I listened to the first few songs while taking a dump. Perhaps the perfect way to appraise the new Abscess. And you know, I found a whole new appreciation for the band.

The production is still dreadful, but here the mushiness almost helps. For once, the guys are trying to play semi-coherent songs. And for once, I almost like the album.

Yeah, when song titles include "The Scent of Shit", "Burn, Die and Fucking Fry" and "Freak Fuck Fest", you know you're not in for an evening of subtleties. And this descendent of Autopsy keeps treading the same road it always has. Trying to be the Gwar of the death metal set. Without all the silly costumes, of course.

Which leaves the music, which is certainly a joke. Enjoyable enough, and much better than I expected. That still doesn't pull Abscess much above sea level. Still, as music to shit by goes, this ain't bad.

This is the musical project of Sam Rosenthal, who also happens to run Projekt, the label. While he knows good goth when he hears it, Rosenthal isn't the world's greatest performer.

He's attracted good musicians to back him up here, and the production is quite good. In fact, the knob job is so good, it brings this whole album to an almost acceptable level.

Alright, alright, so I'm not the world's biggest fan of excessively moody music. There's not a lick of percussion here (with the exception of a tambourine, and that doesn't really count), but then I understand the most extreme sides of goth music. No, the thing that bugs me is that I just don't care what the band is doing. The music is attractive enough, but utterly without passion.

Well, duh. It's goth, you keep saying. Perhaps. But I just want to smack Rosenthal upside his head and say, "Get on with your own bad self. Quit moping and mucking about!" Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about, but this is not a great musical statement. And with pretensions like those present, it had to be to be anywhere near good.

For a black guy, Jon Butcher plays white boy blues pretty well. Sure, the songs have little to say musically and pack no emotional punch, but then, that's the genre.

Cliche after cliche cruises past, and yet Butcher's voice has just enough character to not embarrass himself. And when he cuts the blues a bit loose on songs like "Rather Go Fishin'", Butcher sounds alright.

Hyper-commercial and not terribly original, Butcher seems to have found a nice spot to hang his guitar for a while. Butcher and side man Ben Schultz (the two played almost all the instruments here) wrote all the tunes, which is quite unusual for a blues album of any stripe. Sure, I with many of the songs were a little more inspired, but that's what I've always thought about Butcher's work in general.

The guy can play, and he slings his talent all over this disc, echoing everyone from Hendrix to Buddy Guy. Not perfect by a long shot, Butcher still has a decent take on the accessible side of the blues.

The first Creedle jazz album, or so sez the liners. Like anyone can confine Creedle to any sort of genre.

Leave it to Creedle to actually find coherence in wild jazz forms. Compared to the first couple of albums, though...

The main thing to remember with Creedle is that reality is just over the next hill. You can smell it, but the taste will never reach your mouth. Just when you think you've arrived, there's a new wrinkle. And I like the wrinkles.

This album is much less scattershot than previous efforts, but Creedle is still pretty much playing with the bizarro pop conventions where Three Mile Pilot and the recently deceased Heavy Vegetable found amusement. The sense of humor is still there (expressed both lyrically and musically), which makes my smile even larger.

It's the new Creedle album. Those of us in the know are ecstatic. And there are enough access points here that even a few unwashed might enter the Ganges of alternative pop. The funkier, the better.

"Shut It" has been mixed by Die Krupps, but it doesn't sound much different than the album version. The song is a decent punk raver, but not particularly wonderful. The new mix doesn't change that.

The flip is just the album version of the same song. You can do a little comparison for yourself. Apart from emphasizing the lead line a bit more, the Die Krupps boys didn't do much at all.

For die-hard fans only.

Adding more than a little punch and boogie to his old sound, Craig Erickson has crafted a nifty modern blues album. Yeah, plenty of nods to ZZ Top (80s version), but that infusion of infectious funk sure does wonders.

The production gives Erickson's voice a throaty feel which is almost a dead ringer for Jeff Healy. The styles are similar, though Erickson prefers to wield his axe with a bit more flash.

