The focus here is on the strange interplay between the lyrics and the music. The sound is sparse and simplistic, with very little focus anywhere.

The a-side is "Brecks Shoes", though after listening through the thing twice I'm still not sure what shoes have to do with the song.

Now, "The Star Wars Trilogy", a set of three pieces that inhabit the b-side, makes a little more sense. Consisting mostly of the most obvious Star Wars quotes and the same rambling music, I can't say it gets me off in any expansive way.

Still, A has a cool style, one that even my craving for something (well, anything, really) couldn't pierce. Plenty of dry humor abound as well, which is fine if you're in the mood. This is oddly compelling. I like it for no good reason at all.

Well, everyone needs an acerbic Britpop band in their lineup, I suppose. And honestly, Bennet is much better than most of the wankers some other indies have been propagating.

Attacking the pop form with guitars wailing, Bennet scrawls its way through 16 songs, including "the obligatory secret track", a song whose construction rips Pavement a new asshole. Hey, I love these folks!

The stuff is incandescent joy, peals of arrogance and shards of cynicism. Plenty of work went into this album, and none of it was wasted. Superbly written, performed and produced. A wondrous debut.

Oh, sure, you gotta figure these folk will score big, ending up fat and coked out, like Liam (or his brother; I can't keep Oasis scandals straight). But for now Bennet is content to rail at the pop establishment, two fingers in the air.

Really fine. If Bennet can keep this up, may God save us all.

With a throbbing Godflesh-meets-AmRep sound, Christdriver bridges the electronic/punk divide with astonishing ease. The songs are basically hardcore rants, with lots of weird noise disturbances around the edges. And the occasional bit of spoken word wisdom.

The production leaves everything just a bit too muddy for my taste. but then I have a feeling that's the style the band wanted. Christdriver makes its ultimate statement in the assimilation of the musical styles; the tunes aren't the greatest, but the accomplishment is huge.

Boy, if I could rig up a Buzzov*en-Fear Factory-Christdriver show. That would be something. Sonic violence for the ages.

Alright, so the masses will run screaming. I think that's the whole point.

East Bay style all the way, albeit with a bit more sludge than usual. Well, since they're actually from Miami, I guess some adaptation is in order. Perfectly acceptable, perfectly generic. Just like the 7".

Nice for head-bobbing and all, but nothing to get hopped up about. The Crumbs don't put forth any case for widespread notice at all. Just solid punk.

And no, there's nothing wrong with that at all. There's just a ton of bands out there right now that fit the description. Ten years ago, I might have gotten a little more excited. Now, I've heard it all before.

Reasonable quality, but far too bland.

Merging a grunge drone and glam whine with really silly lyrics, Dead By Dawn almost manages to capture my imagination. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite over-the-top enough.

The music is pretty damned near insipid, really. I know, I know, grunge is a man's music, and I shouldn't bitch about it, but these faux-Iommi riffs have been getting on my nerves for a while now.

Like I noted, though, a saving grace is this odd tendency to warp into a glam metal groove every now and again. And, of course, the lyrics are completely retarded, which also helps. I mean, if you can't do anything else, laugh.

For a self-produced disc, this sounds really great. Everything is sharp and in focus, which probably is a detriment, because I can hear exactly what the band tried to do (all that stuff I didn't like). Almost fun; almost enough.

As a Missouri college student in the 80s, I couldn't avoid the sound of the Millions, a Lincoln (Neb.) band. As a Missouri college student in the 90s, I got damned excited every time I saw Mercy Rule (another band from Nebraska). And so arrives this disc, with members of both bands (most obviously, the singers) and a plethora of other local Lincoln talent. All under the watchful eyes of Richard Rebarber.

Really crafted stuff. The press draws comparisons to Kate Bush and Tori Amos, and the meticulous arrangements and production certainly bear out the nods. But where those two artists can get overbearing really fast, Floating Opera simply shines. Perhaps it's the revolving musical cast. Perhaps it's the gorgeous songwriting. Or maybe just some of that Nebraska magic (alright, alright, enough with that weirdness).

A fine set of pop tunes. Six new ones, an odd take on a Husker Du tune (actually, it sounds an awful lot like the Wedding Present, substituting piano for that trademark guitar) and three songs from a three-year-old self-released tape (the sound is seamless, so perhaps this should be considered a full-length; oh well).

Classically-trained pop, painstakingly created and yet not stilted in the slightest. A joy to hear.

When this puppy arrived, I just about soiled my drawers. I mean, that "Sages" 7" was completely awe-inspiring. I was prepared to follow Geezer Lake off a cliff if they told me a pile of Foamy was sitting at the bottom of the fall.

