For those who love huge, screaming guitars, rhythms alternating between thuddingly heavy and throttingly fast, and inane lyrics bellowed (or growled) at the top of the singer's lungs, Scene Killer will do you up nice. Though the musicians involved aren't listed on the cover, giving an intentional impression that this is the work of a single band, this compilation of music (considered a "project" in the liner notes) actually contains work by members of such esteemed New Jersey psych-rock mainstays as Solarized, the Atomic Bitchwax, Burnout King, Rotgut, Drag Pack (with their final recording), and of course, the big men on campus, Monster Magnet. And it sounds like it. If you've heard much music from this particular gaggle of bands, you pretty much know what to expect. If you haven't, this is a great way to get into it. Of course, aural references to Hendrix abound in the wild and woolly guitar playing, but no one can deny that it's pretty exhilarating to hear for a fan of that sort of big psychedelic guitar sound. Big riffs, big vocals, big beats -- it's all here. From what I could gather from the liner notes, some of these tracks were recorded by whole bands, while others were recorded by ad hoc groups put together specifically for the project, so this really isn't a compilation per se, but nonetheless the hallmarks of the New Jersey scene are here in all their bong-blazing glory, and so anyone who has even a passing interest in any of the groups mentioned above would do well to pick it up. The music is unique, even if the style isn't. And, of course, it RAWKS. (CE)
(MeteorCity Records -- P.O. Box 40322, Albuquerque, NM. 87196; http://www.meteorcity.com/)

This is an odd one. After hanging onto Varnaline's most recent release, Songs in a Northern Key, for an unconscionably long time (close to, um, three years; bad review monkey, bad!), listening to it intermittently all the while, the album's seemingly wormed its way into my subconscious. Hearing the awesome, rule-breaking countrified rock of the disc's absolute highlight, "Song," one more time, I get a weird sense of deja vu...except that in this case, I have heard it before, and it must've gotten lodged in my brain and traveled along with me all this time. That says something, I think, for the songwriting ability of Anders Parker (the guy who is Varnaline, pretty much, although his brother and assorted other folks help out). This isn't an album that storms in and smacks you upside the head with its brilliance; rather, it sneaks in just after dark and waits in your closet 'til you've gone to bed before it comes out and has its fun.
That's not the end off the oddness, however; Songs in a Northern Key also happens to defy just about every label I've tried to throw at it. It's one of those rare efforts that can't be pigeonholed or filed away under some arbitrary genre classification. There's a lot of alt-country on here, to be sure -- the opener, "Still Dream," is a softly reassuring bit of country-folk, "Indian Summer Takedown" brings to mind Son Volt's Trace, and on "Difference," Parker sure seems to be channeling Jay Farrar's near-monotone bitter disgustedness (especially with tired snarl of "the coffee can pour itself") -- but that's only half of the story. Parker also did time as guitarist for '90s indie-rock heroes Space Needle (he joined in 1997, after releasing his first Varnaline album, Man of Sin, on Zero Hour to absolutely zero recognition), and it's that indie-rocker sensibility that really makes Songs something, well, different.
Take the aforementioned "Song," for example. At first glance, it's a relatively straightforward rocker, but throughout the song there's this rumbling undercurrent of distortion that sounds like something lurking below the surface and preparing to break loose. Think of what Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne might've sounded like if J. Mascis had subbed in for Jeff Tweedy, and you'll come close. "Song" happily eschews the unwritten rules of the alt-country subgenre, instead blazing its own damn near unique trail, and the rest of the album follows its lead. "Difference" is practically dreampop, with its echoey vocals and huuuuuge drums -- as the song rolls along, distorted, symphonic guitars fade in from a distance like an avalanche roaring down a faraway mountaintop, never overwhelming the gentle strumming, the booming drums, or Parker's haunting, un-affected voice but painting a beautiful picture behind the music's framework all the same.
The same sort of washes of sound lead nicely into "Blackbird Fields," and then "Green Eyed Stars" mutates the underlying "country" sound even further into My Bloody Valentine/Spiritualized territory, making me wonder if Parker's invented some kind of new genre entirely -- ambient country, maybe? And just when you think things can't possibly get any more bizarre, he throws in "Let It All Come Down," which sounds like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in its trippy, swaying, overfuzzed majesty, getting stoned and rocking out at an intergalactic hoedown. How in the hell did we get from the delicate, Nick Drake-ish melody of "Indian Summer Takedown" to this? It's not even a fight, mind you, between the two "sides" of Varnaline's musical personality; on the contrary, the indie and the country are practically skipping gaily down the beach, hand in greasy hand. The only thing I can think of that this really sounds like is genius Mark Linkous's sadly defunct Sparklehorse project, and that's less because of any stylistic similarity (Linkous is a lot messier and more rootsy, generally) than because of a shared, probably unconscious, disdain for the conventions of country music and rock in general.
The key, I think, is that Parker loves noise. There aren't many empty spaces on here, even on more minimal tracks like "I Don't Want," because he fills the cracks and crevices in the music with static, distorted drumbeats, or washes of melody. As a result, there's little of that stark (Mid-)Western simplicity here, none of that echoing, open-sky feeling you get when listening to folks like Gillian Welch or the Jayhawks. This isn't the second coming of Uncle Tupelo, no, or even of Whiskeytown; those guys were too wrapped up in paying homage to their idols. This is more like Neil Young rejuvenated and refreshed, determined to show those slacker alt-country kids what their music should sound like. (JH)
(Artemis Records -- 130 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. 10011; http://www.artemisrecords.com/; Varnaline -- http://www.varnaline.com/)