Melvins – The Bride Screamed Murder
(Ipecac)
5
Melvins has been doing this for longer than a lot of toddler-growups playing “music” now-a-days were more than a cluster of cells in their momma’s belly. And… that which hath no mechanical abnormalities need not see the hand of a new workman. So whaddya have here? A Melvins album. A NEW Melvins album, the third one they’ve recorded with the same lineup, which is some kind of record. Or something. I dunno. But that’s what King Buzzo said.
I love The Bride Screamed Murder, and I suppose that says a couple of things: Once a Melvins fan, always a Melvins fan – and you don’t have to smoke weed all day to really love Melvins. Melvins, you can say, are my anti-drug. I’m certain I have compatriots out there who have reached a similar level of enlightenment.
Are you one of those toddler-adults younger than the 26 or so years Melvins have been around? Have you never listened – straight or stoned – to Stoner Witch or Houdini? Do you like sludgy riffage from your guitar players, stupid lyrics, and a structured anarchy in your music? Then get your dirty, Vienna sausage-shaped, saliva-wrinkled little digits on this, as well of a vast array of albums from the brothers Melvin. Start here, and work your way back. Or the other way ‘round. Again, whatever or something.
There. Now go forth, and buy. Oh yeah… go out and get everything you can by Fantomas, too.
-- Dylan Gibbs
Aun/Habsyll - Split LP
(Public Guilt)
3.5
This split vinyl won't be something for everyone, but anyone with a taste for noise and dark, extended doom/drone atmospheres may find plenty to envelop themselves in. Side A is by Montreal's Aun (aka Martin Dumais and Julie Leblanc) Their opening cut, "Druids," is 13 minutes of foreboding atmospheres and plodding death rhythms. Imagine an instrumental machine-doom-metal, monolithic and single-minded, and you'd be in the ball park. Their second track, "Fall Out," is a more spacious attack of sinister machine rhythms and droning guitars with a rudimentary melody shining through. Decent work, but rather forgettable in the end, especially after hearing Side B.
French heavy doom/noise/drone act Habsyll are less subtle on their side, with their monster 23-minute "IV," which rivals acts like Sunn 0))) or Earth in sheer terms of width and girth. It's a slow, grinding, downtuned guitar crunch, with chaotic drums keeping things lively. The spastic, agonized vocalizations are feral and frightening, in such a good way, too. Picture, if you will, classic early SWANS meeting black metal, and Habsyll are threatening like that.
Refreshingly intense and confusingly evil sounds to scare your neighbors and antagonize your roommates equally!
-- Todd Zachritz
Dixie Chicks – Playlist: The Very Best of the Dixie Chicks
(Sony Legacy)
5
On June 1, the top selling female group in country music will be releasing a new album, their first in three years. Playlist includes a list of the Dixie Chicks’ themselves favorite songs from their past four albums. The 12 songs include “Wide Open Spaces” and “You Were Mine” from Wide Open Spaces, “Sin Wagon,” “Cowboy Take Me Away,” and “Let Him Fly” from Fly, as well as “Long Time Gone,” “Landslide” and “Truth No. 24” from Home. The rest of the songs come from their latest album, Taking the Long Way, which seems to be their favorite, with “The Long Way Around,” “Easy Silence,” “Not Ready to Make Nice,” and “Lubbock or Leave It.”
What makes this album so great is that it isn’t Billboard releasing the Dixie Chicks’ top hits, but instead, it is Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, and Natalie Maines telling the world what their favorite songs are—the ones that mean the most to them and the ones they really love to play.
For those non-Dixie-Chicks listeners, Playlist is a good place to start because it’s like getting in on the ground floor and only having to put up with the best of the best. And who wouldn’t want to listen to a band who openly protested the war by posing naked on the front cover of Entertainment Weekly in May 2003? (Before that article was released, lead singer Natalie Maines had announced on the brink of wartime in the middle of a concert that the band was ashamed President Bush was from their home state of Texas.) The Dixie Chicks may be known the country over for their controversial statements, but their music outdoes the world’s expectations.
