Album And Singles Reviews

Don't know about the rest of you but I like to read reviews on new music. This board would be an ideal place to get reviews on a wide variety of music styles. The following came from the the current NME.

Mogwai : Happy Songs For Happy People

When Mogwai were first dragged kicking and screaming onto the music scene, people feared them for their eardrum-shredding bursts of noise. Recent rumours, however, have suggusted a 'quieter, electronic direction'. This usually means that your favourite noise-wielders have lost their edge, while journalists reacquaint themselves with complex adjectives such as 'cerebral', 'challenging' and 'dogshit'.

So, is this fourth LP really the sound of the Scottish sound-sculptors going soft on us? Hardly. 'Happy…' is filled with paranoid song titles and a defiant refusal to compromise artistically. It tweaks the hushed blueprint of 2001's 'Rock Action' and the result is their most intriguing, beautiful and dazzling record to date.

'Kids Wil Be Skeletons' is a good indication of where their post-rockin' heads are at. Melodies weave around a brewing fuzz-storm while chords collide and the whole thing slips in and out of consciousness like Slint having a rather nice wet dream.

It's often complex, but Mogwai aren't the sort of band to harp on about how they achieved a neat atonal effect by restringing their guitars with Jim O'Rourke's pubic hair. In fact, their melodies are often as simple as nursery rhymes because this is what works best emotionally. Even when they do rock out the sonic peaks are woven into the fabric of the music rather than left to leap out at you.

By the time 'Stop Coming To My House' erupts, like Sigur Ros being buried beneath their own iceberg, you realise that Mogwai are truly special. They have that ability to experiment willfully, yet still appeal to an audience beyond three twats in Hoxton. Most importantly, they're still striving to recreate the beautiful sounds that bounce around their brains. And until they really do mellow out and release their 'Blur: Aren't Actually That Bad After All' T-shirts, we're in for a thrilling ride.

8/10


I wanted to do more but ran at of time. Sorry for any typos!

The Waterboys: Universal Hall

Mike Scott is one of music's finest visionary eccentrics. After standing on the cusp of greatness with the sweeping, grandiose classic 'This Is The Sea' in 1985, he went mad, spending time as a raggie-taggle gypsy in Ireland and then as a new-age searcher in a Scottish commune. But after a decade of largely so-so albums, this is a minor classic built around little more than pianos and fiddles and his own rasping, raking voice.

His obsessions with the quasi-religious imagery of CS Lewis is never far away, and Scott remains as mad as a box of voles, but that's always been part of his appeal. 'Universal Hall' rewards repeated inspection and, as on every Waterboys album, there is one truly great song. Here, it's the title track, about brave leaps into the unknown. You should follow.
8/10


Radiohead: Hail To The Thief

In 1997, 'OK Computer' pointed to a new spirit of adventurousness and experimentalismafter Britpop, but it confused Radiohead's creative process to such an extent that when 'Kid A' finally appeared three years later, they'd lost sight of what made them such an exceptional band in the first place.

Prior to release, speculation hinted that 'Hail To The Thief' would mark a return to the band's more conventional dynamics. That always sounded like wishful thinking, and so it proves. The best moments occur when Yorke opens up a more personal side to his songwriting, but 'Hail To The Thief' is a good rather than great record, and Radiohead are still coming to terms with what to do after you've made an album hailed as one of the greatest ever.
7/10


Corrigan: How To Hang Off A Rope

It's easy to take the piss out of Northern Ireland's Corrigan, a band whose unerring desire to be the Pixies knows no limits, who write songs about post-apocalyptic murder by bicycle (the stupid, stupid 'McArthur')and whose singer sounds like an agitated leprechaun pushing a dead donkey up a hill. Let's face it, they're asking for it. This, their debut LP, thinks that it defies classification and provides a skewed, pitch-black look the modern world. In reality, it's a nerve-grating, joyless exercise in worthy alt. rock.

It's not all terrible - 'America Is Waiting' plays it straightforward and comes out tops - but that's too little, too late. For the most part, the only thing less fun than this record is a lobotomy.
3/10

Waterboys got a better review than radiohead..does that mean the bandwagon will have standing room only?

