The debut CD from Virginia's A New Dawn Fades, I See The Nightbirds, is a life preserver for the music fan that doesn't need a singer and loves to dive headfirst into the music. Stylistically, ANDF is a tough one to describe. To compare them with a well-known act would prove fruitless, since the band changes like a chameleon from song to song and sometimes during the same song.

The opening track, "No Experts On Big Things," echoes the atmospheric musical landscape of Godspeed You Black Emperor but manages to not get as longwinded. The band crafts a free-standing musical story in the same time it takes to play a pop song. The band's love of and influence by Fugazi is prevalent on "Glories of Summer Camps Past." ANDF gets a little more experimental on the last couple of tracks. "He Carried Whip in His Trotter" is built upon a simple percussion track that sounds like someone tapping on a can. Normally, that would sound horrible but here it's very intoxicating and hypnotizes you until the rest of the music envelopes you.

Interspersed between the songs are one-minute tracks that serve as a bridge. The songs are strong enough on their own, but with these bridges, the album comes across as one giant piece. The best compliment one can give this band is that all four members seem to act as one. The are no soaring guitar or drum solos that shine a spotlight on one person. The music has an almost jam-y feel to it, since it sound so organic and stream-of-consciousness. The band will play SXSW this year, and then the rest of the world will hear how great they are and they'll surely become the darlings of Pitchfork or AP. Until then, remember who told you about them first. (Scott Whitt // 02/21/07)

I usually reserve the term "brutal" for death metal, where the Cannibal Corpses of the world enlighten us with the finer intellectual details concerning disembowelment and necrotic fantasy. This is usually administered via a double-bass ninja and a twin-detuned guitar attack going at a blistering pace, while the Beast Rabban tears out his bowels with Cookie Monster growls. After listening to ...And They Rode Their Weapons Into War, the latest from Tucson's The American Black Lung, I may have to revise my nomenclature.

The American Black Lung are "brutal," and are everything good about the post-pop-punk pushback happening right now. Like friends and local Houston heroes The Jonbenét, ABL force their groove on the audience by way of their attitude and song arrangements rather than by tuning their weapons down to subsonic levels. Every song on ...And They Rode Their Weapons Into War is tight, tightly played and written. The highlight of the band and the album is the fantastic locked-in groove of bassist Dhusty Rhodes and drummer W. Moon. The thickness and power of ABL is in this awesome bottom end, a cement and rebar foundation that the rest of the band lug-bolts their parts to. While limited in range, Diamond Rhino's vocals are all power and no subtlety, and Johny Detroit and Easy E tear into their Gibsons and Peavey 5150s (creating yet another non-traditional 5150 sound, proving once again how versatile these amps are) with aplomb. No wussy Fenders, please.

[The American Black Lung will be performing at Walter's on Washington on Sunday, February 4, along with The Jonbenét, Blues, & Fight Pretty.] (Andrew Perkins // 02/03/07)

Black Ice starts his new album, The Death of Willie Lynch, with a prayer -- as if he needs it. With lyrics that openly criticize the superficiality and ignorance of the "gangsta" mentality, as well as the holes in the American Dream, Black Ice joins a burgeoning group of lyrical hip-hop poet rappers searching for something greater than wealth, but bolder than violence. Like Black Thought of The Roots and Mos Def, Black Ice rails against the corporate hip-hop that represents the apathy of the corporate world with regard to the poor or downtrodden. "It's a beautiful world we live in / But the ugly ones push the buttons," he avers, reflecting the anger of a generation of intelligent rappers disillusioned by commercialism, exploitation, and the glorification of the drug-and-thug life that causes the death of so many bright young men. Songs like "Dream Transferred" and "Front Page" evince Black Ice's connection to African-American roots from the Harlem Renaissance and his own roots in Philadelphia, while songs such as "The Real" and "Hoodwatch" bump with beats so progressive that they could have come from The Mars Volta. As a radical album, the The Death of Willie Lynch stands strongly, and Black Ice brings in excellent talent to feature on the album, making it a good conglomeration of facts and material. Warning, though: if you buy it, you might even learn something. (Alex Ross // 02/03/07)

Okay, so this one's a bit risky: a bunch of the biggest, most revered luminaries of the once-cerebral Louisville indie scene, the folks who brought us (well, partly) math-rock, get together to form...an '80s-style metal band, complete with pointy mëtül logo and song titles like "Black Blood Leather"? Ah. Gotcha.

