Agents of the Sun, Aurora
Agents of the Sun are pretty lucky — they never had to languish in the local scene for years, jockeying with Creed wannabes for a remote chance to make it big…
Written on December 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
AM, Francophiles & Skinny Ties
This is some garage rock shit from NY, not to be confused with the Fucking AM, or AM 60 (also from New York). I had no idea what this band was about before pushing “play,” but my reaction about 20 seconds into it was to hit “stop.” Being a fan of many bands/albums that took […]
Written on December 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
Arcade, Into The Light
Man, anybody who picks up a copy of Arcade’s Into The Light expecting to hear the early-’90s hard rock band formed by Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy is gonna be pissed. Of course, since the abovementioned group of music fans is probably outnumbered…
Written on December 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
Alice Despard Group, Thinning Of The Veil
There are two songs that make the Alice Despard Group’s Thinning Of The Veil worth your attention and ten that more or less succeed only to the degree to which they remind you of the other two. The keepers are the hooky title track, which resonates like Barbara Manning…
Written on December 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
The Aeffect, A Short Dream
Here’s a keyboard-based trio, in the Depeche Mode fashion — moody pop with lots of hooks. Haven’t heard this kind of stuff in awhile, but I like the attitude. The “drums” seem pretty synthesized, and there’s a whole lot of what one would expect in this particular style…
Written on October 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
The Adventures of Jet, Muscle
The press release claims that “The Adventures of Jet’s Muscle is, at its core, a concept album…the songs on Muscle follow a central theme; in this case, muscle cars and the idea that with the newfound freedom that comes along with owning a set of wheels…
Written on October 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
Antiseen, The Boys from Brutalsville
So, I popped in Antiseen’s latest, The Boys from Brutalsville, with absolutely no expectations. And it turns out that the supposed “Scourge of the Carolinas” has created a decent metal disc, which, coming from me, is really saying something…
Written on October 1, 2004 | Posted in Reviews
The Appleseed Cast, Low Level Owl, Volumes I and II
What do you do when you make a critically-acclaimed, fanboy-approved and generally bad-ass epic concept album? If you’re The Appleseed Cast, you follow that puppy up with an even more epic (epic-er?) double concept album and hope that you pull it off…
Written on October 1, 2003 | Posted in Reviews
Anti-Pop Consortium, Arrhythmia
Anti-Pop has become one of the most interesting new hip-hop groups — the members of the Anti-Pop Consortium started the group with the intention of doing anything but the expected in hip-hop. With that kind of goal, it would be easy to lapse into pretense…
Written on October 1, 2003 | Posted in Reviews
Angelic Upstarts, Live from the Justice League
So many of the current “punk” fans believe that “their” music started with Blink-182 and Green Day — give me a break. The Angelic Upstarts have been around since the early ’80s. And yes, that is 1980, as in “before your young ass was even hatched”…
Written on October 1, 2003 | Posted in Reviews
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Source Tags & Codes
I guess I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to “Austin music.” It’s not even the fault of the many bands and musicians who inhabit the Austin scene, but is more due to the seeming overhyping of any and every bit of music that comes out of our fair sister city…
Written on October 1, 2003 | Posted in Reviews
Alastor, Nothing For Anyone
Remember the first time you heard the Pretenders? Well, this disc reminds me of the style and vocal presence of that band. I hate having to make such comparisons, as it seems to detract from the value and originality of an artist’s work…
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
Aereogramme, A Story in White
A twang of guilt at my perpetual tardiness in writing reviews for this here zine resulted in me putting this disc in my CD player. The result of that action was a compulsion to write this particular review right this instant, so that I don’t have to listen to this particular album ever again…
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
Antipop Consortium, The Ends Against The Middle
The EP before the recently-released Arrhythmia is my introduction to APC. This set of seven songs all fits under the “electronica” banner, I guess, except that about half the tracks have rappers over them. Being horribly undereducated in this field…
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
Aden, Hey 19 / Arab Strap, The Red Thread
On the surface, these records don’t have much to do with each other, besides alphabetic proximity and the fact that they showed up in my mail box at the same time. And only a foolish reviewer would try to discuss them at the same time. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, I am incredibly foolish…
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
AM/FM, Mutilate Us
One-sheets are a bitch. For those of you unfamiliar with them, one-sheets communicate to the reviewer of the record the pre-digested information that the record label or band promoter wants you to know about the band. AM/FM’s one-sheet prominently features a quote…
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
Aesop Rock, Labor Days
