Accept, and more specifically once and current lead singer Udo Dirkschneider, is one of the reasons why I prefer not to use the term "hair rock" when referring to the passel of metal bands that made the 80s a fun time to grow up. I mean, you really think Nelson and Iron Maiden belong anywhere near each other?

As 80s metal bands went, Accept never quite broke into the mainstream. No album hit the Top 40, and they played places like Greyhound Arena in Portales, NM (along with Krokus; I missed the show because my friends were too drunk to remember when I lived). I'd like to say that I was a devoted fan, but I wasn't. When I heard Accept I liked it (and I do know most of Metal Heart pretty well, and how can you not like a song like "London Leatherboys"), I'm not what you'd call a devoted fan.

This puppy is produced by Michael Wagener (who else?), and original members Udo, Wolf Hoffman and Peter Baltes are still cranking out much the same stuff they did 15 years ago. Good riffage, nice hooks and the trademark Dirkschneider growl.

Even with the Kiss comeback and whatever it is that Motley Crue is doing, this is not 1982, and Accept has very little chance of really breaking out this late in the band's career. A good album, though, is always appreciated in these quarters.

A simple set of sounds: voice, violin, viola and percussion. This is the sort of chamber music that goths love to die to (I'm sorry, I spent last night watching people in black--or wedding dresses--slouch around a dance floor). Not to disparage any such activity, of course; my dancing abilities are extremely limited and generally involve my knees falling apart in about half an hour.

Awfully damned pretentious, which goes with the concept, of course. Attrition's main strength is the wonderful sparse recording sound achieved. An anti wall-of-sound, really, which leaves plenty of intriguing dead spots.

The music is good enough, although this isn't quite classical music in construction or execution. The playing is good, but not terribly expressive. The singing is fine, and as I noted, everything sounds much better than it should due to the fine recording job.

It doesn't knock me out, but as a whole, particularly, Etude is pretty good. Perhaps a better idea than was executed, but why nitpick?

A little sludge-groove going on, a more accessible mutation of the familiar Boston sound. Even some glam moments, which I find kinda interesting.

Of course, you could also chalk those up to a latter-day Suicidal influence. The bass lines stay pretty much the same throughout, which makes Big Wig less appealing as the disc spins through.

The sound is typical sludge, very muffled and dull. It sounds much better when cranked to the ceiling. Big Wig also fares better with such treatment.

The lyrics are damned funny at times, though I'm not a huge fan of the delivery style. Kind of a wanky, whiny sorta wheeze. On the whole, I like this better than I should, though it gets old quickly.

Boy, if someone looked at this week's set of discs, they'd think there was a real metal resurgence. Charade sounds a lot like Winger, Enuff Z'nuff and such bands that had the occasional good song, but wore badly.

Maybe I was wrong at the end of the Accept review; perhaps now is the time for stuff like this to break out. I'm not too sure. Charade has some nice guitar licks, but Ralph Magerkurth's voice is simply not suited to the upper reaches of the range dictated by the band. Not that this has stopped anyone else, but I'm not a fan of strained vocals.

The production is very good for a self-released disc. A lot of time (and some cash, I'd guess) went into making UnEarthed sound this good. I just wish the music matched up.

Simply too many musical cliches. "Nothings Changed" (sic) could have been recorded by Great White, Slaughter or any number of bands. Of course, them folks sold lots of records. And maybe that time has come again. I'm out of the prognostication business.

Quite a package. The graphics are great, the album title is one of the coolest I've heard in some time, and to top it off, the music is some of the finer textured gothic industrial stuff I've encountered in some time.

Alright, so the "angel" in question is a mythical series of Mars exploration probes, and the songs represent bits and pieces of the findings reported by the last, lost probe. Apparently there is life on the red planet, after all.

I know, I know, it sounds a bit silly and certainly over the top, but the Crüxshadows pull it off exquisitely. The music is great, the beats particularly impressive for sequencer work. The keyboards add depth and shadings, but never get tinny and overpowering. The guitar lines are simple and elegant and mesh quite well with the underlying groove in each song.