Seriously, I have to be skeptical as hell about this. I grew up on metal, listening to Metallica, Megadeth, Queensryche, and the like and learning guitar pretty much so I could play that stuff (the first song my guitar teacher ever taught me, naturally, was "Iron Man"), so I'm a little sensitive about jokes at the expense of the soundtrack to my youth. When I see that Dead Child includes David Pajo (guitarist; ex-Slint/Zwan/Tortoise/Aerial M/etc.), Todd Cook (bassist; ex-Crain/Shipping News/The For Carnation), Tony Bailey (drummer; ex-Anomoanon/Lords/Aerial M/Crain), and Michael McMahan (guitarist; ex-The For Carnation and younger bro of Slint's Brian McMahan) have formed a "metal" band, therefore, my first instinct is to assume that these guys are taking the piss. On a cursory sniff, Dead Child sure smells like an elaborate in-joke for a bunch of jaded hipsters, particularly given the recent resurgence of metal and rock in general. Oh, the delicious snark of it all -- I can practically hear the music-geek blogger snickering and hi-fiving now. Heck, this could be bigger than "Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)"!

But maybe I've got these guys all wrong. I mean, I certainly don't listen to just metal these days, despite my upbringing; who's to say Pajo, Cook, Bailey, McMahan, and vocalist Dahm (ex-Starkiller, currently also in Phantom Family Halo) didn't grow up listening to the heavier side of the rock spectrum like I did? Partway through "Angel of the Odd," and I start to feel my cynicism ebbing away. Holy shit...are these guys actually serious about this? Lyrics about blood raining down and "Earth's dying glow," pummeling, crunching guitars, and nicely driving drums -- put all together, this is a damn convincing impersonation of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, or hell, Dio.

"Black Blood Leather" continues in the same vein, channeling Judas Priest (complete with twin-guitar attack) with lyrics that sound like they were ripped out of the Metallica songbook circa Ride the Lightning, but it isn't 'til the stomping, merciless "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" -- the best track on here -- that the secret weapon of the band really comes into his own. Sure, the guitars are unexpectedly good, and the rhythm section charges right along beside, but it turns out that singer-with-one-name Dahm (if he's got a first/last name, I can't find it) is the glue that holds the whole of Dead Child together. He clearly loves the same metal screamers I used to love (and yeah, in some cases, still do), coming off like a more-comprehensible Ozzy Osbourne with a handful of Dio/Dickinson wail and just a touch of Federation X's Bill Badgley's backwoodsy drawl.

By the time "Curse of a Legend," with its Wrathchild America-esque chorus (in my opinion, one of the most sadly overlooked metal bands of the late '80s, by the way), and sludgy, slow-simmering "I Will Live Again" roll around, I'm smiling and stomping my feet. If this is a joke, then it's at least a friendly one, a playful nudge-and-wink to folks like me who still have a soft spot for guitar crunch and throat-shredding wailing about werewolves, witches, and rainbows in the dark. In the final analysis, though, Dead Child is good enough that I'm not sure my initial is-it-a-joke-or-not dilemma even matters. (Jeremy Hart // 02/21/07)

Dead Moon plays garage punk rock from the '80s. If you like The Pixies, Sonic Youth, or Adolescents, you'll understand. Blink 182 fans or Fall Out Boy fans probably need not apply. This music is stripped-down, raw, and fundamentally black. By "black," I mean that they share an elegiac, anti-social vibe with many "old school" punk rockers, but there's something perhaps more deep in Dead Moon's sound. As a Seattle band, Dead Moon played a profoundly influential role on the movement of hard rock that would come to be called grunge. Pearl Jam covered one of the songs on this compilation, "It's OK," during their recorded live show from Jones Beach back on August 24, 2000, exposing their roots in Dead Moon's chaotic and melancholy sound.