--Kristina Kercher
HeWhoCannotBeNamed – Sunday School Massacre
(MVD Audio)
3
Legendary masked punk-grime legends the Dwarves have been known for many things in the past. Upbeat, well-produced pop punk isn't something that comes immediately to mind. But longtime guitar player HeWhoCannotBeNamed's debut solo album here shows an interesting twist on the gutter-punk philosophy that his "money" band excels at. "Happy Suicide" is fast, fun, and more than legible, and the cover DOESN'T feature any nudity or, ahem, actual dwarves this time. What HeWhoCannotBeNamed proves is that he is a more than capable songwriter, with a penchant for a number of tempos and rollicking sing-along choruses. "Superhero" is positively anthemic, while "Duck Tape Love" is a feel-good song about love and the ways to "make you mine." "Toxene" is even a tongue-in-cheek ballad! Of course, this "solo" work also includes the participation of friends like Nick Oliveri (Queens of the Stone Age), Blag Dahlia (Dwarves), and Andy Selway (KMFDM). Fun punk melodies, strong production, some possibly offensive content -- this is 33 minutes of fun, with spirit and guts.
Cool stuff.
-- Todd Zachritz
Tremendous F*cking – Power Down
(Higher Step)
4.5
Oh, the irony of the title (and not the Alanis Morissette kind of irony, either) Power Down brings the thunder – again – from Bloomington’s finest purveyors of LOUD NOW. From the gutter or from a puffy cloud, you can just never tell where Patch McMean’s mind/gonads are when he scribbles TremFu’s lyrics down before the band – Professor McMean, Snackie Onassis and Rob Montage – subsequently launch them into the ether like a cannon with the guidance missiles provided by whacked-out, thumping bass, electric-scissoring-death guitars, organized mayhem…
Yep. Organized. TremFu’s stuff has always been haphazard and above all, fun. Here, Power Down’s roughly 15 minutes have relatively sophisticated arrangements (sometimes), and it’s the best-sounding (production-wise) of all their stuff up till now. These are generally good things, and I can’t take too much away from TremFu here. The ever-so-slight, wee bit I’ll grumble about is there’s enough restraint on Power Down that it’s kind of tame compared to previous anarchic releases like How’s My F*cking? and Thanks for Nothin’.
Get this six-track dude anyway. Seriously. Even with a the hint of a leash on the band, they still rock, and still do so with that abandon that’s endeared them to anyone with half a heart and brain for a good long time now. Check it out at amazon.com. higherstep.com and tremendousf*cking.com (omit the asterisk in the URL).
-- Dylan Gibbs
Hammock – Chasing After Shadows... Living With The Ghosts
(Hammock Music)
4.5
This Nashville ambient duo's 4th album is easily their most realized, and most structured, release to date. With Tim Powles (of Australian psychedelic rock act The Church) at the mixing helm, Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd summon great swells of lovely organic ambient sound, with droning, shoegaze-soaked guitars and deftly-mixed strings. They weave spacious melodies into their instrumental songs, and the results wouldn't sound out of place on an Eno or Sigur Ros recording. The album's single, "Breathturn," utilizes reverb-soaked distant vocals ala Slowdive, and is certainly a sweet treat for the ears. Other cuts, like "In the Nothing of a Night," wrap dark edges into the blissed-out atmospheres.
But it's never a heavy-handed or ponderous approach. Hammock's music, like their name, stretches out in a most relaxing fashion. It's a breath of fresh air in a sea of pretension and attitude. Chasing After Shadows... is a journey worth repeating, functioning either as effective background listening, or as an enveloping headphone experience. Deep, multi-layered sounds for anytime of day or night.
-- Todd Zachritz
Unholy Grave – Grind Killers
(Selfmadegod Records)
3
Ah, this one is interesting. Unholy Grave are a veteran grindcore act from Japan who've released spades of split LPs, EPs, and cassettes since 1993. This 23-track, 34-minute blast was recorded live in a Dutch studio, and is a growly, lo-fi clot of brief grind blasts that could easily be a mid-80's UK act. Tracks are pretty well interchangeable, save for a faithful (and humorous) cover of the Ramones' "Beat On The Brat,” and Unholy Terror's political direction is definitely more punk than metal. Tracks like "No Racial Superiority" mince no words. And a number of anti-terrorism tracks also show that Unholy Grave aren't all about fantasy or "evil" for evil's sake. This is pure, uncut crust/grind cut from the same cloth as early Napalm Death. Cool and fun.
-- Todd Zachritz
THIS ONE, LIKE THE BEER BOOK THINGER, HAS NO ACTUAL REVIEW NUMBER; I’M DOING THIS ON PURPOSE, SOMEWHAT TO MIX THINGS UP A BIT…
CJS Quintet – An Affair of the Art (2003) and Let’s Play (2006)
(Concept Sound Music)
Affair of the Art – Chuck Johnson (sax), James Smith (trumpet), Art Hillary (piano), Wendell Williams (bass), Gerryck King (drums)
Let’s Play – Chuck Johnson (sax), James Smith (Trumpet), Al Daniels (keys), Wendell Williams (bass), and Anthony Davis (drums)
The CJS Quintet began in 2000 as a collaboration between two seasoned jazz players, University of Evansville alumni, Chuck Johnson and Houston, Texas Native, James Smith. The “CJS” is a combo of CJ and JS, the co-founders’ initials.
