H2O - Nothing to Prove (2008, Bridge 9)

4 out of 5

“For those that don’t know, H2O GO!” Thus starts the first record in seven years for these NYHC stalwarts, and it’s screamed by a kid who wasn’t even born when the last H2O album came out (singer Toby Morse’s son). But that doesn’t even matter because this is just as good as what the band were doing back in 1995, the year they started (and the year that starts the record with the ode to days gone by, “1995”). It’s classic NYHC along the lines of Shelter & Gorilla Biscuits (whose singer, CIV, makes an appearance here on “Still Here”), with plenty of “jud-juds,” plenty of breakdowns & circle pit moments, plenty of PMA (“positive mental attitude” for those not in the know), plenty of railing (against poseurs, personal turmoil, etc.) and plenty of melody. It’s not all just mosh-core, and that’s a very welcome thing in these days of 28 different kinds of “-core,” most owing more to metal than anything else. Sometimes it’s just great to hear something that puts a smile on your face and makes you want to run around in a circle, windmilling and picking up change until your arms fall off. “Nothing to Prove” is a Bouncing Souls-style bro anthem (think the Souls’ “Manthem”) with its gang-vocal chorus of “Me and all my friends, we got nothing to prove, nothing to lose!” This whole record is a friend-laden affair, in fact, with the aforementioned appearance from CIV, as well as Lou Koller from Sick of It All, Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, Freddy Cricien from Madball, Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio, Kevin Seconds from 7 Seconds, and even Michael Rappaport. Unfortunately, this also brings up the biggest fault with the album and that’s that there’s way too many quotes and interludes for a 10-song album. Nearly every song starts with some quote or another, and, however appropriate (Toby’s son’s intro to “Sunday,” a song about losing a father and becoming a father, is perfect), it still interrupts the flow of the album. Also, since when is 10 songs an album for a punk/hardcore band? Isn’t that more EP territory? You know what though? Those are minor complaints. Quit being too cool, go put on some baggy shorts and a heather-grey t-shirt, go to a matinee show, and go remember why you got into punk rock in the first place when you were young.

=james

Billy Bragg - Mr. Love & Justice (2008, Anti-)

4 out of 5

You know, for someone with such a thick – nearly Dickensian – British accent, Billy Bragg is an old pro at Americana-influenced songs, whether R&B, Country, Soul, or Folk (just take a look at his work with Wilco on the Woody Guthrie interpretations Mermaid Ave. 1 & 2 or the Band-ish “Sing Their Souls Back Home” on this album). This record, his first in 6 years since 2002’s fairly disappointing outing with his band, the Blokes, England, Half-English, shows that influence wonderfully, especially on songs like “M for Me,” which is produced to capture the sounds of the room and make it sound that much looser and folkier, which is exactly where Bragg is at his best. His lovelorn, forlorn and wartorn lyrics are hurt by production that’s too clean and playing that sounds too rehearsed. He’s much better when there’s a little grit like “I Almost Killed You” or “Something Happened.” That said, he’s perfectly at home singing both of the political (“Sing Their Souls…,” “O Freedom,” “The Johnny Carcinogenic Show”) and the personal (“If You Ever Leave” has one of the more devastatingly aching choruses in recent memory). Bragg came to fame playing by himself, a man and his amp, and it’s arguable that some of his best songs still lay back in that era, which makes me incredibly curious about the second disc on the deluxe version of this record, which includes every song recorded in that format, but, as it is, I only got the regular version (money’s a bitch like that, huh?). Either way, though, Mr. Love and Justice is a fine record and a great example of what a man can do with his influences, no matter where they’re from.

=james

Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (2008, Rhymesayers)

5 out of 5

This is technically the second album that Atmosphere has released this year, after the free-download Strictly Leakage from earlier this year, and upon first comparison, it’s not nearly as much of a party record, but it IS a great, sing-song-y, alternately bouncy and mournful, piano-heavy, mature record, whether it’s the smooth-jazz summer-breeze-y music of the opener, “Like the Rest of Us,” or the revival-tent gospel blues of the second track, “Puppets” (which also features an excellent turn on back up vocals by Channy Casselle of the band Roma di Luna). This album is actually full of experimentation: Slug and Ant also explore Minus the Bear-style indie rock-robot-R&B by way of Prince-ly funk on “Dreamer” and “You,” 80s B-movie sci-fi synths (“The Skinny”), Goblin-meets-TV on the Radio-esque hip-hop (“Your Glasshouse,” “Can’t Break”), slide guitar (“Painting”), and even one song that sounds like G. Love (of the Special Sauce) with a serious chip on his shoulder (“Guarantees”). What works the best in this album’s favor though, is that much like the greatest musical storytellers (like Tom Waits, who beatboxes on “The Waitress”), Slug is at his peak when he’s finding himself and enlightenment in other peoples’ lives and stories. Because the songs on this record are, at Slug’s admission, fiction, that bodes incredibly well for those listening at home.

