).

Man, I'm listening to this again right now - the guitars are so FILTHY! Loose haywire electrical cords snapping and twitching around, but on top of a huge mound of dirt and mud. And a backwoods Caveman expressing the emotions of the Wild with his one-note shrieks of agony. Just like The GBeatles! GOD, I LOVE the GBeatles!!!! Somebody go buy me a copy of GRubber Soul!!!

HEY!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHIT???? DID I SAY GLET IT BE???? I DON'T GODDAMNED THINK SO, DICK!!!!

THANK YOU - THE TIRED "RUNNING" JOKE

Band: Blurt
Album: The Best of - Volume 1 - The Fish Needs A Bike
Label: Salamander

If The Fall put an ad in the paper reading "We want to form a band that sounds like a cross between Fugazi and the Birthday Party," and James Chance & the Contortions were the only ones who answered, the result would make you blurt out, "WOW! What a brainy, wiry, saxophone bleatingly, avant-gardey, funky, post-punky, noisy, rackety bunch of genius music these fellows have wrought!" Hence, the name Blurt; I don't know. That wasn't a very good segue. Blurt was (is?) a great band though! The vocalist sounds like a greaser in a white t-shirt raping your sister at knifepoint, but the band (at its best) outbrilliants even the finest of early Pere Ubu material.

Band: Bombshell Rocks
Album: From Here And On
Label: Epitaph/Burning Heart

In one of the grossest marketing moves I've witnessed today, Epitaph has placed a sticker on the front of this CD reading, "If you like Rancid, you'll like Bombshell Rocks!" Well sir, I loathe Rancid, but I'm pretty fond of Sweden's own Bombshell Rocks! Sure, the cover is a black and white photo coated in red ink like a Rancid album, but the music inside is far more diverse than in my head I imagine a Rancid album to be. Plus, most of it isn't even punk rock, especially of the retro-Clash variety. This is power pop for the most part. I mean, there are a few moments of moody rock and ska-influenced dark wave, but most of it is a bunch of tattooed bootboys performing emotionally resonant Cheap Trick-style power pop! You might call them Sweden's greatest export since ABBA -- heroin!!!!

And believe me, if you like pure uncut Swedish heroin, you'll LOVE Bombshell Rocks. Even when the hooks are simplistic and old, they're so darned joyous, it's not nearly as upsetting as listening to that guy in Rancid doing his British rasp crap for 45 minutes. The singer in this band is named Marten Cedergran, for Chrissake - and HE sounds more American than that Rancid guy! He also has a very pretty voice, not being afraid to rear back and sing like a Joey Ramone when the punk shout doesn't seem appropriate (as in basic yet soaring pop-punk anthems like the title track).

I'm not the biggest fan in the world of pop-punk, so believe me when I tell you that these guys are not content to be another MxPx or NoFX or X-Ray Spex or Malcolm X or XXX movie stars -- they do POP, they do PUNK, but they separate them so they can hone in on the strengths of each genre. The pop doesn't move so fast that they can't layer ringing guitar sounds on top for heavenlier beauty. And the punk isn't so bouncy and sissyish that it doesn't kick the asses of those that desire a kick to the groin.

Yes it is. What the hell am I talking about? Maybe I just WISH I could find an album like that.

Artist: Books On Tape
Album: Sings The Blues
Label: Greyday Productions

Books On Tape is one of those bands that's really just one guy, but he's so ashamed of his family name that he chooses to hide behind a fake band name like "Sentridoh" or "The Dave Matthews Band." But Mr. Todd Drootin is different from all those other liars who are letting down their parents -- he creates his songs on a sampler! Todd (or "Books," as he prefers to be called in front of people) slams together bunches of unrelated noises, beats, notes and voices, and creates whole new rhythmic melodies from the mess of gunk. His music fits into the electronica genre, but it's not boring dance stuff; you can even enjoy it if you have two left feet! (as long as you also have at least one right foot) The sound constructions are interesting (jazz instrument notes, industrial scrapes, new wave plink-plonks) and he always creates an actual melody, even if there are no vocals on top by one of today's many professional singers. File Books On Tape next to Meat Beat Manifesto in your collection. Even though I didn't. My copy is between the Bonzo Dog Band and the Boredoms. But that's only because it sounds like an exact cross between the Bonzo Dog Band and the Boredoms.

Band: Born From Pain
Album: Sands of Time
Label: Gangstyle

That'd be one note the vocalist is shouting. Every single word shouted in the exact same note. Sounds angry, but not convincing. Try shouting at the top of your lungs at somebody without changing the timbre or volume of your voice - it sounds like you're reciting from a script, doesn't it? Yes it does. When you're really angry, your voice goes up and down a lot. It also does that when you're singing. So this guy is neither angry nor singing - he's just shouting at the top of his lungs. Guess that's a modern old-school hardcore thing (?). By modern, I mean extremely heavy and metallic, but by old-school I mean that the music is a bunch of fast chords like in the olden days of DRI and Agnostic Front (as opposed to the OTHER kind of modern hardcore, which features five billion rhythm changes - Dillinger Escape Plan, etc). I'm not doubting that the band was, in fact, born from pain (as they claim in "Stainless," "I'm a man that walks all alone in this godforsaken world"). But the chord sequences are exactly what you'd expect from this type of music, and have likely been used hundreds of times by similar bands. Still - it's fast, loud and powerful. They're probably a great live band, but it's hard to capture that "in the pit" insane lunacy hardcore sound when you're listening to a CD at home on your computer with your little puppy dog playing with a squeaky sock at your feet. Oi!