Yank…do you know the US release date for the new album? The US isn't even mentioned on his official website (I knew I liked this bloke)

Oh Mankie, you are such a hipster, did you get your big trendy chunky white belt from Urban outfitters?

Originally posted by Andrew WK:
Oh Mankie, you are such a hipster, did you get your big trendy chunky white belt from Urban outfitters?

hey mar….err I mean Andrew, I was a Waterboys fan when they were the Waterbabies.

I got rid of the chunky white belt because it clashed with my brown "rupert bear check" wool pants and red shoes, silk paisley patterned shirt with oversized collar. I still go to the snooty hairdressers though, and pay an extortionate amount of money to make my hair look exactly like it did when I had just got out of bed earlier that morning.

the new mogwai is awesome

Originally posted by mankie:
Waterboys got a better review than radiohead..does that mean the bandwagon will have standing room only?

Yank…do you know the US release date for the new album? The US isn't even mentioned on his official website (I knew I liked this bloke)

I don't know Mankie. I do know that it comes out over here this coming Monday. There are a few copies on eBay now. I'll definitely be buying it.

Some singles reviews:

The Thrills: Big Sur
Few bands have ever been so reliant on the seasons as The Thrills. Like Dodgy, David Hasselhoff and deckchair attendants in Dorset, without that strange glowing thing in the sky they would clearly be redundant. But with festival season approaching faster than Jack White at a Red Or Dead closing down sale, there's nothing better to piss off passing goths than 'Big Sur'. "Don't go back to Big Sur/Baby baby please don't go", they croon, like The Polyphonic Spree on Prozac, while the tune gives up the ghost, flips on its shades and actually turns into 'Theme From The Monkees' halfway through. Daydream believers, your time has come.


Reef: Waster
Blimey! West Country audio bullies Reef are back and boy are they pissed off! There's nothing like getting dropped for refocusing the mind, and by the sounds of 'Waster' they've been forced to hand back their Sony surfboards just before being pushed from a helicopter over Cheddar Gorge. "It's all gone up in smoke/It stuck to my throat/It left me broke!" roars Gary, insanely, over a cross-fire of demented riffs while imagining what he'd do to Chris 'It's Your Letters' Evans if he ever saw him again. Place your hands on this.


The Cranebuilders: Just Idleness EP
Slightly removed from the white heat of the Cosmic Scouse Phenomena, The Cranebuilders take the Velvets as their personal Jesus and get more intriguing from there. "Smashed plates on a kitchen floor", they sigh forlornly on 'You Can't Get At Her', like a dreamy student looking up the word 'ennui' on a wet 'study day'. And with The Cranebuilders, you know who's gonna have to clear up the mess afterwards.


AFI: Girl's Not Grey
These guys are meant to be goths? Sounds more like they're having a party here, whooping it up to a bizarre but brilliant mix of Southern rock and SoCal punk. This pisses so comprehensively over every drab corporate punk band going (hey, spiky twats from Good Charlotte, we're talking about you here!), that you can't help grinning like a loon while it spins.


Whirlwind Heat: Orange
If you listen very carefully you can hear the unmistakable sound of Justine Frischmann slapping her forehead in disbelief halfway through this superb debut single. A jerky, strung out, infectious slab of art garage, 'Orange' sounds like three highly educated men letting rip in a dank basement while mashing the Talking Heads back catalogue to a pulp. They're mates of Jack White, naturally.

Echoboy: Lately Lonely
It probably hasn't been keeping you up at night, but if you've ever wondered what would have happened had a gravel-throated tramp stumbled into the studio during Primal Scream's 'XTRMNTR' sessions, then here's the answer. 'Lately Lonely' isn't quite the saucy electro-sleaze marvel that was Goldfrapp's 'Train', but it's most definitely in the same buffet car.


Linkin Park: Faint
Panjabi MC has a lot to answer for! Here we find Linkin Park taking their staple diet of power metal and attaching it to some Bollywood strings. It'd be alright if that dude would stop shouting over the top of it, but then I guess that's the whole point of Linkin Park, isn't it?


The Blueskins: User Friendly
Midweek indie clubs throughout the Northamptonshire area will soon swoon to this, the debut missive from The Blueskins. Clearly working out of the same psychobilly mortuary as The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, 'User Friendly' scrapesand blusters its way towards a climax featuring a vocal that could make even Justin from The Darkness raise a disconcerted eyebrow. Then a harmonica solo starts up. Weird, wired and wonderful.