The longer songs (with vocals) are spaced out by one- to two-minute long interludes, which are impressive in themselves. Obviously, a huge amount of effort went into this album, and the painstaking work is evident as soon as you see the cover. The Crüxshadows have paid attention to every detail, and the result is a superior album.

I suppose the most amusing notation on the package is the DFL web site. For one of the most lo-fi (and generally low class) hardcore outfits around, this is simply too much.

Impossibly sloppy, and with a truly maddening feature: all 16 song consist of one track on the CD. So people like me can't simply skip through the bastard when we tire of one rant or another.

Anyone who's curious can find out the superstar connection to this band (it's pretty obvious just listening, really). Like I said when the last album appeared, I can't find a whole lot of reasons to buy this.

It's not that I'm against utterly messy hardcore, but on top of the musical hamburger, DFL doesn't have a damned thing to say. Punk for punk's sake, though I have to say the Red Aunts do this sort of thing so much better. I can't think of anyone who does it worse.

Admittedly lo-tech, Dellinger has a nice touch on the whole gothic pop concept. And perhaps his somewhat clunky execution actually make the whole sound better than many technologially superior acts.

Not unlike if the Magnetic Fields was a goth act, Dellinger incorporates a sparse sound (probably by necessity) into four fairly dreary tunes. This is exactly what is called for, of course, and Dellinger's lyrics aren't nearly so morbidly silly as many in the same circle.

Perhaps the songs are a bit long, and Dellinger does need to change up his drum machine a bit more between songs (or he'll really start sounding like Gary Numan). These are fairly quibbling points, really. For a one-man effort, this is impressive.

A collection of work, religious and folk (a nice catchall description) songs sung a cappella and with minimal accompaniment by 13 vocalists.

Strangely I was already familiar with the first track, "Odoia", which Billy Joel featured on his live album of a few years back (don't even ask why I remember this). The liners try to explain the purpose of the various songs, though it becomes quite clear as you listen more. The work songs are very rigid and structured (quite unlike an American equivalent, the spiritual), while the folk songs are much more free-flowing.

Using equivalencies like the spirituals, though, really negates the whole purpose of music like this, which is to provide a snapshot of Georgian culture so that we can understand this part of the world a little better.

Like its neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia is European, Asian and middle-eastern, and yet it is also none of the above. It has been influenced greatly by the Russians (neighbors to the north who are equally confused about their place in the world) and the Turks (neighbors to the southwest), but these songs easily predate the Soviet Union or modern Turkey.

As much a political and geographical statement as a cultural one, the Ensemble Georgika has put together a disc that should help people understand and appreciate a small corner of the world.

Or, "Let's get all this crap out the vault". Now that Entombed has left Earache, it's time for that label to issue forth some odds and ends.

Not a greatest hits, but more collected bits and pieces from harder to find releases. A lot of covers, from "God of Thunder" to Roky Erickson's "Night of the Vampire", but the real good stuff here is contained in the originals.

The monster fan will have most of this stuff, But the average fan might be interested. Let me warn you: this stuff is amazingly uneven, great songs and terrible covers blenderized into this set. But even in the worst moments, Entombed manages to wring a little amusement value out of the proceedings.

I've seen lots of these sorts of packages, and they're released for one reason: cash value. I'm not calling buyers of such things suckers (I've bought plenty myself); just be forewarned.

More the talents of Rick Dobbelaer than any group (he wrote all the songs, co-produced the proceedings and he (singing and guitar) and Dave Romie (drums) are the only two people to play on every track), Gabo kicks out mostly non-offensive and affected "alt pop" music.

Ranging from the acoustic side of Love and Rockets to Toad the Wet Sprocket to some really nasty lounge moments, Gabo pretty much sticks to "mellow" territory. Many of the guitar lines are very pretty, and the lyrics aren't completely insipid (though I'd like a little more bite).

