Everything about this record screams "Chapel Hill, North Carolina." The patchwork-quilt cover, the humbledy-mumbledy singer, the outdated production (smells like the '90s), the quite-unknown-guy who has accolades from hipsters and kisses from awkward girls on college campuses, New York n'er-do-wells, Midwest mailorder record houses that proclaim his genius, and the west coast folk trying to find a pulse in a musical atmosphere that's barely clinging to life. Somehow this coffeehouse messiah is something so huge, our lives would ever remain, increasingly, the same with or without this record.

There's a homespun quality, though, an honesty (moany and clipped in its words) that's here for those who're hungry for it. Go ahead, have second, even third helpings; there's plenty to go 'round. Pass the biscuits, please. "Town" introduces you to Mr. Buckner, first showing a glimpse of his finesse at the vocal vibrato technique. The melody is simple, not horrible but still quite forgettable. "Canyon" is a larger canvas for more prominent peacocking of the "vibrato." The arrangements, instrumentation, and melody, however, all seem more cohesive and less fractured-sounding. By the third track, "Lucky," the music's beginning to sound a little "happy," and a bit longing, too, but with more resolve -- not so much achiness. There's a styling of the voice that's certainly here to stay by the fourth cut; a lilt, a wisp, a curlicue that flavors each track.

Imagine 10,000 Maniacs and protest songs from "up North," flavored with a pinch -- just a pinch -- of Nashville and that guy at the place that sings on random Wednesday nights with the loneliness of a singer-songwriter, and voilá! -- that's Richard Buckner. And there's plenty of those lonely feelings here for you, if that's what you're after. And if you're after something completely non-sexy, non-threatening, and not too wild, that's here, too. Safe for parents. (Damon Murrah // 1/27/07)

The Record Plant in NYC has been the birthplace to many rock classics -- Jimi Hendrix, KISS, Led Zepplin, and countless others. The question is does Scratch the Surface, the debut album from The Cringe, fall into the same category? Of course not; don't be silly. That doesn't mean, however, that this isn't a solid release by a good new band. The brainchild of the band is singer/guitarist John Cusimano, who also just happened to produce the album as well, and the music he has written is standard alt-rock. In the "Influences" section of his bio, he name-dropped Hüsker Dü, The Ramones, and Television, and while those may indeed be influences, the output of this CD is more along the lines of a Stone Temple Pilots or Live. That's not meant in a derogatory fashion, by the way, since both bands are excellent songsmiths.

On Scratch the Surface, all of the songs are very well-written and all seem made for radio. "Too Many Problems" should have been featured on The O.C. during one of those extreme moments of turmoil or overacting. Lead track "Another Day" is another gem, with a chorus that is a little too reminiscent of Pat Benatar. At the end of the album is "One and On," a song that could have been written by Paul Westerberg. The band does slow it down a couple of times, giving you time to whip out your Bics and hold them above your head. "Grave" and "Empty Table" are both slow-paced "Buzz" ballads that will make any 13-year-old wallow in their self-pity.

The band gives you your money's worth, as there are 13 songs on this release and nary a dud in the bunch. The next step this band needs is to get a real producer, put all their side projects away, and concentrate on this. If they do that, then they could have something special. (Scott Whitt // 01/12/07)

Gadamer states in Truth and Method that the experience of the work of art "always fundamentally surpasses any subjective horizon of interpretation, whether that of the artist or that of the participant." If we hold this maxim as true, then few listenable musical compositions that I have heard surpass Dead Voices on Air's new album, From Labrador to Madagascar, in terms of pure artistic experience.

Led by the prolifically post-modern British psychiatrist Mark Spybey, whose penchant for ambient experimentalism has brought him into the company of such bands as Pigface, Faust, and I Am Spoonbender, DVOA bring the listener sounds that exist free from possible distinction. Seeming to come from the cavernous laboratory of some unintelligibly muttering Mad Scientist who performs experiments on flies using dentist drills, the first half of the album teleports the listener to a strange special temporality that leaps across the meridian of thought. Art destroys reality in space and time, and Jacques Derrida's comment on perspective, "Discontinuous return and round of the hours, the here of the clock hand spaces the now," is reduced to ash.

This conveyance across the meridians of temporal being presents itself in the title, From Labrador to Madagascar, as much as it does in the music. Progressing beyond the aforementioned laboratory via shrill sounds suggesting cybernetic transportation, the music enters a new planetary spirit of rhythm, interpolated from some transcendent electronic pulse, and of spirituality, provided by meditational intonation. The soft, priestly tones carry through the rest of the album like light through the interstices of a trellis covered in vines, until it gradually subsumes the album, sharing the locus of music with only a gently humming organ.