Yank, you've been busy, haven't you? :D

I like Echoboy but absolutely HATE The Thrills.

You should get the new I Am Kloot soon. It's on it's way…and you'll love it. Some of the songs are a few older ones that weren't on the albums. Of course, I'm not all that positive if this is the final cut.

Originally posted by Jaguär:
Yank, you've been busy, haven't you? :D

I like Echoboy but absolutely HATE The Thrills.

You should get the new I Am Kloot soon. It's on it's way…and you'll love it. Some of the songs are a few older ones that weren't on the albums. Of course, I'm not all that positive if this is the final cut.

Thanks Jag, I'll be looking forward to it.

I had some time to kill this morning with the wife and kids still in bed. I hope others will cut and paste or post some reviews too. BTW, Metallica's 'St. Anger' got the best review of the week, 9/10. But since it's a rather long review, and I don't like the band, I couldn't be bothered to type it out.

From Mojo - June 2003

Pink Grease: All Over You

Pink Grease are probably the most incompetent band this writer has ever seen. They look like they shop at an '80s alternative boutique, all different styles at once, and their peroxide-blonde singer might as well carry a sign, saying "Smack me!" He - and they - tend to provoke extreme reactions. Despite it all, this ramshackle bunch make sparks fly, and although certainly not for the muso listener, their debut mini-album brims with joy in its own clueless creation. First track, Nasy Show is the pick, a twisted desperate song of sexual compulsion which echoes Raw Power era Stooges, Swell Maps, Pere Ubu, X-Ray Spex, Chrome and Joy Division. The rest is by turns histrionic, hilarious and out to lunch. It's what punk was surely all about - wresting control of rock'n'roll from virtuoso stiffs and redistributing to people with hot ideas.
4/5


Cex: Being Ridden

What would the world be like if Eminem wasn't trailer trash?

Baltimore, MD wonderkid Cex, born Rjyan Kidwell, has racked up quite a bit of cred on the fledgling indie hop hop scene as a hard spitting middle-class white kid with an A-list vocab, obsessive knowledge of pop culture and self-deprecating humour worthy of it's own handmade 'zine. On this, his fourth full lengther in four years, Cex moves slightly away from his former snot and swagger towards more humble inflection. On Not Working, Kidwell wrestles his angst with an agitation and sense of destiny not unlike Eminem on the 8 Mile soundtrack. Elsewhere, pokey acoustic guitars and hand percussion help Cex shed the braggart inherent in the genre, slipping into whining blues a la Bright Eyes (Signal Katied). These sonic forwards are nothing if not mixed with slammers like Earth-Shaking Event, where Kidwell offers "a middle finger to the indie rock singer", while outing fake rappers who've cashed in by writing "stale regurgitations of The Smiths".
3/5


Buzzcocks: Buzzcocks

The most overrated virtue in popular music is originality, and no matter how many times a press release uses the words 'seminal' and 'archetype', it means nothing if the music stinks. Fortunate, then, that the only currently productive band from the Class of '77, the Buzzcocks, have crafted a nervy seventh album which at times positively fizzes into life. The opener, and frist single, I'm A Jerk, sets the tone in just two minutes and 20 seconds of riff heaven, before segueing blisteringly into Keep On, which has the audacity to clock in at over three minutes. Elsewhere, there's some damn catchy stuff too: Steve Diggle's Sick City Sometimes and Drive You Insane shun the punk template to explore more of a radio-hard-rock territory, while the Shelly/Devoto cut Stars is brutal. Dignity still intact then, and more than enough on show here to five the new brigade of 'punks' a run for their money.
3/5


British Sea Power: The Decline Of British Sea Power

Fancied Cumbrian four-piece's first album of "High Church amplified rock music".

