More hot rockin' tunes ready to be added to the playlist of your favorite alternative FM rock station! Just like David Lowery's post-Camper Van Beethoven Cracker, Bob Mould's post-Husker DuSugar and Jamie Farr's AfterMash, Frank Black's post-Pixies work is generally accepted as less revolutionary and creative than The Pixies, but the man can still write a great rock song. This one is similar to the last, with lots of midtempo distorted crangin' and singin', plus a few moments of Frank doing his ... read more

The most full-band-sounding album he's made since Doolittle! Great cymbal-crashin' drums, a higher percentage of gruff shouty vocals from Franklin than expected (as opposed to his straight nerdy dipsy-doodle sing thing) and a great collection of fully-composed, intelligently-arranged three- to four-minute guitar-driven pop rock songs of varying moods, speeds and influences. This might be his best post-Pixies album, actually. The vocal melodies are instantly unforgettable -- just try getting ... read more

The Cult of Ray DAVIES? Is that who he's talking about? If not, have him rewrite the entire album. On dis one, Frank moves away from his increasingly annoying signature sound to explore "normal" rock songwriting. On the one hand, this is great news for those of us who felt that Teenager Of The Year was testing our patience a bit -- it sounds like Frank and his new band (ALL FEATURED IN THE INSIDE PICTURE!) bothered to actually put effort into the songcraft this time around, instead of ... read more

TOO MUCH!!!! I realize that it seems hypocritical to hear me, "Mark Prindle," make that complaint seeing as how my own personal homemade CDRs each have about 82 million 40-second songs on them, but nevernonetheless I have every intention of making said claim about Teenager Of The Year. The first half is excellent. Beautiful guitar tones (especially a few tunes with gorgeous surf-ballad lead guitar lines) combine with slightly more prevalent keys (than on the first album, I mean) to ... read more

Fifteen slightly askew rock songs. Some of them in 6/8! All relying heavily on guitars, a few too many built around melodic twists ripped off from the Pixies. As a whole, awfully entertaining though, and filled with clever new chord sequences that even Fred Durst would have to admit that he gives a fuck about, even if Frank Black doesn't give a fuck about him and his generation. Vocals sound like a chubby dork, but a dork that likes beautiful lush guitar pop, heavy distorted rock and quirky ... read more

Although the incorrect might argue that Prayers Torched is the most artistically innovative of Birthday Party's CDs, I personally am giving this one the 10 because it's not nearly as ear-piercing to sit through and because it ROCKS-ocks!-ocks!-ocks! The songs are produced with maximum volume in mind, with a terrific mix wherein you can hear everything so loud it's like they're playing it TWICE! And there's not a single non-awe-inspiring song to be found on the entire record!

Except ... read more

More than any other, this is The Birthday Party at their most idiosyncratic and AGODDAMNNNOYING. The songs are incredibly creative sloppy little bits of distemper with drunken wife-beating nudey girl bass lines driven into left field by murderous drum smashing and two guitarists wielding their wares as if they weren't even listening to the same songs. In spork, Prayers Aflame is non-stop intelligent music that sounds better and better the closer you listen!

Unfortunately, if you don't listen ... read more

This was actually recorded while The Birthday Party were called The Boys Next Door. It's way too tame, the songs are bland little guitar-piano-and-drum ditties that make Duran Duran sound like Motorhead (ooh! not a bad thought!), and Nick hasn't yet developed an interesting singing style. He just sounds like a teenager trying really hard to have a low voice that chicks will dig. Avoid it like the plaque!

Unless it's a really nice plaque. With etching on it and stuff.

Lester Bangs was one of the very first "rock critics," and generally considered to be the most "GONZO" (guy on the Muppets) of all of them. He was in love with the very idea of rock and roll, and tended to drone on and on and on about how it made him FEEL, as well as making up stories, baiting musicians who had disappointed him (most notably, Lou Reed) and trying in every way to *BE* rock and roll, as opposed to dissecting it and making it as lifeless as a shitty old book or ... read more

Since Alex Chilton got fiddlesticked by Hurricane Katrina, and now Hurricane Rita is in the process of murdering another 1,000 or so people, I figure today is the perfect time to review the Big Star reunion album, recorded by two original members of Big Star and two other guys.