The songs are obviously crafted, but interesting enough to keep the excitement going. Erickson hasn't completely escaped the formula, but this effort is far ahead of anything he's done in the past. Plenty of fun.

Sure did surprise me. Erickson has re-discovered that soulful blues 'n' boogie and added a few personal touches to complete the package. Alright, then.

Vancouver industrial legends: Skinny Puppy, FLA, the Final Cut...

The way it should have been, anyway. Back in 1992 the band released Consumed, which is about as good an industrial album as that year saw. I saw these folk open up for Chris Connolly, and they blew their co-conspirator away.

Finally a new album, and it's everything I hoped for. Nothing has been lost. The Final Cut has kept up with the times and even added a bit to the industrial pantheon with this album.

Special guests a plenty, from Martin Atkins to Taime Downe (Faster Pussycat). All crafted with precision and care for maximum sonic impact. The Final Cut takes the best ideas of the world's finest industrial purveyors, adding a few new ideas just for the hell of it. Damned impressive, as I anticipated.

Okay, so we had to wait four years. The Final Cut has come through with a vengeance. No complaints about tardiness.

Take a few names you might recognize: Tod A., Jim Kimball, Duane Denison and Dave Ouimet. Add in Hahn Rowe, Kurt Hoffman and Yuval Gabay and you get what the press refers to as the greatest Bar Mitzvah band in the world.

And as much as I'd like to call that merely silliness, there's a definite Jewish lilt to the musical madness here. Not unlike what it might sound like if Mule played the Hora. Silly but strangely compelling. There's definite MTV anthem potential in far too many of these songs to make me comfortable.

Too bad the playing is exquisite and the production letter-perfect. I'd love to find a way to criticize such an obvious ploy for mass-acceptance, but, of course, I'm screwed. The bastards have cranked out an astonishing album that only the tone-deaf can dislike. Don't know if this will hit Peel or Dr. Demento first, but hell, airplay is certain.

By the way, until recently the band went by the name the Organ Grinders. They apologize profusely for any inconvenience the change might have caused. Damn, another bone down the drain...

An instrumental version of what the Meat Puppets might sound like with a few lessons from Yngwie Malmsteen, but without a couple bongloads to help them on their way.

Squeaky-clean guitar music that has a definite "hoe-down" feel, but not the inspired wackiness of the Puppets. And I wish it was here.

Firkins has a nice grasp on his sound, and he's managed to find another musical area to explore with a solo guitar. The sidemen are good, but the tunes need a bit more color.

The cover of the "Sanford and Son" theme is fun, but not nearly as goofy as I'd hoped. If Firkins can just loosen up a bit, he might really have something.

There is rarely middle ground when it comes to industrial acts playing live. They either suck or are brilliant. I've never seen J.G. Thirwell and his traveling band on stage, but if this is any indication, well, I'd rather not.

Recorded Foetus is, at best, a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes Thirwell is on, and often enough he's not. And his last album wasn't one of his best, though five of the tunes here are from that opus. Covers of Alice Cooper Band, Dead Boys, Beatles and Cheap Trick tunes help complete the set, along with three other Thirwell compositions.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the dreadful mastering job on this disc. The production is pretty muddy, but even accounting for that there's no reason I should have to crank my stereo just to hear what's going on. An altogether useless enterprise, unless you really groove on bizarre covers. I'm truly disappointed.

Some semi-famous NYC arty types totally deconstruct a few famous tunes. Lots of tape loops and echo effects, which gives the whole thing a strange 70s feel.

Compelling, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Yeah, there's the train crash appeal, but after that I'm not sure what I'm listening to or why I'm doing it. There's probably some great statement going on around me, but I just can't tell.

And it's not that this is that off the wall or anything. I simply cannot figure out what the fuck Gravy is trying to say with this melange. Amusing as far as it goes, but I want more.

Classic death metal riffage blended in with just enough modern sensibility to keep things up-to-date. Canada's Inner Thought has struck gold once again.