Band: Branca Ensemble
Product: Symphony Nos. 8 & 10 - Live At The Kitchen
Label: Music Video Distributors/Atavistic

If you're a Sonic Youth fan who's never heard Glenn Branca, today's the day you change your pants. Branca prancatically invented all that alternate tuning guitar wash stuff, except he does it in symphonic form -- written out in crazy sheet music for big strangely turned guitar orchestras to blow out the jams of droning violin-like volumes of noise spray, dissonance and about 50 intertwined chords and note clusters all happening together at once. The results are alternately hypnotic, creepy, noisy, annoying, beautiful, boring, challenging and exciting as all daylights can be (when turned on at once).

This particular DVD features 70 minutes of music - two symphonies (each with two parts) performed in 1995 by seven guitarists, a bassist/guitarist, a bassist/keyboardist and a drummer. The first movement begins a bit slowly, with just a bunch of "Now I'm going UP the neck, now I'm going DOWN the neck" predictability, but after that, things get REALLY weird. So weird in fact that I'm a little bit bothered by the fact that there is no commentary track for this disc. What was Branca trying to do with these works? How did he develop and accomplish the frightening chord interplay, especially in the final movement, "The Horror"? What do the players think about what they're playing? Do they get it? What does it mean to them? Unfortunately, none is to be found. The music's still great and it's interesting to see what kind of people Glenn got to play for him (bald aging drummer, obnoxious arrogant-looking female bassist/keyboardist, seven guitarists who concentrate heavily on the sheet music instead of showing off), but I left the experience feeling as dumb as when I went in. I'm impressed by what Glenn does, but I don't understand what he's doing! I mean, we're talking about a guy who, according to the press release here, "mapped the first 128 intervals of the harmonic scale." I don't even know what that means!!!! Is he saying that the band only weighs 128 pounds? Because that's what I'm going to assume he means, and that's why I'm going to report them to the FBI as heroin traffickers.

If you're a smartypant, would you mind buying this CD and telling me what this music is supposed to be doing, compositionally speaking? Because I don't hear any catchy choruses or middle eights. Hell, there aren't even any shining blues-influenced axe solos! What's a modern classical composition without some wicked Clapton-esque jammin'?

Band: Bright Eyes
Album: Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground
Label: Saddle Creek

Bright Eyes is a band led by a 22-year-old Nebraska boy named Connor Oberst who sings with PASSION and SPIT and EMOTION so much so that you'd just wanna throw him out of really fast car if his songs weren't so darn well-written, meticulously arranged and repeteatedly listenatable. He writes these simple emotional folksy melodies of fear, anxiety and pain and then has a sixteentet pile corncobs full of guitars, pianos, keyboards, strings, horns, banjos, dobros, mandolins, pedal steels, sound effects, glockenspiels, bells, vibraphones, dulcimers, clarinets, trumpets and flutes on top, for a final effect of a talented over-emoting little boy chosen by fate to lead the World's Final Orchestra Of Destiny as the Earth sinks into the ocean at the end of time.

The ocean of HELL!!!!! Where WE'LL ALL BUUUURRRRRNNNN!!!!!!

Sorry about that - just trying out to be the singer for Bev Bevan's Venom Part II.

Last time I was 22, my songs weren't this good, but then to be fair, I didn't even know 16 other people existed, let alone that they all knew how to play different instruments.

Band: Broadzilla
Album: Lady Luck
Label: Diamond Star

Detroit's all-female trio Broadzilla play the same sort of tough-girl metal that Lita Ford and Joan Jett did back in their day, but with louder, rawer, more Motorhead-sounding guitars. Some of the tunes have punky energy too. Apparently these guys are really popular and have won awards and things. Some of the riffs kick pretty well; others are straight out of the '80s. And one of the songs seems to be anti-marijuana! Can you believe that? Here I am trying to smoke a marijuana seed and Mrs. Society is out there telling me that God makes mistakes! Try pulling that shit at Altamont! I' ll have Meredith Hunter SHOOT ya!

Band: Dave Brockie Experience
Album: Songs For The Wrong
Label: Metal Blade

For some reason, Metal Blade stopped sending me promo CDs. Why did they do so? I'm a nice fellow! With pants and everything! Oh well. Conjecture just makes a con of Ject and Ure (your) (self) (my nickname is "Ject"), so I'll move on to tighter issues and facial tissues.

Let's get something straight right now -- as far as I know, I like Gwar. I have all their albums and I enjoy most of them on the rare occasion when they enter my CD Jar. There's just something so bombastic, larger than life and stupid about them -- ridiculous costumes, violent overall concept, offensive lyrics, and music that is quite often pretty catchy! But one thing they can never do is remove their costumes or acknowledge that the concept is a joke -- otherwise, all they'd have left would be disgusting juvenile lyrics recited in a gross smarmy voice atop nice enough but fairly predictable punk-metal. And that's exactly what the Dave Brockie Experience IS -- three members of Gwar without their costumes, performing horrifically unfunny novelty songs.