It's a rare group that gets similarly mad props from Kerrand! and Newnight's Jeremy Vine. Those who've witnessed the tin helmets, stuffed owls and viseral Joy Division/Pixies-model rock of the British Sea Power live experience, however, will know the singular latitudes they occupy. Previously likened to Belle & Sebastian meeting Laibach, this is an album of stadium sized melodies and exquisite songwriting, allied with almost too many ideas. Delivered in singer Yan's breathy, desperate vocal, songs considered this country's past and future, geomancy and, in The Lonely, an imagined soliloquy by Joe Meek's writing partner and fellow spiritualist Geoff Goddard. An album to move and intrigue, it seems the intense, intelligent, nonconformist listener has a new band to love.
4/5


Vermont: Ins Kino

Melodic and charming debut from Europhile London-based quintet.

If the title and the label aren't dead giveaways, the sound of Vermont is determinedly pan-European - here a pub piano, there an old accordion, shades of The Smiths, French chanson, Teutonic motorik. Ins Kino is very much home-made, with a fast-picked acoustic and a buzzing, reedy organ giving songs like We Are Not Yet For Sale and Poppiloten a rickety, woody feel. Occasionally, this leaves the songs feeling undernourished - more of a hiking holiday around Europe than swanning around Monte in a Porsche - but the blend of Colin Murphy's urgent, staccato vocals and Sabine Zeissig's woozy gamine whisper (think Claudine Longet's cheeky neice) is never less than endearing. Sitting With The Ill is particularly affecting, a shoulders-shrugging, resigned counterpart to Van Morrison's TB Sheets. But overall the atmosphere is imbued with late spring evenings and - on melodic stand-outs, About The Man and Drive - makes for a highly recommended picnic soundtrack.
3/5

Originally posted by Yank:
From Mojo - June 2003

Pink Grease: All Over You

Don't like what I've heard of Pink Grease.

Originally posted by Yank:
British Sea Power: The Decline Of British Sea Power

Fancied Cumbrian four-piece's first album of "High Church amplified rock music".

It's a rare group that gets similarly mad props from Kerrand! and Newnight's Jeremy Vine. Those who've witnessed the tin helmets, stuffed owls and viseral Joy Division/Pixies-model rock of the British Sea Power live experience, however, will know the singular latitudes they occupy. Previously likened to Belle & Sebastian meeting Laibach, this is an album of stadium sized melodies and exquisite songwriting, allied with almost too many ideas. Delivered in singer Yan's breathy, desperate vocal, songs considered this country's past and future, geomancy and, in The Lonely, an imagined soliloquy by Joe Meek's writing partner and fellow spiritualist Geoff Goddard. An album to move and intrigue, it seems the intense, intelligent, nonconformist listener has a new band to love.
4/5

British Sea Power is a band to watch out for! Have only heard a couple songs so far and that was almost a year ago so don't remember much other than that they were pretty good. Several of my friends have seen them and say they are great. The others have heard them and are wild about them. Supposedly a few weak songs more than made up for by a lot of very good songs.

Just got ahold of some British Sea Power from a Manc friend of mine…

…..and they rock! :cool:

Singles Reviews from 14/June NME:

Colder: Shiny Star/The Slow Descent
Last year, Trevor Jackson's Output Recordings ushered in the New York dancefloor invasion. Now London's coolest imprint turns its gaze to the new guard. By day, Marc Hguyen is a Parisian graphic designer, but by night he's Colder - a punk-funk Lothario with a jet-black carnation tucked in his vintage lapel. 'Shiny Star' comes on like Joy Division's 'Interzone' rewritten as a moonlit lovers' promenade along the banks of the Seine, a shapeshifting motorik pulse that veers between will-o'-the-wisp acoustica and crisp Teutonic robo-disco. Move over, Air and Daft Punk: the city of lovers has its new dark prince.


The Black Keys: Hard Row
Ohio duo The Black Keys have a lot to prove if they're going to keep the roots-rock motor running through another season. Thankfully, it looks like oil-stained jeans and plaid for a few months yet as dirty trailer blues and gravelly Paul Weller vocals are made exceptional with the inclusion of a discernible tune. Don't rush them and The Black Keys might just do us proud.

Amateur Night In The Big Top: Scooter Girl
Can a man really ris from the dead twice? There's no doubting the resilience of Shaun William Ryder: any man who can survive the crack-cocaine wreckage of the Happy Mondays and Black Grape deserves, at the least, lenghty convalescence in the rehab of his choosing. Here we find him ranting away over beats supplied by original electro-punk and ex-Cabaret Voltaire man Stephen Mallinder. Sadly, the carnival thud is pure forced jollity and it appears Shaun can only shout swear words these days. Disappointing.