=james

The Night Marchers - See You in Magic (2008, Vagrant/Swami)

5 out of 5

This right here is perfect garage punk rock & roll. It’s got the swagger and the snarl, it’s got the slash and precision of switchblade-wielding robots, and it’s got lines like “Let’s be best friends on your floor” and tongue-firmly-in-cheek song titles like “I Wanna Deadbeat You,” “Open Your Legs” and “Panther In Crime.” Just like front-man John Reis’s beloved “band who invented Rock n Roll,” Rocket From the Crypt, The Night Marchers owe just as much (if not more) to 50s rockabilly attitude & 60s “Nuggets” sounds as they do to more modern punk pursuers, and this record really actually does sound a lot like RFTC just without the horns. In fact, Reis is even here going by his RFTC handle, Speedo. But where another modern band with a foot firmly planted in the past, the Bronx, are dirty and disheveled, all torn jeans and old punk t-shirts (and maybe still a little drunk from the night before), the Marchers are a James Bond (or an early-Elvis)-like suave: slicked back, sensuous, and never without a drink in hand, though never really drunk. Reis & Co. are also not quite as Euro-perfect as a band like the Hives, and that’s not meant in the slightest as a jab. One of the best tracks on the album, in fact, “Branded,” is pure American West, a gypsy-cowbilly shuffle with a little bit of menace – imagine Yul Brenner’s character in Westworld singing a song of love and devotion. And “Open Your Legs” is a double-Elvis-entendre, with Sullivan Show hip-shaking rhythm amped to skate punk speeds. And “You’ve Got the Nerve,” is Rolling Stones cock-of-the-walk blues rock, but where Jagger sang about having a woman under his thumb, Speedo sings “You’ve got nerve/ Don’t cut me loose/ You’ve got nerve/ And I want the abuse.” Now if only Martin Scorcese would obsess over The Night Marchers…

=james

Testament - The Formation of Damnation (2008, Nuclear Blast)

4 out of 5

This is Testament's first album in 9 years, and unlike a lot of their 80s thrashgenetor peers' recent output (....cough....Metallica ....cough.....), this record is nearly unequivically awesome. While I can't really speak for a lot of Testament's material (call me guilty of being a n00b, but I really only just started listening to them), this record is chock full of thoroughly solid melodic thrash underlying singer Chuck Billy's monstrous bellow, which at times calls to mind (modern touchstone here) Randy Blythe of Lamb of God or John Pettibone from Himsa - who Billy likely influenced when they were still little metalheads - but with a little more slice and a lot less bludgeon.

"Dangers of the Faithless" and "Persecuted Won't Forget" are songs that are bound to (at least in my mind), draw comparisons such as "James Hetfield singing for Megadeth," and, for anyone who ever loved both bands (and didn't take sides in the fight that ensued after Megadeth's Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica for being a drunken a$$h*l& before their first record ever came out), that couldn't be a more exciting thing, even if Testament stand completely on their own.

I hate to end on that, so let me say this: with as popular as thrash seems to be these days (both the goofy, party-hearty brand as well as the overtly-outraged "deep" brand), this record deserves to be at the forefront, and not just because these guys are the elder statesmen in a genre whose speed and trappings tend to favor the young (have you ever seen a chubby biker-looking dude with long, thinning hair wearing tight jeans?). It's also because The Formation of Damnation is a fast, brutal, and catchy record that is above all good.

=james

Opeth - Watershed (2008, Roadrunner Records)

3 out of 5

Opeth is a band that I used to make fun of, not for what they are or what kind of music they play, but rather, because of a kid that I knew that listened to them. And that's unfair. Because they're actually kind of good...sometimes....and this record is good....sometimes....