"Slowpoke" is about a guy who makes love too slowly. "Should The Ugly Girl Blow Me?" goes no further than its title. "Hard For A 'Tard" is every bit as witty as you'd expect a song about having sex with a retarded girl to be. "March Of The Faggot Soldiers"? "Shatilla"? And you're never gonna believe this -- the song "I Wanna Be A Squirrel" makes a double-entendre out of the word "nuts"! HAHAHAH!!!! HHH!H!!!! AHHAH~!!!!!

In their promotional material, DBX makes a big deal out of wanting to "suck as badly as possible" and have Brockie "make an ass out of himself" and be "the silliest experience in music today." And all this is true. They do suck, he does make an ass out of himself and the band is silly. But that's not GOOD. In theory, it may sound like fun, but in practice, the CD is just a depressing waste of time with all the humor of Caddyshack II. It's almost enough to make me never want to hear Gwar again!

Artist: Bronwyn
Album: Through The Fog, Through The Pines
Label: Greyday Productions

Two women - NO WAITING!!! HEHEHEHEHEHH!!! HAAAAA! HT (*asterisks*)

Having survived the racist, sexist '60s, I am poised to define Bronwyn as a talented, moody Portland band that uses dry, cold guitar textures to play sad intertwining notes and the occasional '80s college radio jangle chord. Two women share lead vocals - so there's NO WAITING!!!!!!!! (on vocals). It's not pop music, nor is it goth. It's like if two people came to your house with guitars and began picking away at songs of various tempo that all make you a little sad or anxious, but in an impressed "hey, nice guitar interplay!" way. Then it's like some guy with a cello comes over and plays on a few songs. Then it's like a crazed ice cream man keeps driving up and down your street blaring a moog, piano, accordion and language master, instead of the usual "Doodily-dooty-dooty-doo -- dooty-dooty-Doo-Doo!" song that Korn and Staind are striving to emulate in their high-energy shit rock. Put it all together and WHAM!!!!! HOLY FUCKIN PISSDICKASS!!!!! WHAM IS ON TV!!!!!! GOD, I FUCKIN LOVE ANDREW RIDGELY!!!!!! I BET YOU ANYTHING HE'S NOT GAY!!!!!

I apologize for that. Put it all together and WHAM!!!! You've got what the world in its private moments calls a good CD!!!!!

Band: Brothers of Conquest
Product: All The Colors of Darkness
Label: Go-Kart

When that guy Adam Neal from that band Nash Pussyville and apparently that other band The Hookers (Fans of the Robin William Film) decided to form a new band that sounds a lot like his other bands, he did it with Pissass!!!!

I don't come from your country, and where I come from, we get our "S"s and "Z"s mixed up. For example, I love that band S.S. Top. See? You see what I mean? No way could I have made that mistake on purpose. Where has your childlike trust in human nature gone?

This is total Southern motorcycle death punk like Antiseen (AND I THOUGHT SO BEFORE I SAW THAT ON THEIR PROMO SHEET, ASSHOLE), with riffs and a vocal approach that sound to all my worldly possessions like the first Danzig album, starring Glenn Danzig (AND I THOUGHT SO BEFORE I SAW IT ON THEIR PROMO SHEET, BUTTASS)! Not just the heavy guitars, Black Sabbath ripoff riffs and swingin' drumbeats, but this singer guy - who has chosen to go by the name "The Rock N' Roll Outlaw" in reference to his successful career in white collar crime while at the helm of a Fortune 50 company from 1985-1992 in an alternate history that never even came close to happening - sounds almost identical to Glenn Danzig at his most gravelly, rednecky, yelly and irritating (and LEAST musical). But even with the fairly basic riffs, the sleazy filthy swampy mudpile piledrivin' professional dirtbag Hell's Angel grit in the guitar tones and attack help the album as a whole e-mackarel RIP YOUR ASS A NEW NECKBALL!

The promo sheet also says they sound like Manowar, but I don't hear that at all. So if you're a Manowar fan, STAY AT HOME! (forever, if possible - they suck!!!)

The first time I listened to this disc, I hated the singer's raw bearded voice so much, I wanted to take the disc out and wash its hole out with soup and water. But times have changed since November 11th, 2001 and I guess I've realized that it's more important to enjoy life than to find fault with everything and criticize those who are working hard to pursue their individual artistic vision. And it's this epiphany that finally opened my heart to sending letter after letter to the White House requesting live fisting on television.

Band: Burning Image
Album: 1983-1987
Label: Alternative Tentacles

In the liner notes, famous punk rock man Jello Biafra states that he was "floored" the first time he heard this Bakersfield band in 1984. So buy this CD and "Get Floored!"

In addition, Burning Image played what at the time was called "Death Rock": a dark tangle of minor-key surf-spyish guitar licks with cavernous echo, vampire leanings and gothic keyboards tinkling above the murk. I'd put TSOL's legendary (and deservedly so) Dance With Me LP in the same category, along with maybe that first Christian Death album. But who cares what I think? Jello Biafra likes it!!!