It's good. Not great perhaps, but it's neat that after 50 or 60 reportedly weak solo albums, Alex was still able to reach back into the cobwebbed haunts of his cluttered mind and retrieve that once-so-strong Beatles ... read more

Odd bird of a record. Stig Bar's looseness topped with mellotrons and violins and stuff. Supposedly Alex didn't give a shit what people thought of the record and it kinda shows. These songs are much less instantly accessible than the stuff he wrote for the last two records. Most of them are still really good though! Just a little stranger, slower, herkier-jerkier and more oddly produced than the "oh yeah, i get that!" Beatles and Stonesisms of the previous couplet. Maybe these are ... read more

Man, does this album sound like Pavement. If you ever thought Pavement were doing something new (which hopefully you weren't fool enough to do), you gotta check thishit out. The vocals are higher-pitched, but the roughshod scraggly guitars playing slightly countryish, slightly rockish, slightly bluesish, VERY memorable riffs make it obvious that Crooked Rain Crooked Rain was a song-for-song complete ripoff of this album.

Oh, okay, that last bit was a josh on my part, but if you like Pavement, ... read more

I think I just described this album in the introductory paragraph. It has lots of great early-'70s power pop -- including "In The Street," which is now the theme to That '70s Show! So if you know that tune, you have a general idea of what this album sounds like, though it should be pointed out that both the Big Star version of that tune and the rest of this album are much less bombastic than the cover version you'll hear on that show. This is pop, man. Back when pop meant sing-songy ... read more

Moms just love to see this one lyin' around the homestead. Same ol', same ol', but perhaps even more melodic in places! And, get this.... LESS melodic in other places! Holy wow! A real conundrum of YEAH! It's got tons of neat noises (i.e. the echoed whale call-sounding swoop noise hidden among the clamoring tin of "Bad Penny"'s chorus; the horrific scraping noise that's supposed to pass for a "guitar line" in "Kitty Empire" or "Ergot" or whichever ... read more

Their first full-length (out of a whopping two), this record does a spiffy job of presenting the many sides of an awfully creative collective, from the sonically innovative ("Passing Complexion," which features one of the most unimitatable guitar sounds ever created - plus a hip dance beat!) to the explosive and violent ("Kerosene," "Jordan, Minnesota") to the hooky (the dopey "Strange Things" and the doc "Big Money") to the beautiful (Believe ... read more

D.O.A. really sucks, so it's amazing how good this record is. It features four awesome heavy fast punk/metal originals, a sweet cover of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" and the coup de grace "Full Metal Jackoff," a 14-minute trudger in which Biafra accuses the government of pumping drugs into the ghettos in a sinister plot to further racial genocide and create a state of panic so severe that martial law will be not only accepted, but welcomed. This song is considered by me ... read more

Jello tackles country western with great aplomb. His new lyrics are hilarious attacks on loser punks and limousine liberals and Mojo gets in a few good gripes too. Smart, funny, and the music is a nonstop bouncy hoedown - NOT country rock or modern Garth Brooks pop crap. Too many cover tunes though (SIX of them!!! And they're not anywhere NEAR as clever or interesting as the originals!). I can't say any more right now. My puppy is in the hospital and I'm very upset. Please pray for him to ... read more

He's back! He's the man behind the mask - and he's out of control! Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the the Dead Milkmen and Nomeasho, has returned to the fore with an album of loud, heavy punkaroll songs drawn from the skinflints of Aberdeen, WA's The Melvins, a band of whom Kurt Cobain once said, "My wife paid someone to have me murdered."

But more importantly, what does Jello Biafra, former lead singer of Mojo Nixon, have on his mind this time around? Well, many things, ... read more

You know what gets my goat? An Indian restaurant, the fuckers!

No, but serially. You know what gets my goat? Have you seen all these movie remakes? Friday The 13th, Black Christmas, A Nightmare On Elm Street -- I mean, come on! Did these filmmakers honestly think that they were going to improve some of the most classic films of all time?

Because they DID! So now let me tell you what gets my goat. The fact that no authors have made the effort to remake some of our favorite classic novels! Come ... read more

When I heard that the Dead Kennedys' former vocalist had released a brand new triple-spoken-word CD, I was pretty excited because I love Brandon Cruz. Though disappointed upon learning the performer's true identity, I chose to bite into the sour apple and snag a copy anyway -- particularly since you can buy it for a butter bread on AT's web site. Seriously, you can purchase the entire 4-hour chit-chat set for an apple and an egg! If you pay an apple and an egg however, you do not also need to ... read more