Watershed is Opeth's second record for Roadrunner, ninth overall, and first without longtime guitarist Peter Lindgren and drummer Martin Lopez, and I don't want to say it's apparent, because apparently frontman Mikael Akerfeldt has always been the primary songwriter, but there is something different happening here.

The record starts with "Coil," which sounds like a Medieval ballad, and not a very good one, before moving on to the first of the album's 7+ minute songs (6 of the 7 songs on the record are, actually), "Heir Apparent," which is definitely heavy, and has some great parts, but some, like the last 1 1/2 minutes, seemingly come out of nowhere. And, when you're writing a nearly 9 minute song, you want some coherence.

And speaking of nearly 9 minute songs, the next track, "Lotus Eater," is probably the best on the album, blending the band's progressive music-nerd sound with the cleanly sung/articulately growled vocals that they've steadily used more and more on each album. But, about the halfway mark, there's a full-on folk music breakdown that kills the pace of the song, even though it is followed up with an amazing carnival-funk from hell solo/interlude. But, from there, we go to "Burden," a big, slightly epic, slightly awesome and slightly boring, Jethro Tull-ish song (and I like Jethro Tull) that fades out to the sound of guitars being detuned while playing the same riff for a good minute, and "Porcelain Heart," despite starting with a doomy-riff and slo-mo blast beats (and re-visiting that riff throughout), ends up just being 60-75% dull tights-and-tunics folk. I know it seems like I'm hating on folk, which I don't, at all, it just feels completely out of place in this instance.

I want to like this record, I really do, because I really like some of it, and I even gave it plenty of chances, seeing how long it took me to get into their last record, Ghost Reveries, but when it comes down to it, this album isn't great, even if parts of it are.

=james

A (Slightly) Dynamic Duo of Reviews

Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008, Atco)
3 out of 5

Why is everybody hating on poor Scarlett? This album isn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is. How much of that has to do with fact that it's 9/10ths Tom Waits songs? Probably a bunch (though the lone original here, "Song for Jo," is actually a really enjoyable paean to youth). Is it that after her entirely un-charming singing in Lost in Translation and on-stage with the Jesus & Mary Chain, she has too much to prove? Probably; Zooey Deschanel, the other hip young actress with an Indie-influenced record out this year, had already kind of won us over in Elf (as everyone and their mother has mentioned at this point).

But, needless to say, it's not as bad as you've likely read elsewhere. Producer Dave Sitek made one of the wisest production choices of the year in burying Johansson's vocals in the mix (we'll see if Metallica can top that later this year with a better drum sound than St. Anger), and getting David Bowie to sing back-ups on a couple of the songs (including first single, "Falling Down") is another check in the "Win" column. The "Green Grass" here, with its spooky carnival vibe and echo-laden production makes it sound a bit like an episode of Scooby-Doo meets Lost in Translation, and "Fawn," the only track without vocals (insert sigh of relief) is a brilliantly noisy combination of the E-Street Band and a Gospel song, but "Anywhere I Lay My Head" isn't close to being as good as Bomb The Music Industry's version (off of 2006's Goodbye Cool World) and "I Don't Want to Grow Up" doesn't even rifle through the Ramones' trash, though the song is so ridiculously appropriate for them, I don't know if anyone else could ever do it justice. The aforementioned reverb-y production does kind of make the already languid songs blur together a bit, and most of the criticisms of Scarlett's voice (that she can't carry a note, that she's slightly tone-deaf, etc.) would hold up in a court of law, and as engaging listening, you could do a lot better. BUT, as vaguely familiar background music? You could to a LOT worse.


Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch (2008, Warner Bros.)

3 out of 5

Why does everybody love this record so much? Is it because it's Tom Petty? Well...yeah. The first single, "Scare Easy," is almost as good as any of Petty's solo (or with the Heartbreakers) work, and "Oh Maria" is a country-boy rock ballad in the vein of the Allman Brothers. It's just, the rest of it isn't really as good. You can hear the age in everyone's voice (particularly those that aren't Petty, who's always kind of sounded like he's looked: skeletal and sharp), and "Crystal River," is phaser-fried 70s slowdance rock (think Nazareth in the rec hall scene in Dazed and Confused), but moreso, kind of boring, especially at 9 1/2 minutes long.