Yes, THAT Jello Biafra!!!! From "Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon"!!!

Band: Callenish Circle
Album: Flesh_Power_Dominion
Label: Metal Blade

The third album for the presumably Dutch Callenish Circle. More hoarse shrieked screaming vocals - innovatively enough! This is thrash - FAST thrash like a Slayer might play, with cool note-concentrated (as opposed to chord-filled) riffs to bang your wife to. WIFE??!?!?! NO, HEAD!!!!!

GIVE ME HEAD, WIFE!!!!

But enough lewd innuendo. If you thought it was neat back when Metallica played fast but you don't care if the singer guy just retches his words out in packets of phlegm, you just might try parking your car in Callenish Circle. I think this might be called "drop fingers" or "fingerdrops" or "downstrokes" or something. Where he takes his finger deal and runs it up and down the neck tapping on particular notes while the bass lays down the key in the background. There's a name for it, and believe me, if Callenish Circle's guitarists don't know what it is - somebody should tell them! Because they do it so much! It's not all fast, but the best parts are and there are a lot of best parts.

The singer is not a best part.

Band: Cans
Album: Beyond The Gates
Label: Noise

The word "Cans" conjures up all kinds of erotic imagery, but as it turns out it's just some guy's name. Specifically, Hammerfall's vocalist Joacim Cans. This is his first solo album and believe you me, it's really heavy Euro-Metal with vocal and melodic stylings from the mid-80s. The operatic warble, the fantastical lyrics like "Silent cries/The spirit dies at the hands of the innocent" and "You'll hear the silent cries" (those lyrical snippets are from two different songs, you understand) the big broad strokes of guitar/keyboard minor chords and note progressions -- straight outta yesteryear and cruisin' on out to a new tomorrow! So get off your "cans," grab a few "cans" of beer and buy this new CD by Joacim Camm!

Band: Capture The Flag
Album: Start From Scratch
Label: Go-Kart

Start From Scratch MY ASS, maybe! Ha! hahah1! FUC IDKEY!

Now that you've fuced idkey, we can progress. Capture the Flag is an EMOtional power punk rock trio from the clean streets of dEMOtroit whose singer keeps almost crying all over the microphone with his despair. The guitars are scraggly and fruzzy, slightly chorused (i think?) but too quick to give up dark, interesting chord sequences (like the verse of "Eye To Eye") in favor of status quo power pop generica (like the chorus of "Eye To Eye"). Same old Dag Nasty obsession? Possibly. Not at all a bad band, just not giving me anything I haven't heard before. Especially the intro to "The Enemy Hand," which I heard by Blue Oyster Cult 20 years ago. Plus most of their songs are in the same key, which gets really tiresome after a while. If you have one of those fancy new compact disc decks, you can see what I'm talking about if you just quickly switch back and forth between the beginnings of track 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11. Do it enough times and you've written a brand new song in their favorite key! And you know what key that is?

FUC IDKEY!!!

Band: Carcass
Album: Choice Cuts
Label: Earache

Carcrash is BACK! And this time, it's PERSONNEL!

Actually they're not back at all. They broke up years ago. But this greatest hits compilation sure is back! Featuring two or three tracks from every single Carpass release, from their creepy 1988 grindcore debut Reek Of Putrefaction to the thick palatable 1996 midtempo metal finale Swansong, these loud blasts of screaming death power are ass-geared to jerk your needle fifty-five axles to the fluffergrab noobe stc.d. Then, as if that's not enough to win over the hearts of people who like gross song titles like "Genital Grinder," "Maggot Colony," "Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency" and "Keep On Rotting In The Free World," they pile on eight more fancy-pants PEEL sessions at the end! Dude, these jerks invented "gore" metal, it's said! For some reason this compilation was originally supposed to come out in 1999, but the band canned it. Not sure why. But now it's here! If you're itching to hear one of the most popular and asp-kicking meTTTal bands of all time, you probably don't need every goddamned album they put out, so buy the compilation! Don't forget - July is just around the corner!

Band: Cari Clara
Album: Miniature American Model Society
Label: Tiberius

I have an almost insane feeling that this band has heard Radiohead before. I can't prove such a notion, but between the soft electronic pinging sonar noises, the slow as a turtle rhythms, the ringing sensitive future-sorrow echoey guitar and the calm, collected Bono-esque vocals, I swear something reminds me of Radiohead. Maybe it's the Bono-esque vocals? Whatever the case, the members of Cari Clara make beautiful, heartbreaking music together. If they would just differentiate their electronic tones and guitar processors the slightest bit, they'd probably be able to create a non-Radiohead-sounding classic all their own.

Band: Cass
Album: Spundae Presents Cass
Label: Mute

Spundae is a delightful club at which people enjoy a dance or so, perhaps down Chicago way, and Cass is a globetrotting DJ who spins the record players in Australia ("Put another song on the barby!" they shout!), Mexico ("Hola! Como esta el turntable?" they query!), Europe ("Cheerio mate! `Ow's that then? `Ello ello ello! Oi! Wot's dis? A dancey pub?" they lime!) and right home in the greatest country in America, the U.S.