This review does homage to the two releases by this quintet because they are great examples of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach hard bop style. Hard Bop can be roughly characterized as the period between 1955 through 1965. This period saw a profusion of musical styles and experimentation not readily slotted under any one heading. It saw the musicians of note using strong rhythmic patterns along with slower tempos, blues and gospel influences, and much fuller melodies. It tended to be funkier and more emotional that the previous bebop era. When Chuck Johnson sat for an interview on WUEV with yours truly, in April of this year, he stated that hard bop had more “soul” and was much more relatable to a wider audience. Chuck was in the River City attending a reunion of the UE African/American Student Association. A revised version of the CJS Quintet performed at the Association’s gala. The band consisted of Chuck (sax), James Smith (Trumpet), Renatto Butturi (guitar), Tyrone Wheeler (bass), and Jason Tiemann (drums). All those in attendance got to see a true jazz quintet in action and it was grand!
On the 2006 release, Affair of the Art, the quintet interprets three compositions by pianist, Art Hillery. They round out the release with four classic tunes with an experienced texture that only veteran players can produce. The popular hit "What Now My Love" (7) features Hillery, Smith, and Johnson coloring the song with a clean and unique perspective. Hillery opts for a bouncing swing while Smith aims for harsh syncopation. Chuck Johnson does what he does so well; cools things off with some fluid, mellow tones. Donald Byrd's "Lex" (5) drives fast and furious, giving the quintet an opportunity to do what it does best. An extended drum solo by King leads to peppy solos from Smith, Johnson and Hillery. “Silhouette” (4) is my favorite. It is a long groove that highlights why this is great jazz.
This is a great band with no egos showing. When they fly, the listener is right there with them; and when the groove slows, the calm is sweeter and more exciting than the eye of a storm. These five players bring back much of what is missing in today’s mainstream and smooth jazz music.
On Let’s Play, the 2006 sophomore release from the CJS Quintet, the band comes out ready to do just that. Compare to their first recording, Affair of the Art, this recording comes off like an exciting trip with its driving rhythms, soulful harmonies and ebullient solos. The title cut (4) will really get the listener in a “playful” mood. Then the band slows things down with the melodious “Boss Waltz.” (2) The cohesiveness on this track makes it one of the albums best. “Buster’s Dance” (6) brings Daniel’s keyboards alive ala Chick Corea. Smith’s muted trumpet gives some Miles déjà vu that will cause the listener’s ears to dance.
The current CJS Quintet is a favorite on the West Coast and is in demand any place where great jazz is appreciated. It consists of Chuck Johnson (sax), James Smith (trumpet), Koji Ono (piano), Curtis Robinson, Jr. (acoustic bass), and Keita Akutsu (drums)
CJSQ has synthesized the jazz tradition with their unique experiences to create a clear, distinctive voice. It is a cohesive and unyielding musical approach that spins heartfelt tales with such passion that everyone that hears the group will go away better for it. And these two releases will be a marvelous addition to anyone’s jazz collection.
Paul Mattingly can be heard on WUEV 91.5 fm on the Afternoon JazzFlight on Mondays (4-6 p.m. CDT) and in The Jazz Café on Fridays (3-6 p.m. CDT).
BEGIN BOOK REVIEW HERE:
The Beer Trials by Seamus Campbell and Robin Goldstein
(Storey Publishing)
This is a refreshing (pun intended) take on beer criticism and review. Editors/compilers Campbell and Goldstein wisely conduct blind taste tests on 250 mainstream and independent brews, with a diverse panel of experts. Eschewing bias based on name, style, or brewery, the reviews within are sometimes surprising, and sometimes. As it stands, Natty Ice isn't all too popular, but Belgian Chimay scores well.
Nonetheless, as a tasty and refreshing representative of an American lager, Pabst Blue Ribbon fares decently. The point is, sometimes we do find prejudice based on beer name, type, or even cost. I'll admit to some beer snobbery myself, even, which The Beer Trials attempts to alleviate through unbiased, unmuddied lenses.
As a critical analysis, this book is a fresh, lively, and quick read.
And although there are several typographical errors, this is a worthwhile addition to the library. I even have a new "beer shopping list," so I'll take that as an inspiration and recommendation!
-- Todd Zachritz