The whole record is much more country-influenced that Petty's other work (a plus), and, unlike one would guess from Petty's pale countenance, it's easy to tell this band is from Florida (by way of California). Maybe Petty's tenure as the voice of "Lucky" on King of the Hill put him back in touch with his Southern roots. But, "Six Days on the Road" is right up there with the utter ridiculousness of "East Bound and Down" as one of the all-time cheesiest songs about trucking and/or running from the law (are there any that aren't?), and "Queen of the Go-Go Girls" is a painfully awkward-sounding ode to a stripper.

This record definitely doesn't make one wonder what could have been (Mudcrutch is the band that Petty was in in high school and before he went on to form The Hearbreakers), but it's a worthy detour into a sound that's clearly influenced Petty, but that doesn't necessarily always show up in his other work.

=james

Thrice - The Alchemy Index Vol. 3 & 4: Air & Earth (2008, Vagrant Records)

EDIT (way after the fact....)
I'm ashamed that I didn't realize this before, seeing as how I knew and loved the song several years ago, but "The Earth Isn't Humming" is actually an old Frodus song. Thrice's version is still pretty awesome, and the rest of my statements about the sound below still hold true.

4 out of 5

This is the second part of Thrice’s two-(or technically 4-)part series, The Alchemy Index, originally conceived as a series of four EPs, each representing the feel and sound of one of the elements. Last year’s Vol. 1 & 2: Fire & Water was an uneven affair, with the heavy and aggressive Fire seeming entirely at odds with the electronic and much quieter Water. Perhaps if they had mixed the sounds a bit instead of stacking them on either side of the record (which, to be fair, was released as two separate discs), but instead, especially in this constant-stream-of-music iPod culture, it felt like one album and one that wasn’t very well sequenced.

By contrast, this year’s Vol. 3 & 4: Air & Earth is much more consistent and a better listen from beginning to end. The crunch and electronics of Vol. 1 & 2 are mostly replaced here (though they do make appearances) with much more experimental (at least for Thrice) acoustic instruments, hand-claps (and other digit-al percussion), piano, wind-instruments, and wind chimes.

The first half, Air, is, of course, hypnotic and airy, and makes the personal political, exploring the fear, paranoia, loss of innocence and growing up that people do in a post-9/11 world from the perspective of the head of a family. “A Song for Milly Michaelson” sounds like a Thursday track pre-bombast, and “Daedalus,” a warning/lament from father to son Icarus, is reminiscent of the guitar orchestratics of Japanese instrumental band Mono, hinting that it would be just as interesting without the vocals. The echo on the guitars in “As The Crow Flies” even makes it sound somewhat like a harp.

The second half then is just personal, sounding much earthier (it’s called Earth, duh…) and much more - in a word - “Appalachian.” In fact, the folk-y influence of singer/guitarist Dustin Kensrue’s solo album is written all over this half, and it’s nice to see him bring that part of his musicality to the Thrice fold. “Moving Mountains,” is full of banjos and tambourines, and “Digging My Own Grave” is Tom Waits-ian piano-bar noir.

Those worried about the loss of the urgency of early-Thrice need not worry too much, as “The Earth Isn’t Humming” is like a super-heavy Page & Plant No Quarter acoustic caravan (and makes me wonder what an episode of Unplugged starring Thrice would sound like), but it’s great to see the band explore and expand on their sound, and do it well. The last song on the album, “Child of Dust,” ends with the music going muffled beneath a sound like dirt hitting a coffin lid, which, while terribly appropriate for the vibe of Earth, hopefully doesn’t mean that Thrice will be burying this part of their sound any time soon.

=james

M83 - Saturdays=Youth (2008, Mute Records)

4 out of 5

“Paging John Hughes. John Hughes to the Maternity Ward.” See, that’s a joke. Because John Hughes, writer/director of such 80s-movie classics as Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club, just had a baby with some hipsters and they named it M83’s Saturdays=Youth. This record is everything anyone could want out of the soundtrack to their very own teen romantic dramedy if everything you could want happens to have taken place in the decade of neon, Republican presidents, post-punk, and synthesizers…wait…is it the 80s?

But I digress, this really is a good album. Reminiscent of the all-encompassing fuzz & drone of My Bloody Valentine, the icy Northern Lights atmospherics of Sigur Rós, as well as the slightly Goth synthesizer-pop of The Cure, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cocteau Twins, Saturdays=Youth is hypnotizing and every bit as late-afternoon-sun-shining-through-the-trees as the album cover art suggests.