Dobbelaer obviously knew what he wanted the album to sound like, though, and his biggest accomplishment here is the fine production. This sounds like a major label release, and perhaps that's where my beef lies. I'd like to get a bit more kick.

Still, this is the sort of stuff many folks I know like immensely. I don't, but I won't let that get completely in the way of my judgment. I'm not in favor of the intentions or musical goal, but Gabo does its shtick well.

No surprise, we've got more sludge-core on the plate. I'd relate a certain dream I had lately about the true composition of "what-not", but I don't it's make much more sense if I wrote 1,000 words on the subject. Suffice to say I associate Honkeyball with a big-ass bowl of beans, sausage and assorted debris.

I'll refrain from the usual rectal references, and simply say that Honkeyball likes to find a groove and sit on it real hard. This is a good thing. In fact, it's the best way to survive in the sludge pit. Anyone can discover a tasty lick; it takes prescience and determination to stick with that puppy and craft a song around said groove, keeping the funk in sight at all times. Honkeyball has that ability.

And the songs are just the beginning. The playing is unusually sharp, and the typical sludge sound has been modified a bit to allow for some treble in the guitars. Bravo!

Fifteen songs in fifty minutes, certainly a good load of what-not. I find a lot of bands in the sludge are to be somewhat repetitive and boring, but Honkeyball is quite inventive. Worth the extra effort to digest.

A Jersey hardcore band that sounds like a Britpunk band playing Sam Black Church? God help us all.

Plenty of the doctrinaire ("Divided We Fall" is right out of the punk handbook, and "Interference" could have been penciled in the margins), which limits the appeal. I'm still not sure why the singer ("Red") feels the need to affect a British accent, but he does, and it bugs the shit out of me. I know, I know, that's not supposed to matter, but it does.

Add to that the really "by the book" style of the lyric and music writing, and there just aren't that many bright points. IDK can play this music well, but so could a few chimpanzees with a few lessons. The real trick is to make a statement without resorting to slogans, to put a new musical spin on the three-chord ditty.

IDK does nothing of the sort. Competent musicianship isn't artistry.

The members of Acumen and Clay People get together, rip out a few techno-metal dancehall anthems and a couple Nitzer Ebb songs, just for the fuck of it.

I've always liked the more "live" sound of Clay People than the very processed output of Acumen. This is where I'd like Acumen to be in general. A little more aggro, some faster beats. This sort of music works much better at a higher speed, and that's all there is to it.

A lot of fun for the metalhed, the cold wave fanatics, and anyone who digs that whole Chemlab sorta sound. There's not much substance behind the great sound, but I'm not gonna bitch too much. This sounds too good for large complaints.

If Acumen can take something from this, well, I guess that would be the ultimate good result. A fine confluence of competing sounds, with a sterling result.

An unholy racket if I've ever heard one. Jermflux cranks out a mass of flailing riffs and generally pain-inflicting music that refuses to sit down for slackers.

Perhaps the closest I've heard to one of my favorite bands of a few years back, Agony Column. Jermflux has more of a death metal feel (though I think this is more reflective of the lo-fi production job than any real intent), but the general sonic fury of the bands is similar.

Four tunes, all in somewhat the same vein. A smorgasbord of intensity for all you who haven't bled your eardrums lately.

Skillful it ain't, but Jermflux knows how to disembowel folks with a mad guitar. Yee-haa!

Certainly the first Epitaph release produced by David Was, Citizen Wayne sports a shinier, yet rougher feel than last year's Dangerous Madness. Everything sounds much more crafted than either of Kramer's previous Epitaph releases, with much more focus on construction than guitar playing.

A good move really. Kramer still refuses to kick out a real burner, but with "Revolution in Apt. 29", he presents a nice rawk anthem with some perceptive lyrics. The very next track samples Richard Daley's famous malapropism on the Chicago riots ("The police are there to preserve disorder"), incorporating a real MC5 feel.