Throughout this comprehensive compilation of Dead Moon material, Echoes of the Blues, jagged guitar riffs, driving bass, and crashing drums deconstruct the melody, which is moaned and yelped by singers Freddy and Toody Cole, creating an anarchic vision of life. The anthemic quality of so many of the songs on this album tap the passion of a subculture that actively seeks out human feeling and adventure through empathetic and powerful lyrics and a variety of rock n' roll styles, making this pioneering jaunt through the world of garage-rock a must have for any punk rock archive. (Alex Ross // 02/13/07)

I've been a huge Deftones fan ever since I saw them open up for the Bad Brains, way back before Adrenaline even came out. I also really dig the fact that they've managed to grow musically over the near-decade that I've been following their output -- pretty much outgrowing the nu-metal/pimp rock/rap-metal/whatever genre seemingly for good with White Pony. I remember the first time I heard that album; it fucking blew me away, man. It was heavy and dense, yet melodic and groovy, pretty much everything I like about music all wrapped up into one neat little package (we're talking about the original release, sans "Back to School").

With all that said, I was pretty let down by Deftonesâ the self-titled followup. Sure, it was a return to heaviness, but in a more ham-fisted, "look, we're still pissed off and metal" kind of way. By this point, I thought the band was better than that. Nothing really caught me on that album, and to this day I break it out once every few months to see if something grabs me, but to no avail.

Of course, after that, I followed all the info that preceded Saturday Night Wrist's release with trepidation. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to get any better than White Pony, and it seemed be doubtful that any subsequent Deftones album would even come close. All the talk in the press about band tensions and acrimony with original producer Bob Ezrin didn't really help matters any. I mean, if a band hires Bob Freaking Ezrin to produce something and after about a year of recording, numerous accounts (including some from within the band) label the material produced as pretty much worthless, well...chances are you're in for a shitty end-user experience.

Now, meet Shaun Lopez. He apparently saved the day (from what I can gather), and helped shape a possible clusterfuck into at least the second best, possibly the best album that the Deftones have put out so far.

I'm a little biased, I admit. Shaun was the guitarist for Far, one of my favorite bands ever. Far and Deftones go way back, as both came up in the Sacramento scene of the late '90s. After the demise of Far, Shaun got into producing and recording, so when things got hairy with Saturday Night Wrist, it seemed only natural that the Deftones take the masters to Shaun to help out. From what I've read, there was a lot of chopping, re-arranging, remixing, and overdubbing done, but what results is an album that sonically sits right in the middle of Around The Fur and White Pony.

It's got the heavy, angry alterna-metal that the Deftones are known for ("Rapture"), but generally it's the angular, Fugazi/Snapcase-infused variety. It's also got the ambient/New Wave-y stuff ("Beware," "Cherry Waves"), and then there's also super-dense, Hum-like walls of sound that will blow your mind ("Hole In The Earth"). Some songs even seamlessly combine all three to some degree. If Depeche Mode played metal, this is the album that they would make.

This is what Deftones are. This is what sets them apart from the Limp Bizkits and the Korns of the world. This could possibly be their greatest achievement to date. (White Pony and Saturday Night Wrist duke it out regularly on my iPod; a clear winner has not yet been determined. That White Pony album is a scrapper.) Nice save, guys. (Mel House // 02/21/07)

The first time I heard the opening song from this Denton-based indie-pop band, I clenched my fists involuntarily. Something about the earnestness of the lyrics and the lead singer's soft, pretty voice made me want to provoke him to violence so that I could have an excuse to beat him up: "Seems we never ever fight / Always a good guy / Always an ally." It would have been like taking down a Backstreet Boy.

Years later, someone put this CD on my desk at work when I was trying to find a song for some TV show on the WB. I gave the album a second chance and now feel compelled to say a few things about the band. First off, the saccharine tune that I had initially disliked, "The End of the World," is actually a solid pop song with glossy production and a hook that can contend with any of Maroon 5's offerings (remember Kara's Flowers?). Second, I still think the band's greatest shortcoming is its lead singer's inability to growl, grimace, or sound even remotely menacing on songs like "Fantastic," "Farewell," and "Help the Dead." Some lines are not meant to be delivered that tenderly. The choirboy vocals work better on acoustic rock numbers like "Without Fail," where the band sounds like a modern-day Jars of Clay. But when the band aspires to be a Jimmy Eat World or, God forbid, a Fountains of Wayne, I lose my patience and clench my fists once again.