Now understand that I'm neither hip nor gay, so I can't really tell you exactly what "turntableism" might involve, but best I can gather he kinda plays two records at once or makes one fade into the next or somesuch. It all sounds the same to me PERSONALLY, but I don't think it's meant to be LISTENED to, per se. It's a DANCE double-CD, and as such, it is DANCEY as all getouttahere! If you've got a Yahtzee party going and nobody seems to be getting in the "groove" (sex), just pull out Spundae Presents Cass and some ketamine, and your guests will be naked and committing the sin of adultery in no time!

If you actually understand this kind of music, you should probably know that this is meant to be a "helter-skelter ride through deep, progressive and tech-edged house, breakbeat and techno." And according to Cass himself (short for "Macaroni Casserole," at least in a little world I made up in my closet), disc one "is one that you could make love to or have babies to. The second occupies darker, harder territories, one that's good to listen to before you go clubbing to get yourself up." He mixes up tracks by artists with hilarious names like Bushwacka!, Plastikman, Gus Gus and Hairy Butter, and if you're not dancing within like two minutes of the first song, you'd best call your mechanic for an ass tune-up. As a rock fan, I'm not exactly the target audience for this kind of music and thus can't tell you honestly how it stacks up against the competition; still, one thing's for sure - Cass Hass Class, Sass and A Bad Case of Gas!

Look, it's not my fault "Cass" rhymes with "Gas." Just be glad his name isn't Louchewag.

Band: Caustic Christ
Album: Can't Relate
Label: Havoc

Yet another in the long line of bands whose names were specifically designed to get them written up in Caustic Truths (others include Brutal Truth, Caustic Resin and The Caustic Dave Matthews Truth Band), Caustic Christ play angry high-speed old school hardcore of the "This Is Boston, Not L.A." variety. Super energy, catchy riffs and funny pissed off lyrics like "Baseball caps with matching jerseys/Rage Against the Machine and Dropkick Murphys" (from "Frat Boy"). They even do a Flipper cover! This is a great hardcore band for folks who like their high-speed chord sequences free of slow metallic "mosh" parts. Rah for Pittsburgh's finest!

Band: The Cells
Product: We Can Replace You
Label: Orange Recordings

Say, you're an alcoholic - why is it that every time I drink a bunch of tasty margaritas, I wake up in the middle of the night with a huge headache? I'm serious - it's pissing me off. I only get drunk like once a week and I'm always sure to drink oodles of water as I drink the tangy frozen margaritas, yet I still inevitably wake up four hours into my sleepytime with a splitting headache that won't go away for ANOTHER four hours. Please send suggestions to mprindle@nyc.rr.com. Because my head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know.

Now then - let's talk about The Cells, since the British press are most likely going to notice their name and make them part of the new "garage rock" trend populated by such "garage rock" bands as The Vines (who don't play garage rock), The Strokes (who don't play garage rock) and The Hives (whom I've never heard). Being not at all a garage rock band, The Cells would fit perfectly into this desperate hype marketing scheme of bullshit!

What they do play is pop-grunge of the Everclear/Nevermind variety. Most of the songs are straightforward midtempo distorted-sheen-heavy-clean chord sequences with nice little vocal melodies on top. Singer/guitarist Cory Hance has an awful habit of straying from a pleasant, normal Mike Mills-type voice to an annoying clogged-nose whine, but the band is really big on vocal harmonies, so that keeps your ears a-happy and your feet a-tappy. Speaking of feet being a-tappy, I need to relate an extremely distressing and sad anecdote that is absolutely true. My brother went to Florida a couple of months ago to meet his girlfriend's parents. While there, he met a 17- or 18-year-old kid that was something like her father's son from a different marriage or something like that. You know, a family member of some sort. My brother said he was a big athletic-looking guy, seemed a little quiet, shy. My brother left Florida and called his girlfriend down there a week later to say hello - only to receive THIS disturbing news. A few nights earlier, that kid had woken up in his bed realizing that he couldn't move his legs. He screamed for his family, they took him to several hospitals before one would finally give him an MRI, and they were informed that he had experienced basically something like an aneurysm of the spine. Something blood-clot-related in his SPINE. And that he will most likely never walk again. Just out of NOWHERE, with no warning and through NO action or mistake of his own, his life literally changed overnight. He is now one of the physically handicapped. And not even 20 yet. Life is a strange thing - a very bizarre, pointless combination of positives and negatives. Just like this album!!!!

I personally always end up comparing this kind of band to Cheap Trick, whose first four albums are masterpieces of the loud rock guitar/catchy pop style combination. And The Cells, though probably better than a lot of other current bands of this genre, don't display the sort of consistent pop songwriting brilliance that would make this release a must-listen-over-and-over. Too many of the riffs are decades old and boring (especially "What You Did" - more like "What You RIPPED OFF FROM ABOUT A MILLION OTHER BANDS" if you ask me!!!!! I guess that would be too long to write on the back of the CD case though.), and their general song presentation is of the mediocre verse/amazingly catchy chorus variety. This DOES allow for several moments of excitement per song, but ultimately leaves me feeling like I'm listening to two different bands - (A - THE FIRST BAND) the master pop chefs that came up with the sad, lost refrain of "Stupid Guy," the wonderful Weezer-ish (sort of, I mean) slower pop melody of "Awkward," and the gorgeous spine-tingling vocal harmonies in "All Be Happy" and "Say Hello" and (B - THE SECOND BAND) a group of young guys who haven't heard enough music to realize when they're playing chord sequences that have already been used in hundreds of songs. But you don't hear me complaining about "Fluff" featuring the same exact verse riff as The Guess Who's "Hand Me Down World"! I love that song! Granted, I have no clue what the Cells guy is actually saying because every time the song comes on, I immediately start singing "Anybody here - seen the fuzzy-wuzzy lovin' cup explo-sio-u-u-n - I THINK WE MISSED IT!" GOD, I fuckin' LOVE The Guess Who! Go buy the Share The Land album right now, you pricks!!!!!