Massive Attack: Butterfly Caught
God help Massive Attack's radio pluggers: watching them pick a single from the near-impenetrable '100th Window' must have been a bit like asking your grandad to select his favourite member of Blazin' Squad. Consisting of little more than drum machine hiss and Robert Del Naja's blank whisper, 'Butterfly Caught' is chilly and insubstantial. Remixers Jagz Kooner and RJD2 bravely attempt to coax a tune out of the fog. They fail.

Placebo: This Picture
They've got a very loyal fanbase, Placebo, which is another way of saying that only those with ill-applied black nail varnish are still listening. Agreeably, on 'This Picture' Molko has toned down his skin-crawling whine for a polished exercise in New Order-style disco-fluff. But how long will his freak army tolerate such behaviour before deserting them for the next band with spent needles hanging from their septic cocks? There is, after all, little worse than a kinky lover turned complacent.

The Bandits: Take It And Run
'Take It And Run' was a big skiffle hit in the working men's clubs of northwest England at the time of the Coronation in 1953. Digitally restored and re-released on compact disc to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it's lost none of its naive sparkle and sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded. If only The Bandits were around today - they'd show The Coral who's boss, for sure.

From 14/6 NME:

Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10

John Power: Happening For Love
With more brillinat bands coming out of Liverpool now than at any point since the '60s, surely it's time for one of the forefathers to make a comeback? Since the demise of Cast, Power has gone back to basics, revelling in acoustic strumming and Motown melody. The trouble is, there's no song to touch The Coral's 'Dreaming Of You', or The Bandits eclectic mix of influences.
Ther's the odd moment - opener 'Electrify' does just that, and the Lennon-esque 'Mariner' is a compelling blend of defiance and melancholy. But everything else is a flat, cliche-ridden pastiche of what's he done before. The new Scouse generation has left the last for dust.
4/10

Whirlwind Heat: Do Rabbits Wonder?
It's no surprise Jack White let us get to know The Von Bondies before introducing us to this trio. The are, with all due respect, fucking insane. Whirlwind Heat may hail from the state of Michigan but they've got nothing to do with the Detroit garage-rock scene, preferring to whip up their dark noise using doomy bass riffs and out-of-control synthesizers. The result is truly unique.
Normal people will only restort to playing 'Orange' (yes, every song is named after a colour) when they need answers from an unwilling terrorist suspect, and the warblings of 'Pink' are so unhinged they could be using Jack Osbourne as a vocal coach. Hanging out with them might damgae Jack White's mental state. But with friends like these, who needs sanity?
8/10

Biffy Clyro: The Vertigo Of Bliss
Up to now, the name of Biffy Clyro meant little to anyone other than the 'Reduced To Clear' guy down the local record shop, but my, how things have changed. They may not look much but behind the compact power-trio frame lies a distilled emo-core aggression that's been superglued to some polished thrift-store melodies.
It's a fractured but thrilling outcome. Opener 'Bodies In Flight' sets an immediate tone with its feral screams and glass-cutting riffs, while the delicately-titled 'Liberate The Illiterate/A Mong Amongst Mingers' quakes with raw guitars and emotion. But it's with 'Toys, Toys' Toys, Choke, Toys, Toys, Toys' that they can boast a song truly as exciting as its title suggests. Bliss? Not quite, but surprisingly close.
7/10

Singles from June's Rcord Collector

I Am Kloot: Life In A Day
Whoaah! I Am Kloot now seem to have traded quiet introspection for voodoo music, perhaps borrowed from an old La's demo album. Starting with a baroque drum rush that seems to build throughout, 'Life In A Day' could be the best thing they've ever done. If you know their sound then you'll be surprised. If you don't, where have you been, exactly?

The Great Unknow: Into….The Great Unknown EP
Is it U2? Is it Radiohead? The guitar effect on 'Don't Stray' could be the Edge, although this is much more relaxed than either of those bands, and a competent affair regardless of comparisons. In fact, it's a relief to hear any band nowadays that aren't just about arch pretensions or self-consciious anthemic qualities…
The wavery 'Something In The Weather' is a joy, with the keening vocals just the thing as those summer evenings approach, while 'Mountains' (not the Prince tune, although that would have been worth a listen) is the pick of the bunch: six minutes of funereal bass, Marr-like guitar and a spooky, spacey sound. We like.