The soothing chant acquiesces to the sharp sounds indicative of telecommunications and the horrible mutterings of an incoherent human, providing a reminder of the fear and trembling of the initial stages of the album. The scary part only lasts a few minutes, however, before the the natural world reasserts itself with rich textures of African drumming and the strange, animalistic sounds of horns and conches.

Having traveled through a constellation of dreams, one leaves the album with his or her own bivouac pack of dreams intact, knowing that none could have experienced the work of art through the same ears. The only problem with the album lies in the sometimes-chaotic feeling of detachment, provided by Spybey's haywire technological noise, but if you have patience for ambient music at all, DVOA's From Labrador to Madagascar will not let you down. (Alex Ross // 1/27/07)

Though British psychobilly revivalists the Drugstore Cowboys tore things up on Rockabilly Rumble Deuce with their track "Game Over," they -- wait, that's not right.

Popular cover band The Drugstore Cowboys always wows the crowd at the San Antonio Continental -- nope, nope, that's not it either.

OK, here it is. D.C. duo the Drugstore Cowboys blends the androgynous post-hardcore antics of the Blood Brothers with the electronic political-coke-party antics of Fischerspooner for a full-length record that is so consistently antic-driven that it is somewhat difficult to take seriously. Producer Philippe Grenade has an interesting sense of collage that frequently juxtaposes incongruous musical elements at a rapid pace, and the effect can be pleasantly disorienting, but the similar juxtaposition of hardcore throat-shredding with overproduced crooning merely sounds contrived.

The band's credibility is not aided by their cartoonishly uncreepy lyrics: "I detest your silicone laughter, fake like all the New York watches ... Stop pretending like your [sic] simple / We all know that youre [sic] diseased / Like a leech of dieting cancer / You are the reason for all this sickness... " (That's from "Only Fire Drive Away the Rats," by the by.) "Like a leech of dieting cancer"? Even the Deftones couldn't get away with that. Chapter 3006 further loses points for including a sample of a 911 caller from the World Trade Center -- honestly, how tasteless do you have to be to think that's a good idea? -- and taking an extended potshot at the South on the meaninglessly entitled "Pornographic Fruitstands:" "Georgian scum is sleeping under bridges / If you want lost souls you will find them there...you bible-belt joke rotting with strippers / This is your classic American shit hole / Welcome to the wasteland."

I suppose it would be impolitic to mention that D.C. is a long way from being the Lost City of Gold, or that no mayor of Atlanta has ever been convicted of smoking crack. Likewise, it would be undignified to point out that Georgia is currently producing some of the best metal (Mastodon), garage (the Black Lips), math-rock (the Blame Game), noise (Deerhunter), and hip-hop (Outkast) in the country, while if it weren't for Ian Mackaye and other people who have far too much class to talk shit about an entire state, no record label would touch bands from fourth-rate music scenes like D.C., and ignorant posers like the Drugstore Cowboys would spend their 20s freezing and starving in New York or, more likely, parking cars in L.A., until they finally gave up and spent the rest of their lives writing gratingly hip and unfunny television commercials and turning into Republicans...although perhaps it wouldn't be as impolitic or undignified as other things I could have written instead.

Finally, in the interest of aiding them the next time they start a band, I wish to call the attention of the Drugstore Cowboys to a useful new website called Google... (Daniel Joseph Mee // 01/12/07)

First off: hot damn, the album cover just plain freaks me out (mmm...blood). And kind of in a good way, which is a bit disturbing to me. I like it, though, because it's a fairly hard-to-miss declaration of what's to come: whatever the hell this Ferocious Eagle thing is, it's going to be strange, possibly violent, and definitely not pretty.

Okay, so maybe I'm making a lot of blather out of a stupid picture, but the fact remains that the Portlanders definitely fit the description above on The Sea Anemone Inside of Me Is Mighty. The album is a full-on squall of Fugazi-influenced post-rock -- plenty of starts and stops, quirky-yet-arresting sung/chanted vocals, and a sinister, murky feel. The music churns and barrels along its tracks like a less-backwoodsy Federation X, or maybe Refused if they dropped the polemical stuff and dug back through those jazz collections they love so much. The songs get messy and chaotic at points ("Dinosaur," "Lion Hearted"), but even then they somehow coalesce into something solidly musical, which is no mean feat. There's a little Modest Mouse craziness here, to boot, particularly on album closer "I Just Don't Care" (which also makes me think of fellow Northwesterner Kind of Like Spitting), along with a fair dose of Polvo-esque math-rock.