“Skin of the Night,” which pretty much sounds exactly like its title would suggest, would be an ideal over-dub for Jason Patric & Jami Gertz’s love scene in The Lost Boys, and the follow-up track, “Graveyard Girl,” is perfect Psychedelic Furs rock meets Morrissey lyrics. It’s what the soundtrack to Lost In Translation would have sounded like if it were made in 1986, even if the spoken word interlude is incredibly cheesy and calls to mind the overly dramatic teenage poetry of Lost… director Sofia Coppola’s breakthrough feature, The Virgin Suicides (but also the sunny earth-toned nostalgia of the same).

“Couleurs” is the most beat-centric track on the album, and sounds like New Order’s “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” mashed-up/remixed/appropriated by Brooklyn-and-critic darling LCD Soundsystem. And, after the Madonna by way of vampirized Tori Amos “Up!” and the Bono fronting The Cure “We Own the Sky,” the album does start to drag for the last few tracks.

“Highway of Endless Dreams” actually feels endless (which, at 4 ½ minutes isn’t a good sign compared to the 8 ½ minute long “Couleurs”), and the final track, “Midnight Souls Still Remain,” might as well be 11 minutes of fade-out with just two alternating chords to its name.

With lyrics like “Like a wall of stars, we are ripe to fall,” “Death is her boyfriend, she spits on summers and smiles to the night,” and “Everything is wrapped in grey, can you hear me in the void,” this is a deceptively dark album, sounding as it does perfect for a sun-bleached Volkswagen commercial (complete with Indie-looking girl sprawled on the back seat with her feet out one window and her wind-blown hair out the other). But, after all, what perfect teenage life isn’t?

=james

Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords (2008, Sub Pop)

5 out of 5

This record is phenomenal. It combines humor with great songwriting in a similar way to last year's Dethalbum from Adult Swim's favorite Death Metal sons Dethklok, but instead of amazingly heavy Metal, Flight of the Conchords is White-boy folk-funk for dorks with the deadest of deadpan sense of humor. And, unlike HBO's other acoustic-comedy duo, Tenacious D, one of Flight of the Conchords doesn't take a backseat to the other. In fact, there isn't even a hint of Jack Black's overpowering personality on this record, and that's not a bad thing, though one of the songs sounds like an overly caffeinated Jack Johnson (though nothing about him is overpowering...).

Filled with loving tributes to arists from Serge Gainsbourg and Air ("Foux de Fafa") to the Pet Shop Boys ("Inner City Pressure"), Marvin Gaye ("Think About It"), Barry White ("Business Time"), and David Bowie (um...."Bowie"), these two Kiwis deserve every bit of hype that they're getting right now.

"Inner City Pressure," the aforementioned faux-Pet Shop Boys song, is very reminiscent of the note-perfect series of "Fake" songs off of Liam Lynch's album Fake Songs ("Fake Bjork Song," "Fake David Bowie Song," "Fake Pixies Song," "Fake Talking Heads Song," and the best, "Fake Depeche Mode Song") and features the amazing couplet "You know you're not in high finance, considering second-hand underpants."

"A Kiss Is Not A Contract" is the duo at their folkiest, while "Robots" is them at their most, well, robotic, with a chorus that sounds like it's sung by Ben Gibbard from the Conchords' label-mates the Postal Service, and a "Binary Solo!"

"The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)" is the funniest and folkiest song that Prince never wrote (and the best fake Prince song since "Debra" off of Beck's Midnite Vultures), and "Business Time" takes Barry White's "Love Supreme Orchestra" style down to a slightly more realistic tone. It's a first-person account from the male half of a couple who has settled into an hilarious (if not a little depressing) routine, and makes lines like "I remove my clothes very, very clumsily, tripping sensuously over my pants/Now I'm naked except for my socks and you know when I'm down to just my socks what time it is...It's business time," sound oddly sexy. It also gave rise to one of the best t-shirts I've ever seen.

The biggest downside to this album, if you HAVE to find fault is that it doesn't have all of the songs from the first season of the Conchords' show, but if you HAVE to find an upside, that also saves what is an amazing 42 minutes from seeming forcedly long, with songs and greatness getting lost in the shuffle.