The beautiful thing about much music is the way it always reacts to check itself and react to itself. Too many keyboards and too much pretense in your music? Just wait, and punk will come along to save the day. Hip-hop works under the same guidelines, and while one could never say that the more […]
Written on October 1, 2002 | Posted in Reviews
Abunai!, Abunai! Presents…The Mystic River Sound
There are two explanations for this CD, one considerably more credible than the other. On the one hand, this could be a bona fide comp of little-known Massachusetts bands, the tracks dug out of some long-lost archive up north of Boston…
Written on March 1, 2001 | Posted in Reviews
Alice Despard Group, Alice Despard Group
It’s hard to pick on a group that has the good taste to cover East River Pipe (“Times Square Go-Go Boy”). It’s equally hard, however, to get very excited about that group when they pick that as the lead-off track, and it’s the best track on the CD…
Written on March 1, 2001 | Posted in Reviews
The Appleseed Cast, Mare Vitalis
In one of my junior years of college, an English prof asked the class what was the greatest work of literature, for all time. Myself, and a few others, volunteered the King James Version of the Bible, but we were overruled by the surly prof in favor of Moby Dick…
Written on October 1, 2000 | Posted in Reviews
Fiona Apple, When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He’ll Win The Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters The Ring There’s No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won’t Matter Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right
The most remarkable thing about Fiona Apple’s latest, verbosely-titled album isn’t the speed at which she engendered such a remarkable maturity (after all, Joni Mitchell blossomed from pretty good folkie to peerless soul-drenching singer-songwriter in the course of three years…
Written on October 1, 2000 | Posted in Reviews
The Anniversary, Designing A Nervous Breakdown
Damn, I hate that. You ever hear a song and swear you’ve heard something very much like it before, but can’t figure out where, even after ransacking your CD collection for those bands whose albums you heard only once? It’s like the aural equivalent of deja vu, I suppose…
Written on October 1, 2000 | Posted in Reviews
All Transistor, Parts
I’ve known Thane Matcek, the main guy behind All Transistor, for a few years now, and he’s a great guy, but every time I talk to him, I get the feeling that he’s not quite there. It’s not super-obvious — he doesn’t talk to invisible people or twitch or scream profanity or anything like that…
Written on October 1, 2000 | Posted in Reviews
The Alkaline Trio, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire
To paraphrase Henry Rollins: “Rock rock baby rock, yeah!” And rock is exactly what this is, yeah, but what kind? Indie-rock? Post-punk? Modern rock? Emo? Hell, I don’t know, and more to the point, I don’t care. Maybe I’ll Catch Fire is just flat-out a great rock album…
Written on October 1, 2000 | Posted in Reviews
Alastor, Javelin Catcher
I’ve listened to this album three times now, and I can barely remember a damn thing about it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but for an album to get away with it, it should sound pretty great while it’s playing. The problem with Javelin Catcher…
Written on October 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
The Appleseed Cast, The End of the Ring Wars
I had this album for a long time before I was able to write anything about it. I listened to it several times and still have next-to-no recollection of the lyrics to any of the songs. And yes, I know that sounds bad, but strange as it sounds…
Written on October 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
The Adjusters, Before The Revolution
This is not what I’d expected, I must admit, especially from trad-ska mainstay Moon Records. This isn’t “straight” ska, by any means — hell, a lot of it isn’t ska at all. Two-thirds of the songs are funky, James Brown-/Percy Sledge-ish soul jams…
Written on October 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
American Football, Polyvinyl CD Single Series 001
Hmm…didn’t somebody else do this a while back? Ah, who cares — Polyvinyl, one of the oddest, most interesting labels around, recently started up their own CD singles club, featuring new stuff from folks like Braid, Calvin Krime, Paris, Texas, and Burning Airlines (and American Football, naturally). I think it’s a very cool idea, especially […]
Written on October 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
Amps for Christ and Two Ambiguous Figures, The Beggar’s Garden
The future is about demographics. Actually, that’s misleading, since even today is really about demographics. Specifically, more and more the idea of niche marketing to smaller and smaller groups with more narrowly defined preferences is becoming not just commonplace…
Written on March 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
A Minor Forest, Inindependence
A common term used to describe the music of A Minor Forest is “math rock.” Apart from the fact that this term has been applied to numerous bands that have vastly different styles, I dislike it because it implies that all math is identical. Which, is of course, ludicrous…
Written on March 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors, Turning Into Small
When I first got My Bloody Valentine’s classic Loveless, I used to open all the windows on sunny days, crank it up really loud, and pass out on the couch — it was an absolutely awesome way to spend an afternoon, trust me. And not to pigeonhole All Natural, etc., etc., but this disc makes me feel the same way…
Written on March 1, 1999 | Posted in Reviews