That said, "End of the World" would make a damned great song for some kind of prime time TV goodbye scene. I hate to admit it, but I think I really like the song. Too bad the band's now broken up...ah, well. (Annie Lin // 02/21/07)

Four Star Alarm's self-titled EP is competent, well-written guitar rock. The drumming's strong, all the instruments are well-played, and the vocalist at least sounds like he's heard Mike Patton and Brandon Boyd, especially on "Impenetrable," which could easily have been a B-side on Make Yourself. The drums are a bit loud in the mix, but it's not bad, and the whole album sounds well-recorded. (With the exception of the sound of the right guitar, that is; it gets a bit muddy in some of the songs and needs to be louder on the left. I'm guessing that the dude on the left is the Izzy Stradlin of the band). It doesn't sound auto-tuned, which is a good thing, although it says something about the current state of this genre that one automatically assumes that there has been some tuning chicanery going on. Usual lyrical content: world sucks, you suck, parents suck, etc.

One of the nice things about EPs is that they tend to be pretty solid, since there isn't room for filler, and the band's had a ton of time to refine the best songs in their catalog. I thought it was interesting that Four Star Alarm ended with the strongest song (of all strong songs), "Impenetrable," although it's the song that most blatantly nicks Incubus. Maybe that's why it's at the end: if you heard it first, you'd immediately toss Four Star Alarm away as a clone band. As it is, you hear an influence rather than outright theft.

Overall, though, "competent" is about the best I can say. It all sounds great, but there's not really anything that you go "whoa, that's interesting," either musically or lyrically. That isn't to say that it's bad or not well-done, but there just isn't much here. Four Star Alarm sounds pretty much like every other MTV2 band right now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't do much for getting you anything but lumped in with the rest of the crowd. I'm guessing their live shows are pretty ripping (this music lends itself to a good bashing; I'll be sure to see them when they come around next), and hopefully their label gives them a chance to evolve and grow. A strong but safe debut. (Andrew Perkins // 02/13/07)

Rise and shine, kiddies. The Good Mornings are here to jump start your day with their self-titled debut album. Calliope bandmates Carmen Paradise and Jason Lantrip come together with their fellow Good Mornings counterparts to produce an album that rivals the prowess of a high school band jamming in their mother's basement. Unfortunately, the record's instrumentation is its only saving grace. Lantrip weaves together sounds of pleasurable sorrow and shoe-gazing goodness, yet never manages to converge with the less-than-poetic styling of singer/songwriter Paradise. While Paradise's voice whistles with promise, the sophomoric tone of the lyrics read more like bad teenage prose. The vocals and music remained star-crossed lovers through the album's entirety, never finding a way to come together in harmony. (Brigitte Zabak // 02/13/07)

Duo Armitage and Kirby have created an original yet highly pop and psychedelic-influenced sound that could've been produced at Apple Records by Badfinger and Jane's Addiction. Cool grooves and instrumentation, thick sound layers, unusual samples, and Eastern music influences combine in a sophisticated gumbo that mostly eschews the tired distorted guitars that usually pass as "progressive psychedelic." Not to be confused with kiddie-pop, this stuff is loaded with content, counter-melodies, and obscure references. Multiple listenings are required for listeners to gather all of the nuances, yet even on the first listen, they'll find Kill Us Now to be catchy, fun, and intriguing. Highly recommended for the discerning ear. (Bob Wall // 02/03/07)

Austin hip-hopper JMprint rapped on and produced his album, Mperfect, which is solidly in the alt-rap tradition. The samples run the range of styles, from hard-edged rock to jazzy funk to simple electronic noises, and his beats have potential -- some of them are pretty creative, and his flow isn't bad. But they still don't save this record. The biggest problem is his rhymes -- they're just lame. On the more aggressive songs, the energy helps you ignore them, but on the rest, they're hard to forget (and not in the good way).

The few decent songs here are saved by interesting beats. The energetic rapping on "Get Up" is set to a solid droning beat which matches the rapping nicely (especially if you can ignore the lyrics), and the energy carries the song. "Mind's Eye" features a stark, tense beat with a pounding keyboard and rock guitar that complement each other, and the Arabic-sounding keyboard sample heightens the tension. "Every Story Ever Told" features a pretty fingerstyle guitar sample that matches the song perfectly -- it's a shoutout to all the records that don't get played anymore and the record collectors that give them new life. Do we got record nerds in the house? Put your hands in the air!