Hacking guitar lines bring to mind the best days of Morgoth and Pungent Stench, while expertly executed keyboard and extended sequencer passages (all the drums are programmed) bring just enough of that Amorphis-like sound into the mix. Bobby Sadzak certainly hasn't lost his writing touch, and still manages to branch out in search of new forms to fold into his death metal vision.

I've been hearing less and less of this style, and an album like this makes me hunger for more. Yeah, I wish this was less a one-man-band thing (with Dennis Balesdent doing the vocal work this time out), but Sadzak is a fine craftsman, and his creation is fairly seamless.

While the musical world has somewhat turned its back on death metal, an album like this just might convince a few old fans to look back fondly. Inner Thought may be caught in the wrong time, but good music doesn't need to adhere to any such notions.

A couple new songs, both in that ethereal pop realm. Love Spirals Downwards is good enough, though, to keep this stuff from crossing over into the "crappy new age stuff" pile.

Add in a vaguely jungle remix of the title track, and you get the nice three-track set. The band (Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry) creates lush soundscapes without pandering to the listener. The result is a nicely textured feel, with plenty of area for exploration.

A nice single. Worth checking out if you haven't caught Love Spirals Downwards before. and if you have, you already know.

More musings from Dead Can Dance territory, though Lycia sticks to the more esoteric and unusual early road of that band. The result is a pretty, if somewhat uneven, performance.

The first track, "Frozen", features a really cool guitar sound, sorta like a MIDI thing with loads of distortion. I'm sure it's synthesized, but it takes the guitar position. You know what I mean. Anyway, I kept waiting for that to reappear. It didn't, and Lycia replaced it with a more mundane straight synth sound. I know, don't overwork a good thing and all, but still. This sort of decision-making takes songs that could be exquisite and drops them to the barely above-average level.

Because boredom erupts across long stretches of this disc, punctuated by the occasional stretch of brilliance. I'm not sure if the folks can hear this (or if I'm totally missing their point), but it just bugs the hell out of me.

Inside this average disc is a great one waiting to happen. Too bad it's still locked up.

Quirky folk-pop much like what James McMurtry sounds like these days. Masen's voice is pleasantly fragile, which plays off the way over-produced musical backing nicely.

An awfully ambitious sounding album, with good reason. Masen has a nice ear for writing, though as I noted, the production is way too slick. I like the songs and the singer, but not the backing band. Down, boys.

I'm sure this will go over well with the Joan Osbourne set, but I still wish the arrangements were more sparse. Masen has a cool voice, but less guitar, not more, would help bring out its character. It's obvious the producer (Charlie Peacock) took a bit of the edge off a couple songs, and the results are poorer for it. Of course, one of her backing vocalists is Brent Bourgeois, who knows more than a little about overzealous producers.

Yeah, as a "contemporary Christian" album, this is fairly impressive. But the extra attempts to make this accessible ultimately turned me off. Too bad about that.

Grungy pop stuff that rarely stops to check and make sure all cylinders are still running. Highly unoriginal and terrible derivative.

Damned near unlistenable, actually. Particularly when the guys decide they should throw in a little ska or something. I appreciate the fact that these folks are trying to sound interesting. It just doesn't work, mostly because the musical range of this band is quite limited.

This is like one of those garage bands you see at some college town bar on a Monday night. The odd amusing riff flits out, but the band is just unable to do anything with it. And the rest of the time you're hollering at your friends in an attempt to have a conversation over the racket.

Absolutely clueless. I can't imagine why anyone would like this. But, of course, I said the same thing about Candlebox years ago.

Murphy has been the ultimate "have guitar, will travel" slinger of the past five years. He's played in more bands than even I can remember. But now he has the chance to pay back his old mates and write his own songs, playing his own music for once.

Not entirely instrumental, as Devin Townsend, Chuck Billy and Eddie Ellis lend their throats to three tunes. The star here, though, is obviously Murphy, who revels in the chance to flit through various moods.

Unlike many metal guitar heroes, Murphy refuses to merely play fast. He has the highly unusual ability to take a speed run and turn it into a beautiful phrase. And then slow his lines back to a crawl, while losing none of the intensity.