Singles reviews from The Fly, June 2003

Black Car: Asleep At The Wheel E.P.
Subtle and graceful, it's the best bits of Doves and Electric Soft Parade. With heart-felt melodies, intense lyrics and beautifully crafted instrumentation, Dan Glendinning makes a play for a place in the building UK singer-songwriter renaissance. Deservedly and unreservedly achieved in one release.

Cranebuilders: Just Idleness
The Scouse Velvet Underground for those of you that aspire to lazy journalistic comparisons. It gives Belle & Sebastian a swift kicking and even salutes Snow Patrol on the way to being naggingly catchy.

Future Kings Of Spain: Your Starlight
All of a sudden Dublin has lots of very good bands. None which sound like U2, Enya or the Dubliners. High of stadium angst and low on faux-cool, FKOS sound like Ash with a raging boner. It's nicer than it sounds. Err….

I Am Kloot: Life In A Day
The last I Am Kloot single was, frankly, wishy-washy crap; this is GREAT! Big noise, raw sound - in fact, everyhing we love the Kloot for. Johnny Bramwell - your band's reputation has been restored.

Nylon Pylon: Foot In Mouth
The Mancunian obsession with low bass and electro plundering continues with the fourth single from Oldham's pretty boys. It's disco in verse and throat throttling in chorus. The Pylon are emerging as electro trash you can dance to drunk or sober. Excellent.

The Hommos: Hommos Cosmos Rock
More Swedish shenanigans coming on like a '60s-inspired rock opera: part Beatles, part Deep Purple. Theatrical vocals in the mode of David Burn and some pretty nifty guitar fingering all round. Beatniks gone mad on Scandi vodka and Greek food. Bags of character.

You mean Nylon Pylon's Foot In Mouth is a new single!? That song is well over a year and a half old. Don't they have anything new to push?

Originally posted by Yank:
From 14/6 NME:

Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10

So Dead Meadow made it in to NME? Strange.

From today's NY Times:

ARTS / MUSIC | June 17, 2003
Skipping the Niches, Going for Pop
By NEIL STRAUSS (NYT)
These albums strive for pop perfection and are certainly as catchy as anything on the radio yet remain on the margins of what is popular.


June 17, 2003
Skipping the Niches, Going for Pop
By NEIL STRAUSS

There are two types of pop music. The first is simply the ever-changing, ineluctable tissue of songs that are popular. The second is music that aspires to the classic sound of a previous era's pop band, be it the Beatles, the Beach Boys or even the Spice Girls. It is possible to be too pop to be popular, especially since this decade's best-selling genres are niches like rap and country.

The albums below strive for pop perfection and are certainly as catchy and likable as anything on the radio yet remain on the margins of what is popular. Perhaps they are the right albums at the wrong time.

Welcome Interstate Managers
Fountains of Wayne

The number of CD's released annually that aspire to the sound of the British Invasion is staggering. The number of CD's of this type that are actually good is minuscule. Interestingly, the recordings that are good sound as if they were easy to create, while the bad ones sound as if it took a lot of effort to miss the mark.

"Welcome Interstate Managers" (S-Curve), the third album by the New York band Fountains of Wayne, falls into the category of the good and easy. It is an album of 16 summer songs; even "Valley Winter Song" sounds like a summer song.

As in its previous album, "Utopia Parkway" (an album so poppy that the band was dropped from Atlantic Records afterward), Fountains of Wayne sets its vignettes in and around the New York region. In "Hackensack" a man working for his father waits for the improbable return home of an old friend who left town and became a successful actress. (Sample internal rhyme: "I saw you talking to Christopher Walken on my TV screen.") "Fire Island" chronicles the mischief of schoolchildren home alone while their parents are on Fire Island. (Sample mischief: "Driving on the lawn, sleeping on the roof, drinking all the alcohol.")

The band tries its hand at country music, Burt Bacharach-style strings, and Zombies-like harpsichord on "Welcome Interstate Managers." But whatever direction Fountains of Wayne seems to turn, all points face the sun.