The sound? Just the usual wacko Chapel Hill pop sound. Geezer Lake likes to use a bit more distortion and stuff than folks like Polvo, but the odd song construction persists. No complaints from my department.

Pretty tasty, with all the range and expanse you need in a great pop album. Geezer Lake isn't content to sit in a puddle of generic chords; hell, the guys rarely play a full chord. Ah, yes. Musical creativity.

Cacophony made beautiful; chaos distilled into life's pure essence. Stuff like that. Just remember one thing: Geezer Lake is fucking awesome.

I think that spells it out nicely enough.

I love "dirty" electronic music albums. Bryan Black (aka Haloblack) has crafted a fine set of experimental industrial tunes.

Black hails from Minneapolis, and so its not surprising that his interpretation of "funk" has more than a little to do with the impressions of the great purple one. This revelation came to me while listening to "Nympho" (no, the title wasn't the key here...), and it did color much of the rest of my listening. Now, I'm not saying Black stole from anyone, but his funk features greasy (and highly manipulated) guitar licks, which ties him into that whole Paisley thing. No complaints, of course.

Now I've really done it. Haloblack sounds nothing like Prince (if you don't believe me, plunk down the cash and listen for yourself). I was merely making... no, if I try to explain more it just gets more fucked up. Leave the dog lying about.

Now, before I got so rudely interrupted by myself, I was about to mention the really nice sound Black got on this album. A nasty sort of funk, one that has little to do with the real world. Cyberfunk, or something like that.

You know, the more I try to compliment Haloblack, the more I fuck up. I'm stopping now.

A 1990 set of tunes recorded by a bad that barely existed (read the liners for the mostly tedious story). Dave Grohl (yes, THE Dave Grohl) played bass and Laundry Room head honcho Barret Jones drummed. A guy named Bruce Merkle sang, and his vocals are the most interesting part of the band. Oh, if you're curious, a guy named Tos played guitar.

Boring, overbearing and mostly annoying. There's some sort of musical history thing going on, particularly since a lot of folks seem to think the Foo Fighters (whose first album Jones produced) are actually good. But as something to actually play and enjoy, well, I wouldn't recommend it.

Sometimes these tapes are best left in the box.

If the young Beatles were to get a bit more excited about Buddy Holly (and had the prescience to predict the Clash), they probably would have sounded a lot like the Hi-Fives.

Pure and simple pop, laid out with sparse production (a lot of dead spots; really makes the sound great) to create a cool set. A few strange covers ("Tainted Love" will probably excite a few too many; oh well) round out the disc.

Simply fun stuff. The Hi-Fives aren't about to break any barriers with their music or lyrics, but for lying about on a rainy day, music doesn't get a hell of a lot better. Happy fluff.

Purveyors of finely ages rockabilly (or psychobilly, if you follow the Reverend, I guess), the Hooligans crank out 17 tracks of guitar mania.

The main attraction here is Gig Fortier's guitar slinging. Plenty of echo and reverb give his lean lines that special "otherworldly" quality rockabilly axemen crave. His vocals are equally appropriate to today's rockabilly sensibilities: rough, ready and just a bit wacko.

The sides (Heath Cooley on drums and Jerry Rig on upright bass) are more than adequate, and the sound is perfect for the recorded racket. Now, the song subjects ("Lawnmower Man"-not about the movie-, "Coffee Drinkin' Papa" and "Planet of the Squares", just to name a few) are just plain goofy most of the time, which probably adds to the appeal.

As with most musical revival types, the Hooligans don't do anything terribly earthshaking. Just fun music that sounds great. Ain't that a bitch.

Well, sure, I dug the stuff on the Celtic Frost tribute album, but I just wasn't prepared...

But how could I? I mean, it's been years since doom metal like this has been launched against the American people. And by some of its own, too. The subversive bastards.

My Dying Bride hasn't been this heavy since the first album, and Paradise Lost... don't even talk to me about that. Morgion flails through five tunes, which clock in for a total of almost 35 minutes. Pain, suffering and mortal ruin follow.

Gorgeous, hideous, mind-bending and more. Morgion has accomplished what I thought couldn't be done: to faithfully and confidently tread the doom trail. One of the finest expressions of the sound ever, and these guys have only just begun. Well, it did take them six years to get to this point. Better not take that long for the next one.

Utterly silly. Or completely gross. Either way, these boys have a slasher mentality toward women. Judge that as you like.

Odd as it may seem, this is the first Mortician full-length, after years of renown and not so much output. After losing drummer Matt Sicher to a fatal case of death quite a while back, remaining members Wil Rahmer and Roger Beaujard decided to continue using a drum machine (and a few other electronic effects, too).