Now, the styles are what you might expect. Plenty of metal cliches in the basic music construction, and that gets a bit old. But Murphy's playing is great, and he has a knack of cutting in with another brilliant line just before the music becomes interminable. Could it be better? Sure. But this is pretty damned good, nonetheless.

The last time I paid a lot of attention to this band was when I reviewed their first album for Relativity. That gig, of course, evaporated soon after Two Words didn't do quite what the new Sony bosses wanted. After gigging about and cranking out and EP for Goldenrod and a few 7"s, the Colorfast has landed on Headhunter.

Some things don't change: crunchy pop music that as often as not has hooks a plenty. And a few truly dreadful tunes that make you wonder just why the hell you bought the record in the first place. You have to take the good with the bad, and luckily the former is more in evidence here.

I'd like to report an evolution in the band's sound after four years or so, but that's simply not the case. The Overwhelming Colorfast is still stuck in that "God, wouldn't it be cool to be a Husker Du cover band?" mode. Which runs us right into that good thing/bad thing dichotomy again.

But this is where OC should have been in the first place. While the guys will never sell a million records, they'll do alright at a label with lower sales expectations. As long as the hooks keep coming.

The titles consist of generally unpleasant situations, and the sound is reconstructed industrial noise. About what you might expect from the package.

Astonishingly creative mixing, I might add. Perhaps that comes from a lot of free time in Australia (which is where the band hails from). No matter. All of the stuff is stunning.

The finest work here is in the percussion sequencing. Anyone who thinks a drum machine means dull beats will be converted here. The trends range all over the club scene, usually mixing and matching within each song. Obviously, the furthest thing from dull.

Strident, brutal and ultimately beautiful work. Shinjuku Filth has sonic construction (and reconstruction) down, and has ventured into a few previously unexplored territory here. Enough cannot be said about the resplendent brilliance of this album. Words could never satisfy.

Spinner has all the right ideas: a little blues, a little soul, a splash of flash and gritty vocals. Nothing over-the-top, just basic music.

But while I can hear all the separate parts, there is no assimilation. Everything remains in suspension; no mixture. The songs themselves are workmanlike in construction and performance. Nothing to complain about, but nothing exciting, either. Spinner is a fine guitar player, but talent can get you only so far.

Few can overcome a lack of inspiration. This music fits together like a perfect puzzle, but doesn't have that extra kick. No faulting the effort, but the results are just not impressive.

Noisy pop from NYC, though this carries a lot of Pacific NW baggage. A little grunge, a little Posies-style Big Star homage going on.

Unfortunately, 383 Stroker leans a little hard on the heavy side of things, and songs that might have been fleshed out a bit better turn into riff fests. Not terrible, mind you, but not terribly interesting, either.

Obviously, though, this is what the band wanted. The songs trend grungier just as the production does. There are nice nuggets of songs in here, but they're lost in the whole riffola shuffle. Too bad.

I wish the guys had more confidence in their songs. This would have been much better if the band didn't hide behind walls of guitars and knob tricks.

Noise, and you probably already know. Plenty of screaming and other tricks of distortion to keep you occupied.

And some tape loopiness to keep things interesting. This is obvious high concept (or is that low concept?) stuff. You either want to like it or not. I like it, but it doesn't knock me on my ass. I keep wanting that extra... well, if I know what it was, I'd probably be hearing it.

Still, a nice collection of random musical violence. To Live and Shave in L.A. already has a fine reputation for this sort of musical mayhem, and this album doesn't disappoint.

Sounds a little more thrown together than previous stuff I've heard (and that's saying something). The spontaneous nature of the songs is nice, but I'm still in search of a unifying concept. Not that any such thing was intended, of course.

One thing about Pat Travers: he swings for the fences.

The songs here are complex, pounding blues tracks. The production lays everything out in a seriously bombastic style, but the result is just a series of pop flies.

Travers has this annoying habit of writing by the numbers. This lead lick here, this progression there. And this cliche right here. Nothing has changed. The lyrics are hackneyed, and you've heard all the riffs before, generally in a better context somewhere else.