Really, though, what comes to mind the most as I listen to Sea Anemone (and this surprises me, actually) is NoMeansNo -- I can vividly remember the first time I listened to "The Tower," and how simultaneously thrilled and scared the living shit out of me, so much so that I couldn't stop listening to it. Ferocious Eagle has the same kind of purposeful, dangerous momentum to its music, like a big-ass rock that rolls down a mountain and just plain never stops but keeps on going, crushing things in its path. You know you should get out of the way, but while you're staring at its destructive progress, you can't; you're mesmerized. Similarly, I put on Sea Anemone, my hands and feet start to move...and then the next thing I know, it's over and I've lost a half-hour of my life.

Of course, as you might expect from an album like this, the lyrics make zero sense, barring a brief (and surprisingly uplifting) little pseudo-Biblical interlude in "Be Not Weary, Be Not Weak." But eh, that's not the point -- the point is in the locked-down groove these three guys drive unrelentingly into your skull. Just step back and watch. (Jeremy Hart // 1/17/07)

Nic Garcia is mood music. It's sullen, dark, and melancholy. There're glimmers of hope and love in between the lines, between the raindrops and floods of tears. Yet there are just mere glimmers, nothing to hang your hat on. "Song One" is the languid pacesetter, instrumental and vaguely nostalgic (and I mean "vaguely nostalgic" like the vague seems very familiar). Dark strings, piano, acoustic guitar, and French horns intermingle between sweet melodies and haunting harmonies. Nice. "In the Time of the Wolf" finally introduces Mr. Garcia's voice, a strained, moany scratch that seems more to "touch" the notes and move on, like handling an expensive antique. "Éwe waited for something, anythingÉ" -- simple, effective, gracious.

"Triumph" starts with a murky, bluesy guitar and wilting strings. Mr. Garcia's imagery and messages are well cozy now; the sparse musical landscapes mirror the rain-dotted/sun-softened cover art. Sometimes he sounds like the Tinderstick's Stuart A. Staples, and then the song trudges along and is over before you know it. The melodies are short and simple but don't really suck me in as I struggle to keep up with the thick melancholy. "The Wasp" has a horn line that is a faint smirk, but all this darkness begins to wear halfway through the album. I'm looking for a ray of sunshine, some bit of cheer to get me through the rest.

Unfortunately, it's not until the last track, "Onward," where the bouncing harpsichord and organ give me the slightest uplift. I would've hoped that this number would make its appearance earlier in the album, and once its here, its hopefulness and cheeriness is over much too soon. Ah, but Nic Garcia's The Desperate Ones is not for the "young hopefuls," but for the late nights and the lost souls, or for those who just prefer a little shadow with their light. (Damon Murrah // 1/17/07)

This is another one of those CDs that I spun during my road trip from Houston to New York last fall. Oddly enough, I popped this disc in right around the time we entered the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area, which is where Gist hails from. Maybe it was a location thing, or maybe it was due to the fact that the previous CD we had in was utter crap, but I really enjoyed Diesel City. I have to admit that the one-sheet put me off a little bit beforehand -- whenever I see "international flavor" or some similar phrase used to describe a band, I run the other way. I've been burned by that particular tagline one too many times in the past, I guess...it usually equates to a cacophonic sound of immense proportions. I can't help but think, though, that someone put those words in there just to reference the fact that Gist's frontman is Indian. It doesn't matter one way or the other, but that's about as "international" as things get on Diesel City, which is not a bad thing. What you do get from Gist is angular indie-rock that reminds me of Mission of Burma, the Pixies, and Superchunk, with a little experimentation and jamming here and there (but never too much). It all adds up to a really enjoyable listen, and a somewhat nostalgic one at that -- Gist would have been right at home putting out records on Matador in the late '90s. (Mel House // 1/27/07)

I always like the start of a record. Such high hopes and, if it doesn't completely suck, the lingering chance of redemption. There's almost a sigh of relief when you start to get drawn in, or even hypnotized. Here, the "Death of a Tune" has that honky, '50s-ish, country-flavored rumble that is at once satisfying with its melodic hooks and humble in its approach. In the space of one track, and with all my other judgment suspended, the Hidden Cameras know how to turn a tune. This is a record with tunes! "From the moment I was taught to resist the education..." is how "Awoo," the eponymous second track begins, and who couldn't appreciate such a sentiment? The foreignness of the word easily bends itself to the melodic will of the singers, the vocal harmonies are almost Beach Boys, sweet and replete with strings.