It also gives me an excuse to post this clip from the show:

=james

Madonna - Hard Candy (2008, Warner Bros.)

3 out of 5

Striving for relevance or artistic reinvention? Well, with Madonna it's never really been that easy. Some might argue that Madonna has always been relevant, and some might argue that this is absolutely not a reinvention. After all, what have most of her albums been if not dance records?

So, despite the fact that half of the songs here mention "Madonna" by name (and she sings "My name" in one of the others), and despite the incredibly obvious and prominent production by celebrity hit-makers Pharell Williams and Timbaland, it's not that hard to tell who this is. We've been listening to Madonna's voice for the last 25 years (how crazy is that?) so one would hope we'd be able to pick it out by now. The problem is that from the sound of them, a lot of these tracks could have just as easily been sung by that other bottle-blonde pop-princess produced by Pharell, Gwen Stefani (for the sake of this review, let's pretend that Britney Spears doesn't exist...she seems to stay out of trouble better that way).

That said, the aforementioned production really steals the show, as it has with most of the other artists that Pharell and Timbaland have worked with. And a lot of it is great. But, this whole record is full of the typical bass-and-brushes beats that are uniquely poised to piss of the neighbors at even a reasonable volume, and not necessarily in a good way, either. It's actually one of the biggest detriments to the record, even in songs where the melody is in the forefront.

Speaking more specifically of the songs themselves, most of them are pretty good if you can get past the beat beating. Almost every song is about dancing or sex (or dancing as a substitute for sex), and each song has a decidedly engaging rhythm. "Dance 2Night" combines 70s Funk and Disco with very Madonna-friendly 80s synthesizers, and "She's Not Me" is really just straight up Studio 54 with slightly updated beats. The first single, "4 Minutes," even with its oddly flatulent (Madonna is in her 50s....), electronic marching band sound, is incredibly catchy, if annoying at times (especially Justin Timberlake's post chorus rap-scat ending with "mud-on-AH?" and the ever-repeated "tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock"). And speaking of annoying, "Give it 2 Me" (who named these songs? Prince?) sounds like a bunch of ravers took a circus hostage with their glow-sticks. Not to mention Madonna's plea to "Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don't stop" isn't nearly as entertaining as the pre-NBA-appropriated cry of the Black Eyed Peas' "Get Retarded."

But, by far, the worst songs on the record are the first track, and almost title track, the vaguely-Japanese-sounding "Candy Shop," which has some of the worst lyrics and rhymes I've heard in a long time ("Come on into my store, I've got candy galore"), and the late-album "Spanish Lesson," wherein Madonna gives a "sexy" lesson in Spanish words and phrases. At least she's not singing in a faux-British accent, though her faux-Spanish isn't much better.

Thankfully it's followed-up by the best song on the album, "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You," one of the best songs Timbaland has ever had a hand in, which combines water-drop beats with plaintive piano, folky finger-plucked acoustic-guitar and a surprisingly non-cheesey (or at least, not too cheesey) thunderstorm breakdown. Okay, I can't really say that. It's incredibly cheesey, but the rest of the song makes up for it.

The next, and final song on the record, "Voices," (with the line, "Who is the master and who is the slave?") kind of raises another point in the "theme" of the record and that's that it all has a vaguely BDSM tone, something that Madonna's "sexy-boxer-in-dominatrix-boots" outfit on the cover doesn't help with, and neither does this picture that made the internet rounds, recently:

I guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship (or at least the pants that have a bedroom prosthetic attached), even if on this record, it seems like Pharell Williams and Timbaland are wearing the pants. But maybe that's just because Madonna's taken them off to be provocative.

=james

No Age - "Eraser" from Nouns (2008, Sub Pop)

To be honest, I discovered No Age by accident. Usually accidents are a bad thing. Sometimes, they are happy. Either way, it describes an event where something has unintentionally happened. For example, "I accidentally threw up on my shoe while listening to this song by No Age." You see, I obviously would never want to do that, but it happened (not really, but I think it delivers a nice intro to this song review).

This is No Age's first release on Sub Pop, which was released today. I've always enjoyed Sub Pop. Currently, they have some of my favorite artists, including The Shins, The Postal Service, & Mudhoney (they have a new album being released in 2 weeks).

