The star-studded list of session and live experiences of the individual members of this left-coast jazz crew could have served to ruin their joint output, but the oldies they chose were given full-spa treatments that leave no room for improvement. Leadoff track “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” does up the Cole Porter […]

Vomit-spattered Beelzebub worship indemnified by random acts of jiggling speed metal in case mom checks in with sandwiches. Despite such dishwasher-safe Cradle of Filth gimmickry there’s a Manowar-or-something doppelganger steering them toward more sublime ideas of brutish impact, and the punk part of the equation is DIY in the tradition of gore-core tape-trading’s first wave. […]

Not often will you encounter a song in which a full-throttle Steve Howe-like guitar solo full-stops to make way for a congenial bit of ska (“Simple Gift of Man”), one of many pleasant surprises on this Barcalounger electro thesis. Brothers Past mostly butter their trance-tronic bread with fluttery Tortoise-like jazz tailored for gigs backing up […]

Along with the first couple of tunes, the cover for this record raises the hackles of non-stupid people by threatening a violent Spoon-feeding of nimrod nu-mod exhibiting heavy research into Small Faces, Raspberries and Beatles, the song structures leaning toward things like “Got to Get You Into My Life” and Madonna’s “True Blue” for six […]

Alright class, calm down. Yes yes, Geritol-guzzling oldbie pop stars resorting to Glenn Miller is one thing, but this is another – Simon has been releasing collections of standards since she was porn material. Whether she’s gotten better with age is a matter of the individual listener’s tolerance for froggies in the throat, which, it […]

Acoustic guitar, violin and tabla carry this agreeable mixed-ethnicity ren-fair folk, Mazz Swift’s muscular warrior-princess vocals constricting themselves around Celtic, C&W and incidental Middle Eastern by turns. “Ghost,” one of the more noteworthy pieces, begins with a lonesome Civil-War-battlefield fiddle fit for a PBS documentary, while “Return to My Town” lays some intriguing ad hoc […]

Bon Jovi may be dead even to the majority of hayseeds who swallowed his Young Guns shtick, but someone needs to inform these oldbies that a little self-effacement goes a long way in the new millennium. Thus, of all the album’s hatchlings, indie one-off “Dick’s Creek” would have the strongest chance of survival were it […]

Technopop balladry pickled in 80s formaldehyde with occasional bleats of sequencer Tourettes. The first two George Michael-esque weepers – “The Limit” and “You Were Loved” – run the risk of getting drowned out by peals of laughter from mainstreamers unaware of the bizarre electro tinkering taking place not only here but in myriad other underground […]

Detestably contrived psychedelabilly indie-waste slobbering all over its own unfunny hip-hick mock-ambivalence, brought to borderline life by Alexander Lowry’s pilfering of whatever un-catchy glop Wilco and Semisonic don’t have under lock and key. The results fall flattest when Lowry’s old-joke Neil Young/Tom Petty drawl hogs the spotlight, ie most of the time, until he finally […]

Funhouse Frankenmetal and synth-washed Type O Negative me-tooing played by alien vampire S&M Berliners using mid-tempo Megadeth lines to shove low-voiced tales of like totally ominous foreboding down the throats of the eternally dag-nabbed. Sample lyric: “Blood red skies/where demons fly.” The label spared no expense producing this guilty pleasure for the milky contact-lens patrol. […]

Unusually creative frontal assaults of monotone staccato grind-metalling through Mesa Boogies emulating steady covering fire from M-16s. Nile is the type of band that pulls this off almost as nicely, but The Ocean is comparatively more like a Rock Em Sock Em Robot in their jabs and feints, and closer to Black Dahlia Murder in […]

If only every band on earth would play this kind of stuff we’d never have to fear violent psychokinetic outbursts from shoegazing Carries again. Like a music box from Bellevue’s catatonic ward, this guy/girl pair offers slow-drip electro waltz and obsessive acoustic guitar as support for their vocalisms, a Tricky-like angle where they try to […]

Falsetto sighs, folkie strumming, subtly progressive drum tracks, fire-sale jazz chords and microdot banter mark this King Crimson/Floyd mystery meat, most of it equal parts industro-Misfits and early Zappa straightjacket jazz. The least forgettable rants would have to be “Covered in Ice” and “I Have Returned,” but all of it has obviously undergone multiple surgeries […]

And God said, “Let there be fruitcakes.” Obvious piss-taker who, disguised as a cardinal at a large metropolitan church, fights for truth, justice and the right to make weird clicking noises with one’s tongue and teeth. Like an Olympic skater in free pratfall, the man’s… voice is Kip from Napoleon Dynamite trying to karaoke Tiny […]

What Vore may lack in production values and speed-metal intricacy is made up for in spades by their ability to paint the world a coquettish zombie gray with their slower side – there are a ton of half-throttle dirges that jam dread down the throat while reaching outside the band’s immediate slam-core social circle for […]

Wrapping this album (or any other Discus product) in smugly acquiescent verbage like “deconstructionist experimentalism” misses the mark and crashes on the landing strip. These old buddies explore bonked instruments and make a toddler’s mess, yes, but this is also a measurement of the members’ personal levels of – get ready – telepathy and their […]

Right, then – who’s going to flame a band whose name comes from one of the classic lines from “Say Anything,” especially when they out-Clash the Arctic Monkeys and give their own backward-ass synths the finger at every turn? Everything on tap here is quanta beyond what you’d expect from a crew that carefully mimeos […]

Contrivance of jangly folk and arena post-punk symptomatic of Curve owing to singer “Sara” imitating Toni Halliday’s adenoids on “Arcadia”. The bulk of these doings are about as joy-inspiring as a kitten in a garbage disposal, the ho-hum melodies stuck in a holding pattern awaiting hooks from on high that never materialize, even when they […]

Conceptual techno album with an EBM eye toward Mind in a Box’s “Dreamweb” album. For such an obviously DIY effort the orchestrations swoop well and the songs are decent enough to fill floors; Metropolis has signed much worse than this in the past. As with “Dreamweb,” we find our hero running around trying to hide […]

Ex-NFL offensive lineman Allen indulges in electro-jazz chill a la Massive Attack as far as all the subdued breakbeating he ladles out, and much of the record pegs the prog-o-meter, thanks mostly to dizzying time signatures that would give Neil Peart a headache. Only real complaints are owed to the freestyle jams, where a lack […]

Best-of compilation starring Stuckey’s Bruce-vs-everything strum-and-slash randomness. The human interest part is that Stuckey’s blind, which should qualify him as a long-suffering expert when it comes to mocking the dreadful mismatched gentrification coming from today’s oh-so-relevant mash artists. The Georgia native tosses blues, jazz, arena-rock and thrash metal in the genre grinder, hits puree, and […]

Poppified timeshare inhabited by nu-metal hookage and Metallica buzzsaw grind. Vocals teeter between clean-lunged Sevendust and forlorn kraut Nosferatu spooking akin to the Metropolis family of products, and although there are a few breakbeat-sizzle bytes, the keyboards are Don Airey bombast showers right out of Bark at the Moon, a sure way to inspire indignant […]

Despite this being released in mid-2005, it’s a relevant SXSW-bound crew heard from. Shoegaze electronica that maybe-possibly owes inspiration to fellow Ohio mentalcases Brainiac, but Air for sure, as far as their insistence on lo-fi Casio-plinking EKG textures. Vocally and attitudinally it’s Lilys-like, high-pitched male stoner-zombie vocals wavering over shape-shifting weirdness, hummingbird-speed sample rattlings and […]