David Was' contributions are obvious. First, the existence of samples and the ultra-tight production (both of which help out immensely). And also in keeping Kramer focused and the overall sound lean. Yeah, those are drum machines on a few tracks, but they work. In this case, climbing up to get down is precisely the formula needed.

Easily the most satisfying of Kramer's Epitaph albums. Fewer clunkers and a more coherent vision are the keys. Less clutter means more of Kramer's ideas (musical and lyrical) in the forefront. I was quite skeptical, but David Was was the right choice, and Citizen Wayne reaps the benefits.

Roots rock with a classic feel, an acoustic version of Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Southern Culture on the Skids and R.E.M. And the guy is based in New York. Of course.

Lampos is best on slow-burn anthems like "All Saints Day, Paris" and "Book of Mystery", where he simply lets the songs come to him and allows his voice full flower. Plus, I really like the violin (not fiddle; I'm no idiot) accompaniment.

He kicks up his heels to a bit lesser effect, but keeping the sound mostly acoustic helps to contain the possible pretentiousness. The songs never get overbearing, and Lampos actually has something relevant to reveal.

One of those albums that's just way out of time. An ideal companion to John Cougar Mellencamp's "stripped-down" days (or, more appropriately, James McMurtry's first album), Innuendoes of Lafayette is one of those kinda country, kinda folk, kinda rock albums that manages to satisfy all of those jones. Lampos is a songwriter of unusual power.

I wish the guys would stick to their grooves just a bit more, but for the most part Lazycain has a nice handle on that punk-noise-grunge sound made famous by another Virginia band, Kepone.

Lazycain focuses on the guitar hero poses a bit more, and they get docked for that indiscretion. otherwise, the riffs are solid, the hooks nicely anthemic and the production messy enough to emphasize the band's power.

The musical execution is a bit uneven. While Lazycain finds some nice grooves, there is still a bit too much of the wanking holding pattern (to understand what I mean: imagine a band on stage playing the same repetitive metal riff over and over while making their hair dance). I wish the songs would move of their own accord.

Promising, though. I'd like to hear more.

Claus Larsen, of course, and the first 11 tracks are well-known to his many fans. I've raved about Leaether Strip's accomplished sonic sculpture and industrial production, and I figure that sort of stuff will probably seem a bit overbearing to many.

So I'll focus on the three unreleased tracks that inhabit the end of the disc. Obviously, as Larsen has improved his grasp on technology, he has filled out Leaether Strip's sound accordingly. These tracks are as full (yet haunting) as any that have come before. Leaether Strip has always had plenty of gothic influences, and this has never been more evident than on "Take the Fear Away", a truly stunning song.

The other two "bonus" tracks are just as impressive in their differences. Larsen has always liked to explore rather than rehash, and so this disc is a full testament to his journey. "Lies to Tell" (remixed by Lights of Euphoria) is a fitting end to the collection, a crashing club anthem that exhibits yet another side to Leaether Strip.

Initiates of the order now have their primer. Study well.

Not unlike a weaker version of Cuts Like a Knife-era Bryan Adams, Little Children ply the pop/rock rapids with technical skill and rather mundane songwriting.

I don't want to sound like a one trick pony here, but this sort of thing has been done before. I kinda liked it when I was twelve, but when you leave childhood you put away childish things. And kids today aren't listening to this sorta thing. Rapidly aging Gen X-ers are, but they seem to prefer the real, if refried, Bryan Adams article.

Sharp production and nice playing can't overcome the fleabitten songs. After coming out of mothballs, this type of stuff sounds a lot worse.

Not very often that I get to review an album by a genuine legend. If you don't know who played with the Bluesbreakers in the 60s and 70s, why don't you simply saunter over to the bookcase and pick up your favorite reference. The names are simply too numerous to mention.