The end result is a merging of classic death metal riffage and expectorating with the electronic chaos of black metal. The lyrics are gory, but not particularly satanic. Plus, these guys are from Yonkers, not Norway.

The thank yous are the longest I've ever read (they make up more than half of the liner notes, in really small type), making this a certain death metal classic. I like the way the electronics work with the rest of the output, but the music doesn't terribly excite me. Still, good enough for barbecue.

Rob Williams of Siege is behind all this, and Siege members figure prominently in the press, whether as temporary members or merely cash sources.

Oh, but the sound? Mutant guitar and bass squalls, punctuated by occasional drumming. Songs like "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" and a cover of Lydia Lunch's "Some Boys" are the norm here. Reality is not a concept.

I'm faced here with music I just can't get my head around. Nothing makes sense, and I have a feeling the band likes it that way. I enjoyed listening to the mess, though, so I guess that counts for something.

Not really noise, grindcore, metal, punk or anything else, Nightstick has a sound all its own. 99.9 percent of the world will say, "And thank God for that!" I won't go that far. We need folks to take us to the edge, wherever that may be. All I know it that Nightstick is pirouetting at the precipice.

Emo-core from Orlando. Based on the stuff I've gotten from that area in the past year, I'd have to say that scene beats the Tampa Bay one all to hell. Of course, I'm sure plenty of Orlando bands would suck once signed to a big contract and told what to play.

Souvenir keeps up a nice drone from the guitars, and incorporates the rest of the band nicely within that framework. The production here is standard demo muffle, which inhibits my hearing somewhat. But honestly, what I hears sounds pretty damned good. The nice folks at Crank! and Revelation should take notice.

The best thing is the song construction, which is very sophisticated and yet comes off as simple. A nice trick, usually accomplished by folks after years of trying. Souvenir has it down.

A surprisingly strong demo. This band is utterly signable. Won't someone please get on the ball?

Those unfamiliar with T.H.C. will be happy to know the music fits the name: trippy electronic dance music, also known as trance.

And not just any trance. Some of the cooler stuff around, cranked up by George Sarah, an ex-Stereotaxic Device guy. So you know there's an animal rights thing going on here.

Bigod 20 (Zip Campisi) remixed "Need to Destroy", a track from the Death By Design album. The other five songs are pure T.H.C. consciousness. The sort of thing I like to hear.

Not many folks do this stuff better. T.H.C. is up there in the Ob1/Virtualizer realm, and that's a fine place to live. The best trance refuses to repeat itself, and that sort of creative energy is in full form here. A cool set.

The main attraction is a KMFDM remix of the Swamp Terrorists' "Dive-Right Jab". But the rest of this compilation features tracks from stuff the FCR has licensed from Sub/Mission: Meathead, Templebeat, Cold, L.I.N. and Circus of Pain.

The back claims that all the tracks are previously unreleased, but I think that's a bit dated. Still, the 11 tracks present a good picture of the electronic madness Sub/Mission is known for. Yeah, I've heard some of this stuff before, but the collection is a good one, particularly for the novice.

Even the collector can find a few rare tracks here. If you like the edgy electronic side of the industrial scene, this set should keep you happy for a while.

Now, here's a tribute album I can sink my teeth into. Electronic and industrial artists paying homage to Suicide.

The first track, though, is from Bloodstar's 1992 album. Makes me wonder how much of this stuff is previously released as well. Well, not too much, though.

I've bitched a lot about tribute albums in the past. My main complaint is that we just don't need another Led Zeppelin tribute. Why not a tribute to more obscure artists? And so this collection fits my plea. I mean, plenty of people have an idea that Suicide existed, but the mainstream is utterly clueless. And yet the stuff here is eminently accessible.

The bands also do well to put new spins on the Suicide sound. In all, good renditions and recognition of a sorely underappreciated act make for a good compilation. Well worth the tribute.

Sounding like Jackson Browne back when he made good music, Walkie Talkie takes that cool rock sound and runs it into the sea. Plenty of blues and country roots show through, and the band is willing to wander far afield to make music. All good signs.

The stuff simply keeps rolling out. Each song is a new experience, keeping the sound steady, and yet still managing to innovate within the set form. Walkie Talkie plays like it's about to make a grand statement; this album is perilouly close to that territory as it is.

I see "cash cow" written all over this band. If Jim Lacey Baker's songwriting holds up, Walkie Talkie will be huge. Not just big. Huge. I don't make predictions very often, but then music like this comes by only so often. A couple minor adjustments (punching up the production just a bit and perhaps a little less self-indulgence on the arrangements) and Walkie Talkie will be in the promised land.