Hey, he gets credit from me for the work, but the result just isn't interesting. Other than playing the little game of "I know what comes next", which gets old quickly.

I know the idea, keep hacking away and eventually you win the World Series in the bottom of the ninth. But Travers is no musical Joe Carter.

Five years ago, this is what "industrial" meant: pounding beats, wailing guitar screams and pain-inflicting lyrics. Stuff that doesn't really lend itself to the latest dance club move.

Reminds me a bit of Dead World, and obviously older Godflesh. The production is quite good, leaving just enough of a dull edge on the sound to create an ominous feel. This puppy just keeps throbbing and throbbing, with no respite until it concludes. Amazing.

Gothic in the sense of spartan arrangements and black overtones. Trust Obey (from Kansas City, of all places) shows us where the dark spots on the soul of humanity really are. You may not want to look, but truth is a good thing sometimes. Just don't get in the way.

This is the soundtrack to a special edition of The Crow comic book. Makes for much more appropriate listening than either of the two movie soundtracks.

The music is of an earlier vintage than the Trust Obey album reviewed above, and the production level shows. There are quite a few seams, and the sound isn't anywhere near as impressive. I'm missing that sense of foreboding Hand of Ash produced. And here, John Bergin and friends haven't hit upon the sound that really impressed me on their later album.

Still, there are a few tracks that stand out, and this is damned fine music for reading a comic (or whatever). The progression of the band is interesting to hear. Indeed, that's one of the best things about this disc.

If you get this with your comic, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Even with four CDs, you know folks are going to bitch that so-and-so didn't get included. I'm not the world's greatest authority on goth pop music, so I'm not going to worry too much about that, except to say that almost everyone I expected to be here is.

Sure, much of this is just stuff from the Cleopatra back catalog. But even if the set had stuck to that, you'd have a good set. And like I said, there is no such thing as a complete set. And plenty of licensed stuff from other outlets make appearances, so while there may be a few too many ex-Christian Death folks here, the diversity is just fine.

Obviously the compiler got to the original tapes, so the sound pops out possibly even sharper than on your original discs. Much of the stuff here is rare or remixed, so direct comparisons aren't always possible, but I'm still impressed by the mastering job.

Alright, I couldn't sit through the whole thing. So much of similar sorts of music tends to drive me batty. But this is a good set for anyone who digs goth pop (or dark wave, or whatever it's called these days). The inclusion of rare tracks will probably entice even those with sizable collections. Hey, you even get a poster. The folks thought of everything.

A two disc set. Disc one has tracks from such ambient-space (the WD folks like the word "organic") types as Shriekback, Perfume Tree and Loveflag. That set of 11 tracks is wildly diverse and mostly good. The second disc consists of three Sky Cries Mary remixes, and that is positively amazing.

Hey, this puppy is worth the cash just for that second disc. The stuff on the first disc is mostly remixes as well, although a couple tracks come directly from previously released albums. So don't get excited; that Loop Guru track isn't new.

If you'd like to get into the more muted forms of electronic music, this is a reasonable starting point. I'm completely knocked out by the Sky Cries Mary work, but the rest isn't half bad, either.

Cybercore artists ripping through rap songs. An interesting idea, one that works best when the song has something to say.

I'm afraid I'm a big fan of what has become "old school", stuff like Paris and Public Enemy (both represented well here). See, even cool folks like Clay People can't do a damned thing with House of Pain's "Jump Around", which is about as inane a song as has ever appeared.

The strangest choice was Abstinence's selection of the B-Boys "Two Three Break". That is really reaching back. The rest goes from the sublime (SMP thrashing out "Prophets of Rage") to the utterly silly (as any cover of "Gangsta's Paradise" was bound to be).

In final analysis, this puppy is so uneven I couldn't stand to play the whole advance tape all the way through in one sitting. Same result with the disc. I like plenty of rap music, but not all the pop crap that makes up about half of this collection. Yeah, so Numb's version of "Push It" is quite good. I'm just quite sure I don't need to hear a Beastie Boys song ever again.

Now, mixing and matching styles is a good idea, particularly for marketing purposes. It just doesn't work for me here.