The band's instrumentation is sparse and simple: guitar (heavy on the acoustic), bass, drums, and violins. Nothing is overused or underused but skillfully placed to enhance each hook-laden song, which will surprise you when you see how much instrumentation there really is (lap steels, synths, and glockenspiels, etc.). "Lollipop" sounds eerily like R.E.M.'s "Radio-Free Europe," but so what? You gotta put it to work for you, don'tcha? "Fee Fie" starts a different singer and quite a departure in mood but is deliciously introspective and sad. But don't get down, because the next track, "Learning the Lie," brings you back up with its catchy melody and solid falsetto-chorus. The Hidden Cameras are obviously lovers of great songwriters and unforgettable pop music themselves. Four stars. Bravo. (Damon Murrah // 01/12/07)

Frida Hyvönen's debut album Until Death Comes came out in her native country of Sweden in 2005 to worldwide acclaim, winning the Stockholm Prize and breaking into the Swedish singles charts for a few weeks with her breakout single "I Drive My Friend." The sterling acclaim is well-deserved, as Frida's glorious voice, raised in the candor of a singer-songwriter, splits the difference between Joni Mitchell's sublimation of the musical note and the drone of Nico's honest tone. Her lyrics often waver from the fatuous to the serious, from the romantic to the stoic, without a moment's hesitation, making her a fundamentally interesting personality, while her piano accompaniment compliments her will to measure tragedy and comedy with a strong degree of cheerful elegance. Songs of loss like "Once I Was A Serene Teenage Child" open up the paroxysmal effect of emotions resultant from the actuated childish fantasies of sex and independence on a teenager with a paradoxical, nostalgic tenderness. At the same time, the song "Djuna" exposes the chaotic nature of the down-and-out singer, masked by childish reaction to the corruption around and within her. As her piano trots merrily along, her voice chiming with tranquil ease, Frida spins stories of fear, loss, and pain. The music of Frida Hyvönen is music of a subtler genius, as natural and flawless as a winter's morning, within which every nascent insinuation of danger is contained. (Alex Ross // 1/27/07)

I'd bet a psychologist would have a field day with my weird attraction to women who could probably kick my ass. I've always been fascinated by tough, angry, musical ladies like, say, the Distillers' Brody Dalle, Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, Atari Teenage Riot's Hanin Elias, Joan Jett, or, yes, the walking trainwreck that is Courtney Love (I draw the line at Karen O, though; she just scares me). I've got no idea why this is the case, really, and I'm not sure I even want to speculate; all I know is that there's something about a tough girl with a guitar, spitting angry lyrics over a roaring rock blast that makes me smile.

Which is pretty much where I am with former Midwest-dweller Shanna Kiel's debut solo effort, Orphan. The album's a short-ish set of driving, angry rock songs with plenty of ragged, dirty-sounding guitar shrapnel and Kiel's cigarette-scratched voice, and it hits a number of the female-rocker touchstones I mentioned above. The vocals resemble Dalle's at several points and Love's at others, a few of the songs echo Sonic Youth's Gordon-fronted efforts, and the raging guitars bring to mind everybody from the Distillers to Alkaline Trio. There's a sloppy, staggering, Nirvana-esque feel to several of the songs, to boot, particularly "Oh My" and "Song for the Hoodwink," although I can't say I'd credit Love with that specific influence.

The high point of Orphan has to be the sing-song-y, Kim Gordon-ish "Lost Our Vows," which kicks off with a particularly nice line: "With this drop of blood / I thee wed." The whole thing coalesces Kiel's various influences and musical kin into a solid mass of fiery, hard-charging rock, and it works quite nicely. The rest of the tracks are up and down from there -- some good ("Kismet," "Song for the Hoodwink," "Rotting From the Inside," the last third of "Sharpen the Dull"), some not-so-good ("Oh My," "Princess and the Pea," "Chariots of Silk"). Orphan's no mind-blower, it's true, but taken as a whole, it's a decently entertaining solo effort that makes me wonder what Kiel's old band Sullen sounded like. And hey, that's not a bad thing... (Jeremy Hart // 01/12/07)