Mayall's albums generally rise and fall by the quality of his sides, and while the names here aren't household, the guys hold their own. Mayall's songs are solid, if workmanlike, representations of the blues (mostly Chicago-style), and his vocals aren't terribly inspiring, but the playing is awful nice.

While Mayall isn't afraid to overload the speakers, he plays the blues with a bit more reverence and feel than today's crop of bluesmen. A sense of how shifting dynamics can help bring across the emotion of a song is just one of the reasons young players should pay attention to Mayall's shade of the blues.

Now, the songwriting is a bit to pedestrian to get overly excited, but Mayall presents another solid set. Certainly worth a listen, particularly when he hits the title track, which is worthy of such a position.

Like a cheesier version of the Connells, Men of Leisure slides along a soft pop highway, with a few side influences dropping in now and again.

Some of the songs simply float along, lighter than air ("Ruby" is a good example), but a good number of songs resort to that old familiar college pop acoustic guitar funk riff that got old long before Better than Ezra and Toad the Wet Sprocket drove the thing into the ground.

The Beatlesesque moments are the best. And while the playing is superb and the sound dead solid perfect, the inconsistent songwriting is a problem. The main writers have quite a few good ideas, but when they get in trouble they simply whip out a musical cliche. That's not good.

And there's definite filler here. Men of Leisure needs some time to grow, certainly. Call back in a year.

Utterly sloppy and woefully inconsistent, Muddy Frankenstein whips out one of the more mordant versions of rockabilly that I've heard.

Well, probably more punk, but the drumming is straight out of Buddy Holly. Sometimes the mess congeals into a great tune like "It's Up to You", which is simply amazing. But more often the guitar and bass lose track of each other, and the drummer keeps on keeping on.

My brain gets lost trying to keep up. There is an astonishing energy flowing through the music; I just wish I could make a little more sense of the proceedings.

When they're good, they're good. When they're bad, they're execrable. Yow!

Another member of the increasingly technical northwest industrial scene. Noise Box uses guitars, keyboards, sequencers and lots of other tightly-edited sound producers to craft this sound, and the painstaking efforts are successful, as usual.

Experimental as always, Noise Box has put together quite a few club-ready tunes as well. This set has a nice selection of all sides of the band. Such a willingness to explore the possibilities of sound is welcome.

The final production has given the disc an artificial sound, and that bugs me a bit. Sparse is fine, and surgeon-quality precision is a nice skill to have, but I'd like to hear just a bit more of the human element. This isn't a big complaint, mind you, but I have to voice it, nonetheless.

On the whole, though a high quality outing. If Noise Box continues in its mission to merge the accessible with the experimental, I'll be around for the ride.

Plumbing the same technical death metal realms as on World Demise, Obituary has improved a bit over that outing, dropping the "alternative" riff concept in favor of a more "old-fashioned" death metal style.

I like the result. There's just no need for a death metal band to jump on the grunge bandwagon (which is how I viewed the last album), and so Obituary returns to the fold here. The songwriting is solid as usual, and the production is really sharp, the only problem in that area being the obvious drop-ins of the guitar solos.

Much more adrenaline-pumping than World Demise, Obituary has taken a few hints from Fear Factory and the last Suffocation release, bringing an almost industrial feel to some songs. And true old-school fans may want to skip the final track, which one of the few death metal/rap songs I'e ever heard. Amusing, if not terribly good.

A nice return to form. I don't know how many fans are still out there, but Obituary has crafted an album for them.

The first album without bassist Jason Thirsk (who had been replaced before he died), to whom this album is dedicated. The net result is same old Pennywise, with possibly somewhat tighter songwriting.

Pennywise has always had to fight the tag of Bad Religion clone, but since many folks don't remember the BR glory days of No Control and Against the Grain, I wouldn't worry too much. Yes, this stuff copies the "full speed ahead, drop in a few oozin' ahs" formula, but the band does it exceptionally well, with sharper attention to lyrics than Bad Religion has had in years.