Pitchfork Media gave Nouns the highest rating ever - a 9.2! I was mildly excited at that point. I raced over to No Age's MySpace to see if they've posted any songs from the new album. Yes, they did! The track is called "Eraser." This song would be the basis if I should buy the CD and review the entire disc.

The song opens with a person speaking unintelligibly. My best guess: "Yes, yes, yes, but I owe ya. Be ready to..uh, kind of like, kind just..." But I like this, too: "Guess, guess, guess. Buy Iowa. Me and rabies favor. I kinda like Canada, too."

The distorted guitars kick in and immediately I'm feeling drained with every downstroke. It was as if all the crap (yes, that's a technical music term) that producers usually wipe clean with ProTools was left in and all the good stuff (another technical term) was taken out! At least there was some sort of tonal center to keep me grounded to reality.

I waited. Waited some more. I pondered if this was an instrumental. I feared it. Then the noise grew louder and I finally heard a voice. It suited the experimental nature of the band, I guess. Whatever they are experimenting, I'm pretty sure they have no hypothesis, but a lot of placebos. I think I need to be "experimenting" to really get into this type of music. My problem is that I've heard bands sound like this before at almost every local showcase I've been to, except No Age manages to somewhat pull it off...and I stress somewhat. Seriously though, I can understand why hipsters might enjoy this. Maybe Sonic Youth fans who've become tired of Sonic Youth would like this. But really, if you're tired of Sonic Youth, maybe it's time to stop listening to music.

I'm still confused with Pitchfork's high praise. Maybe I should get the entire disc. Maybe I'm missing something. The only thing I'm more curious about is Eraser's opening dialog! I must have listened to it 25 times now! The rest of the song just wasn't quite as intriguing.

I was hoping for some good Indie candy, and I wound up with garage asparagus. Yuck.

~robert

Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk (2008, Spinefarm/Fontana/Universal)

4 out of 5

Children of Bodom occupy an interesting place in metal: namely, Finland. See, Sweden's got its Death Metal and Norway has its Black Metal, but what does Finland have? HIM? Apocalyptica? Hanoi Rocks?

Sure, Finland has its own Metal scene, but nothing quite so overarching as an entire genre to its name like its Scandinavian brothers do.

So what do these Bodomian (Bodomish? Bodomite?) Children do? They create their own genre. Call it "sauna metal." Or don't. There really isn't anything about this that classifies as "sauna-ish," I just wanted to say that. I've been waiting all day.

Clearly influenced by Death, Black, Power, and Thrash, Children of Bodom prefer to just be called "Metal," and that's okay. Sounding like the heavy groove-based Thrash of Pantera and Lamb of God ("Blooddrunk," "LoBodomy") mixed with the choral-bell synthesizer sound of 70s horror movies (like Suspiria, The Exorcist, and Halloween), Blooddrunk is a great album, full of understated melody (most - if not all - is carried by the guitars and keyboards and not by the growly-scream vocals) and shredding guitar solos (are people these days writing with Guitar Hero in mind?).

At their most epic, COB can sound like Dimmu Borgir ("LoBodomy") and on the other end, as mentioned before, like Pantera and Lamb of God. "Tie My Rope," starts off like the boss music for a Mega Man game mixed with the Industrial throb of Nine Inch Nails before the Hardcore gang-vocals start at the end of each verse. In fact, a lot of the guitar solos on the record sound like the MIDI-fied Metal of the early 90s Super Nintendo game Rock And Roll Racing, but as that was a favorite game of mine, I'm not really complaining.

"Roadkill Morning" (a song about waking up and feeling like you've been run over by a truck) Thrashes like crazy before a Hardcore floor-punching breakdown played by Dimmu Borgir with the guttural roars of Killing Joke in the chorus before nearly a minute of soloing (in a 3 1/2 minute song). And the last track, a cover of "Ghost Riders in the Sky," comes across as a Viking call-to-arms. When the chorus hits, it's not hard to imagine a Great Hall filled with large, bearded men drinking beer or mead, singing along, and getting almost as much in their mouths as they are on themselves and each other.

One more thing must be mentioned, though, and that's this:

Apparently, some astute blogger noticed that COB frontman Alexi Laiho looks an awful lot like Avril Lavigne, and I'm not one to disagree. And with COB's history of covering songs by teen pop-tarts ("Hit Me Baby One More Time"), I wonder how long it will be before we see Children of Bodom's metalified cover of "Girlfriend"?

=james