Huh? No no, I was talking to a cactus. Apparently my wife wants to write a review, so here she is:

So, I heard that Mark was writing a review of the cells, so I wanted to add my own thoughts about them. I truly detest these persistently repetitive and evil bastards. They are a band of pure evil, located on my right ring finger. Sure they're made delusional by viral infection, but that's no excuse for them to grow and grow into a giant WART. Thankfully, I've seen a professional who has excised and frozen the cells in question, so - with luck - their career has effectively ended. Over and out.

Band: Che Chapter 27
Album: Profit Prophet
Label: G7 Welcoming Committee

I know you'll never believe me based on the band name, but Che Chapter 27 is a POLITICAL band - from Canada, led by the socially concerned but completely tone-deaf female wailer Meegan Maultsaid. The music is filled with very heavy metallic guitars playing midtempo and simple but great little three-chord explosions of Helmet-like heavenly heavily jung-jung-jung lowdown dirty boogie woogie metal. And Meegan does a good job of combining her political beliefs with true human emotions -- even if you're not Mr. Bob Socialist Political Guy by trade, surely you can support such statements as "Do you call this freedom/Climbing outta the bottle?/How can you fight back seeing double?/I wanna see what I'm swinging at." Other bitter angry tales of woe include "Kill The Ones Who Question," "A Thousand Points Of Light," "The Choicelessness Parade" and "United States Of Generica." I'm not saying that Meegan doesn't have some good points to make regarding our civilization and history built upon conveniently forgotten violence, cruelty and murder. I'm just saying she should maybe practice singing in key - or at least ask the producer not to mix her voice five billion times louder than the music as he or she (is Blair a man's name or a woman's? THE ANSWER IS ONE WHICH WE WILL NEVER FATHOM.) has on this, their debut CD.

Band: Chinchilla
Album: The Last Millennium
Label: Metal Blade

If you thought a chinchilla was a little furry hamster kind of animal thing, THING AGAIN! They're actually a German "melodic power metal" band that just released their fourth album, entitled The Last Starfighter Of The Millennium. HEY! THEY DO A THIN LIZZY COVER! The music is rough and reverbed and dirty and mean, but then the damned singer comes in and sounds like Ronnie James Dio with his high womanly operatic self-taking-too-seriously voice and makes it feel like we're stuck in 1981. And we're not!!!! We long ago progressed to 1988, and that's where we'll stay, thanks to George W. Bush!

Man. They even play that fruity Dream Evil- style sissyass mid'80s keyboard in some of this. What the heck? How do they get away with playing this kind of music and not being laughed all the way to the bank? Are there seriously still Bruce Dickinson fans out there somewhere? Sadly, they'd be a pretty cool, energetic rough/tough fun metal throwback of dirt if not for the squeaky clean singer guy. I'll stick with a hamster, thanks! (*shoves hamster up ass*)

Artist: Noam Chomsky
Title: The New War on Terrorism: Fact and Fiction
Label: The G7 Welcoming Committee

If you don't know Noam, he's a bigtime leftist author and orator. I personally had never heard any of his work until this one, so for some reason I was expecting an exciting, fun, yellow journalism-style "spoken wordist" like Jello Biafra (who likes Noam a lot and has released several of his CDs). So imagine my Generation X letdown by this boring old man with the squeaky, crackly, flat voice droning on and on and on about all of these boring FACTS. Believe me, this guy was no Adolf Hitler!

Let's try that again. See, I like to think of myself as "interested in news," but as it turns out, I think I'm only interested in INTERESTING news. Or at least news presented in an INTERESTING manner. And believe me, I realize this is pathetic. Hell, quite frankly, I'd probably be interested in reading all of the information Noam shares on this release if it were packaged in a Hustler between a bunch of hardcore pornography and gross jokes. But instead it's presented in a raspy, squeaking monotone that doesn't just quickly make me tune out -- it actively IRRITATES me. And again, this is completely my own fault, but I'm a very aurally focused person and I can't get past the fact that Noam has a very annoying voice! He sounds like he's fighting laryngitis the entire time (maybe he is for all I know) and he never seems to have any passion or even much interest in what he's saying. Maybe he's smart as hell; certainly many people like the guy. But I'll never know unless I read one of his books because he's about as pleasant to listen to as Harry Carey, who's not only dead but also unpleasant to listen to! SKREW this, DRIVER!

I'm proud to be responsible for you from this point on associating Noam Chomsky with SKREWDRIVER in your mind.