But again, the biggest problem he has is with the rhymes. They're pedantic and tedious, like this phrase from "Get Up": "And yeah, we're free to believe that we're free / And this purely symbolic freedom will remain unredeemed / Until we do what is deemed to clean house." You have to give him credit for trying to say something other than some gangsta clichés, but good ideas still need good rhymes to work, and that isn't one. "Get Into My Car" is a contrived satire of consumerism and big-box shopping, while his rap with guest MC Sleep is supposed to be annoying in a funny way, but the satire is too broad and too obvious to be funny, so it just ends up annoying.

JMprint's got some talent with the beats, but the rhymes and the rapping overwhelm most of the songs. I guess somebody needs to tell J that not everybody's cut out to be Kanye West. (Henry Mayer // 02/03/07)

Lamexcuse hails from the depths of Graz, Austria, bringing with them a pretty banal indie-rock album. Their debut release, All Important Little Things, has made its way to the States and is being touted as "The Proclaimers playing Moody Blues covers in Lindesfarne's basement produced by an early eighties R.EM." Lamexcuse couldn't be a further representation of those bands. All Important Little Things does have some redeeming qualities, though. The songs, while not lyrical masterpieces, are catchy and complement the skillfully constructed melodies. While the acoustic vibe of the album is pleasant and palatable, the obvious talent of the band members seems to have been drowned out by complete mediocrity. All Important Little Things has all the makings of a solid indie-rock album, but overall there's just nothing overtly, or even obviously, new and interesting about the music. Really, it's just another Lamexcuse for an indie-rock record. Hey, I guess they couldn't have described themselves better if they tried. (Brigitte Zabak // 02/13/07)

I have the unenviable task of reviewing the most recent salvo (ahem) from one of Houston's most well-ensconced and varied musicians, Rob Smith, aka LOW.Z, as an outsider. Smith is well-known to the Houston area music scene, having been a member of The Sperlings and All Transistor, amongst others, and having won various Houston Press awards back in 2000 and 2001. And that's about all I know about the guy. In this case, however, it's more a blessing than a curse, since it means I can look at the music without any influence or thoughts about how Salvo reflects on Smith's past work: I can judge the music on its merits, rather than on its buzz or reputation.

And I judge that this album is the most unique, most interesting, and, dare I say, coolest albums I have heard in a long time, with one big caveat: You probably won't like it.

Salvo won't appeal to everyone. On the contrary, it may appeal to almost no one. It's quirky, obtuse, beat-driven but hook-laden, vocally limber, but almost cliché-driven (in a specific, twisted way). Smith listens to and absorbs the patois of our vocal culture, culling verbiage, sounds, and words from the background noise. In fact, you will recognize most of the lyrics in some form or another, whether they're twisted words or lines from television or radio or print. The album seems to be mixed in reverse, with the tweedly bits and honks way out front and the song and vocals buried in the back. On top of this wiggly mess, Smith pushes occasional sound blasts and bass hits front and center, such that you are jerked out of you head-bobbing and slapped alongside the skull in case you weren't paying attention. For a solo album, especially one that's so inaccessible (and I mean that in the more mainstream sense), this is a heady, risky choice, and one that I believe says something not only about the confidence Smith has in this work but about the staid state of the music coming out of Houston right now, as well.

If you visit the guy's Website, you are treated to a song-by-song explanation of the album. (Note: I purposely did not read the descriptions before reviewing, although I did stop by the MySpace site.) It sounds obvious, but Zero is Gary Numan meets Kraftwerk meets Squarepusher (sort of), with the songcraft on the Gary Numan side and the knob-turning of Kraftwerk. Smith clearly loves his vocoder. For a bedroom/home studio recording, Salvo sounds brilliant, every bit as good as any of the other homebody ninjas slaving away in their self-imposed solitude in London. If I had this disc pushed on me at the store, I'd pick it up in an instant.

By the by, you can download the entire album from Smith's site (or via the MySpace page). Go pick it up; you won't be disappointed. Completely different from everything else coming out of Houston right now. (Andrew Perkins // 02/03/07)