Passionoia
Black Box Recorder

Black Box Recorder's relationship with pop is a strange one. Its music exists as a critique of mainstream culture, conformity and values. Yet with each new CD its music takes on a more shallow vision of pop.

Its first release, "England Made Me," was brimming with precious, understated pop arrangements in the spirit of Burt Bacharach and Thom Bell; its follow-up, "The Facts of Life," especially the title song, sounded eerily close on occasion to English girl bands like the All Saints. And its new "Passionoia" (One Little Indian) â?? named after a line from a song on the album mocking personal ads, in which a woman has gone "from passionate to paranoid" â?? could be mistaken for 90's Europop.

The strength of Black Box Recorder is the way it balances manners and breeding with darkness and sin. Its album artwork depicts the band members drinking Champagne around a pool, oblivious to the dead body floating in it. Its songs are just as sociopathic, with the cold, breathy, seductive voice of Sarah Nixey singing arch lyrics written mostly by Luke Haines (of the Auteurs). This album tears apart conventional British life and ambitions, from the mundane details that keep people going ("These Are the Things") to the grand ambitions that keep others dreaming ("The New Diana," "Girls Guide for the Modern Diva").

This is a good album, though the macabre pop of Black Box Recorder doesn't work best to dance beats or trip-hop electronics, but to the more classic, swooning arrangements that appear less frequently here.


Supernatural Equinox
Outrageous Cherry

Here are two bands grappling with perfect pop. On its latest album, "Supernatural Equinox" (Rainbow Quartz), Outrageous Cherry further mines its obsession with garage-pop psychedelia. Yet the gold is never separated from the ore, and as a result one hears what sounds like a demo tape of a masterpiece.

On "Mouthfuls" (Sub Pop), the duo the Fruit Bats leans to the folksy side of psychedelia, sitting somewhere on the spectrum of semi-unpopular pop between the lush jangle of the Shins and the country sweep of Holopaw. "Mouthfuls" may not come on as hard as the power-pop detonation of Fountains of Wayne, but over time it seeps in just as deeply.


Velvet Tinmine
Various Artists

Here finally is a chronicle of pop bands that were never popular and sure-fire hits that never quite fired. "Velvet Tinmine," two volumes sold separately on RPM Records, excavates early 70's glam-rock to come up with a litany of explosively catchy choruses and rock 'n' roll attitude from bands that only the most ardent record collector has heard of.

Just listen to "Rebels Rule" by Iron Virgin and try to figure out why you've never heard it before. Then sample the pubescent Ricky Wilde's squeaky "I Wanna Go to a Disco" and hope that you never have to hear it again.

Originally posted by eertedaj:

Originally posted by Yank:
From 14/6 NME:

Dead Meadow: Shivering Kings And Others
All wah-wah pedals and occult fascination, the seven-minute symphony of this Washington DC stoner-rock trio's 'I Love You Too' is a homage to vintage Black Sabbath. Suffering the same drugged up daydreams as The Warlocks, Dead Meadow also treat you to a southern boogie skin-graft alongside the electro-shock therapy. Ambient metal riffs dive through 'Golden Cloud' and 'Good Moanin'', while 'Shivering King' could cause brain damage in the casual listener.
They're dirty drone-rock boys with guns set to stun and then destroy. Kelly Osbourne be damned. Dead Meadow are Ozzy's true devil sprogs.
8/10

So Dead Meadow made it in to NME? Strange.

Not only the NME but the July issue of Mojo too:

Dead Meadow: Shivering King and Others
Third album from Washington DC trio, another 'loudest band on Earth'.

Kicking-off with a riff that patently missed out on the last 30 years of rock evolution, Dead Meadow lay their cards on the table from the get-go. Harking back to an age when rock bands walked the Earth with the swinging, lumbering heaviness of a brontosaurus, this surprisngly fresh-faced three-piece update the bluesy '70s rock blueprint without ever once falling into stoner rock cliche. At home driving dinosaur riffage through your cranium, getting lost in sky-kissing acid rock or mellowing out with Zep-style acoustic interludes, Dead Meadow follow a distinctive path. It's well-worn, but when you're on the same trail as previous low-end masters Sleep, St Vitus, Blue Cheer and The Obsessed, something is definitely right.
4/5 Stars