Ah yes! The actual CONTENT! Noam discusses attacks on the US, why they hate us, US-run terrorism, etc etc As a NYC dweller who experienced the horror of 9/11 first-hand, perhaps I'm too close to the subject to get much out of such a cold dissertation on the topic. I always hated storytime in elementary school too. I just don't follow along very well; my mind wanders. You should have seen me on this conference call at work today. I doodled ridiculous pictures in my notebook for a full hour and a half, then pretended I knew what was going on.

Strangely, I discovered that I DID know what was going on. It was all pretty obvious. Which, quite frankly, might be ANOTHER reason that this CD does nothing for me. But that would be giving myself too much credit; my sense of self-worth is far too low for anything like that. Hell, I feel guilty walking into a book store with a book in my hand. Know why? I feel guilty for making the book store's employees worry about whether I brought the book in or stole it from them. How do I know that they do? I don't. They probably don't give a shit. But I feel guilty nonetheless. And that's why I'm now seeing a behavioral therapist.

And that's my opinion of the new Noam Chomsky CD. I feel guilty writing this review, because the record label was kind enough to send it to me free of charge in exchange for a review. But honesty is important too. And I honestly can't sit through this damned thing. Say! How's your brain doing? I've shared with you - now you share with ME! Especially if you're a NUTJOB!!!!!!

Band: Christian Death
Album: Lover Of Sin
Label: Candlelight

Dude-ass! I've totally had the wrong idea about this band for like totally wickedass bone-wig forblinkityblankever, Mahagoney Belchfaxer!

Look, it's no fun to be old and out of touch with current slang. You young people will understand one day. And then you'll pay. You'll ALL pay.

See, I thought Christian Death belonged to Rozz Williams, but that's UNTRUE! He left the band in 1984 and it has been the property of Mr. Valor Kind ever since! I can't tell you thing one about what Mr. Valor Kind has done in the last 19 years (although I can tell you that Rozz unfortunately committed suicide in 1998), but I LIKE Lover Of Sin! (original title: 10 Excuses For A Suicide). It's got personality - it's a neat, unpredictable mix of EXTREMELY heavy speed metal, grindcore, goth (or "death rock," as I think they called it back in Rozz's day), Black Flag-style punk/metal and symphonic synth music, with female ing and screaming Britishly and gravellily on top.

It's the personality that really makes it an album worth sitting near on a crowded blimp. There are a relatively large number of bands doing this sort of music now - the sorta gothy heavy metal thing. But not like this. This band is too rooted in the old-timey "songs should actually have interesting riffs and production" aesthetic to be lumped in with all the Viking bands and their spooky cold Horsemen of Odin vibrations. Happy song titles include "You Should Have Died," "Darkness Walks With Me," "Where The Dead Sleep" and "Lamb To The Slaughter." If you like Christians and death, you'll LOVE Christian Death!!!! (especially since Maitri isn't wearing a shirt in the band photo! If I weren't totally gay up the dick-filled ass, I'd call her a "hotty with boobsalot"!)

It is okay for me to make incredibly sexist comments if I pretend I'm gay first, right? Great! I'm gay - LOOK AT THE TITS ON THAT NUN!!! HEY MOTHER UP-THE- REARIOR - IF YOU SEE MY DICK, GRAB IT/AND I'LL DICK YOU IN YOUR HABIT!!!! I'm still gay.

Band: Christiansen
Album: Stylish Nihilists
Label: Revelation

Christiansen is four guys pretending their last name is Christiansen, all lined up together against a wall on the CD cover. It's a really stupid idea to pretend you all have the last name and to line up together against a wall on your CD cover. Whoever thought up this dumb idea is stupid and will never be successful in the record business. One other thing they do is write great rock songs. A few shitty ones too - OOO LA LA! But the good ones feature inventive guitaring, passionate young male vocalizing and tough riffs combining the noisiness of the `80s rock underground with the radio-ready hooks of `70s hard rock. The lyrics, on the other hand, are splintered and really really hard to figure out. Example: "We all die alone. You're such a little girl. Hey you're going to die. The other chess players, leave me in the opium dnes. `His plays just aren't the same since that girl met him.' The whispers in the nautilus of my ears, my epitaph arranged is stated here." Was there a famous chess player who got addicted to opium? I hope so. Otherwise blah blah blah something.

Artist: Ward Churchill
Title: In A Pig's Eye: Reflections on the Police State, Repression and Native America
Label: The G7 Welcoming Committee

Ward Churchill is a Native American author, American Indian spoken word artist, Indian co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, redskin National Spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee and a tribal "whoo-whoo-whoo!" associate professor of American Indian Studies and Communications at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Remember that sign at the beginning of Mork and Mindy that said "Welcome to Boulder"? That's the same place! Robin Williams has a lot to say on this double-CD about the repression, genocide and resistance of Native Americans over the last 500 years. Apparently American Indians are nearly 97.5% wiped out due to colonialism and cruelty. And by "97.5," I don't mean your local smooth jazz station either! Ha ahhahhaah! HAHAAH!!!

