Marks and Lebzelter, Rock and Other Four-Letter Words LP. Found an OG yesterday for a very good price. Thumbs up.
Led Zeppelin, Celebration Day DL. Hey, I love this shit, but I love almost everything by Zeppelin. As everyone has heard, the performances are pretty raw for Zeppelin and that's half the fun. Jason B sounds great, cool to hear him playing shit like "Black Dog." He's got his father's strength but he's sloppier! Page misses notes here and there and it's cool. Plant sounds like himself only he's not going for as many high notes. JPJ of course doesn't miss any notes.
Mountain, s/t and Climbing.
World Party, Private Revolution. A problem record that gives me much enjoyment. Honk it if you like TFF, Waterboys, the The, Microdisney, uh... Talk Talk. Steely Dan and Fagen solo. Rundgren 'n' XTC, maybe, not really. Real "auteur" biz here, you know; one-man studio band kinda deal on a large but not that large major labe budget. The arrangements are full of surprises and twists but the potential dealbreaker (for you, not me) is that Karl Wallinger has a bad Dylan Problem and a tone of voice very much like Jagger. In the eighties. Fairly self-righterous stuff, thinks it knows its stuff; expecting a call from Geldof to talk about... uh, South Africa, or Ethiopia. Will never be the subject of a Mutant Sounds post.
Neil Young, Time Fades Away. Rising favorite, esp. "Last Dance," which's got more menace in it than almost anything in his cat, and he's good at menace (or is it dread? I think it's dread. One or the other. Menace. Dread. Menace. Dread. Menace? No... Dread.)
Sightings, City of Straw. I dig their rockers so hard. Somebody should put together a comp of all of Sightings' rockers. On this album it's "Saccharine Traps," at the end of side one.
Creme Soda, Tricky Zingers LP. New to the Whet Bull collection, and so very welcome. Dang. You know you'd like these guys if you met 'em.
Blank Realm, Go Easy LP. Love this rec, an instahit. Pretty different from the first! Its closest relative in recent mem is Sic Alps, but I find Sic Alps dull and aloof in all the wrong ways, whereas this is inviting and catchy as fuck. The M/F vocals owe something to Royal Trux but this is its own thing. I don't see or hear an attempt to mimic that band, which I did hear in Circle Pit, another Australian M/F duo with (ahem) boogie in its heart. I liked it very much and look forward to playing it again, and again.
Parquet Courts, Light Up Gold. Hey, it's time for "post-Tyvek." These guys owe an obvious debt to those guys and they're not as special (probably), but boy, I love this sound and they've got a songwriting engine in there and good vocals with something to say. This LP's the perfect length, too (thirty minutes, maybe), which shows they know what they're doing. They must love The Fall and Swell Maps, but hey, who doesn't. Very bandlike band with great locking-together parts and no standout instrumentalist.
GG Allin, Hated in the Nation. Did you know that GG Allin is on Spotify? About eight hours' worth. This is that ROIR comp that collects singles and live performances (songs and "spoken word moments"). Such a peach, GG, such a special guy. I forget sometimes and then all it takes is a little Eat My Fuc and I say a little poo prayer for the Geege. A true New Hampshirite, free as can be.
Springsteen, The River and Darkness... The River is a special record. It's about 50% filler, but Bruce had earned the right to go for his own Exile, his White Album, his Electric Ladyland, his Blonde on Blonde. The production is pretty uniform throughout and it's a feat of aural imagineering, the way he and Little Steven or whoever put all the instruments here and there and all the way over there, plus all the Ronettes style vocals and shit.
Clockcleaner, Babylon Rules. What's this guy's shtick, again? He tells it like it is or something? Hey, I like this record. What're the songs about? Can't remember / can't tell. Cool gtr sound, still. I kinda liked the Breeders cover that was tacked on to the CD.
Cheater Slicks, Reality is a Grape. Their best-sequenced record?! The mid-section of "Hold On to Your Soul," "Jesus Christ," and "Half-Past High" crushes nuts and brainpan pretty good both, and then it keeps building and it stops! Another just-the-right-length rec. Their vocals are better on this one than on any other. As usual, D. Hatch's kickdrum is retardo-loud, maybe to make up for the no-bass? Makes 'em sound so weird.
Nazareth, Hair of the Dog. Nazareth post-this album?
Coloured Balls, Ball Power. I like the atypical extras like "Love Me Girl."
Drainolith, Fighting! '00s-style one-man band. Those projects seemed to come in a couple main flavors: (1) guy w/ a sound setup playing his sound setup and it always sounds like that setup; (2) bricoleur types who play different shit at different times and always sound a little bit different, but still don't write songs. This dude's mostly the first kind. He sounds like he grew up listening to Sightings and Mouthus. Vocals, words, don't mean shit. Interesting stoned rhythms is what this's all about.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
Print
