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

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

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

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