Ward talks a lot about Cointelpro, then gives the tongue-tackle to some group of white scumbag liars called the Pinkertons that preceded the FBI and from there on, it's an angry, bitter rant against all such injusticals. The story of the Native American genocide is an incredibly depressing one that needs to be told and heard and understood, but I don't know enough about the Leonard Peltier case to know whether Ward's tale is biased or truthful. Either way, it's of course important to hear an intelligent Native American's take on the whole thing. If you're at all interested in the point of view of a people who were quite literally nearly obliterated from the country by white colonialism, you should give Ward a shot. Although perhaps "shot" isn't the best term to use for a CD about Leonard Peltier. So let me just say that if you happen across a Native American stranger tonight, buy him a drink. Indians love - no wait. That wouldn't be appropr

If an Indian is cold, do the right thing and offer him a blanket. Christ no, that's just

Be generous to all people. Why be stingy? Life's no fun on the sting-o-side, so be generous and introduce an American Indian to your gen-o-side! Yes, that's - no DAMMIT!

I love tribes. Period. Can I go now? I have some extra Braves tickets I need to scalp.

Native Americans: They've brought color to our lexicon!

Band: Ciril
Album: Hysteria Driven
Label: Know

Looked at the artwork, thought, "Jesus, these guys really want to be Rudimentary Peni." Stuck in the CD, heard the singer alternating between creepy spoken voices and insane screaming while the band played strange but simplistic midtempo guitar chord sequences, thought, "Christ, these guys REALLY want to be Rudimentary Peni!" Finally unfolded the information sheet, read "This release falls in line with the darker side of Peni" and "File under: Rudimentary Peni, TSOL, Christian Death, etc." Sigh. Why? Why why why why why would you form a band just to imitate another band???? WHY!?!?!?!? I'm sure that if presented with this argument, at least one of the band members would reply, "Well, we're not JUST LIKE Rudimentary Peni. There are lots of differences, including x, y, z.." Then why not PLAY UP THE DIFFERENCES!?!?!?!? If nothing else, PLEASE cool it with the faux-Blinko artwork and rickety lyric handwriting - that's just setting yourself up for cries of "Lame!" which is all you're getting from me right now regardless of the fact that several of these songs are really, really fucking good.

Band: Clutch
Album: Live at the Googolplex
Label: MegaForce

I used to think I liked Clutch quite a bit. Like many of us, I enjoyed the heavy funky metal flecked with bits of humor that can be found on classic LPs like THE ELEPHANT RIDERS and THAT OTHER ONE WITH THAT ONE SONG ON IT WHERE THE BASS GOES "DOO DOO DOO." But then I received this live thing in the mail and was bored silly by all the stupid macho "funky white fellow" rapping, bottomless guitar chord thrapping and empty riff repetition. There simply seemed to be no point to this release, as the overly high-end recording makes it clear that without the heavy pounding bass presence, the band pretty much blows. But then I sold the CD on ebay for $14.50 and now I'm a huge fan again! Keep on releasing CDs, Clutch -- and keep on sending them to ME!

Band: Cockandball Torture
Album: Egoleech
Label: Morbid

Gilles Duceppe tells me that Germany's Cockandball Torture used to be a 90-mile-an-hour grindcore band, but there's nothing above a light jog to be found on EgoLeech. The vocalist may sound like he's choking on gallons of his own mucus, but the musicians behind him refuse to move their hands up and down quickly. The result is a disarmingly midtempo combination of heavy chord sequences and vomit gargling. It's impossible to make out the lyrics, but with titles like "Close Your Eyes And Bear It," "Blindfold/Bare/Submissive," "Six Holes Cut" and "One Inch Left," I'm fairly certain it's a rock musical about a guy getting his pants hemmed.

Band: The Code
Album: Rhetoric Of Reason EP
Label: Jump Start

The Code play heavy, slickly-produced punk/ska with NYHC/Oi!-style group shout backup vocals for the working man. Vocalist "Marc Defiant" doesn't sing a single note, but most of his words defiantly take a bizarre downward swoop, as if each word is a little child hopping out of his mouth onto a playground slide and whizzing down in joy to the ground below. Rhetoric Of Reason contains only four songs, one of which is an Operation Ivy cover; the originals include such groundbreaking hardcore dialogue as "And now I raise my voice.in defiance!" and "We're born to conform, to consume, just to die!" Still, they're easily the best punk rock band in Pennsylvania.

Band: ColdFusion
Album: Demo EP
Label: None

Pretty nu-metally, with a singer who sounds about 11. Nothing too innovative. But they live in Phoenix, Arizona, all the way to Tacoma. Philadelphia, Atlanta and so forth.

Band: Colossal
Album: Brave The Elements EP
Label: Asian Man

Hey! They can actually play their guitars! Notes! Arpeggios! Interweaving interplay! And they're from Elgin, IL! Yes, that's right - THAT Elgin, IL!!! The Fox River? Lord's Park Family Aquatic Center? Gonorrhea outbreaks? The Hemmens Cultural Center? ELGIN!!! The songs are indie rockity with gentle notes astrum and a loud drummer aloud, decently listenable for those who enjoy young rock. But why Brave the Elements when you can Brave the Velamints? Velamints - the smooth mint! Mellow yet rich. Sensual yet practical. With satisfying chocolate mint, refreshin