Actually, this album is more focused than any previous Pennywise effort. While the earlier albums would generally have a couple lag points, Full Circle cranks through all the bullshit, taking no prisoners. High octane, indeed.

The total package. Pennywise has always put out very good albums. This one is great. The difference is small but substantial.

Funk, blues and country-tinged rock that would have fit in real well in the late 70s, when bands like Supertramp and Fleetwood Mac used the same formula to great effect.

Today, it sounds kinda dated. Reggie Bannister has a nice touch for songwriting, though his voice is really too mundane to showcase this sound. It takes that little rasp, squeak or other vocal quirk to make this sort of material. Bannister doesn't have anything of the sort.

Still, the playing is excellent, and while the production leaves the overall sound a bit thin, it's adequate. Yeah, the songs are good, but they need to be punched up a bit by whoever performs them. This is just a bit too innocuous.

Bannister is lost in time, which doesn't help his chances, either. Twenty years ago, a major label might have packaged him with a singer and a band and done something. Probably won't happen today.

Thick-as-mud funk/rap with enough guitars to keep the kids happy. The sound is damned hard to get through, but the overall effect is pretty impressive.

A lower-key, lo-fi version of Rage. Well, the guitars are in funk, not metal, mode, and Lawrence Martinez seems intent on making his vocals understandable. Both are improvements, in my book.

The more I hear, the more I like. Instead of getting dreary and repetitive, Salmon kicks the sound around different rhythm cores and even drop down low every once in a while. My goodness, some real feel for good music here.

Don't get me wrong; Salmon gets as raucous as anyone. But the abusively thick sound helps drive the music to a place I've never quite been before. Fun and thought-provoking at the same time. Here's something to watch.

More hardcore pop that accesses emo and plenty of other sorts of styles. From Kansas City, which is beginning to seem something of a Mecca for these bands. This is the second disc I've heard from these guys, and it tops the first (good) one in every way.

The playing is altogether more assured. Shiner sounds like it knows exactly what it wants to play and how to play it. The execution is dead-on, and the production has left juts enough of a dirty edge to make the disc interesting.

The range of the band is astonishing. One moment an almost-sweet melody rings out, the next is caterwauling, pure and simple. And Shiner isn't afraid to wander in-between when appropriate.

Shiner showcases the finest of the various "punk" sounds in existence today. Yeah, the guys learned at the feet of Jawbox (guess who owns DeSoto, anyway) and other bands like that, but this album takes those ideas and finds a whole new way of expressing them.

Unclassifiable, except perhaps merely as "excellent music". One of them "don't miss" albums.

College kids (I assume, as the publisher is listed as "Sharp Hall Records") working their way through the various moods of a guitar band.

The mastering is pretty damned low, which doesn't help things. The production itself is fairly sharp, allowing the guitars a little bite. The main problem is the songwriting, which sounds something like Jethro Tull meets Alice in Chains.

And yet a lot mellower than you might guess. These kids are trying their collective ass off, and it pays off on strong songs like the title track. Most of the songs have some good moments, but Silkenseed hasn't quite figured out how to consistently write good stuff. That comes with work and time.

I applaud the adventurous spirit. Perhaps someday Silkenseed will accomplish what it's setting out to do.

The word I got on this was simply "not good". After listening, I understand. I don't agree with that assessment, but I understand.

Spahn Ranch has wandered all over the electronic music frontier, from old school techno to a more gothic feel on the last album to the new electronic (Chemical Brothers, etc.) that's featured here. Yeah, it's really different, particularly if you're expecting more stuff like "Locusts". On the other hand, The guys know how to make good music, no matter what sort.

Not quite as adventurous or highly textured as the top Brit electronic bands, Architecture actually adds an interesting gothic layer to this sound. This works better at some times than others, but it's never dull.

Spahn Ranch has always tried to be one step ahead of the trends. The Coiled One anticipated the big gothic surge, and so Architecture is poised to cash in on the big electronic wave that is just now reaching shore. And if you want more of the older days, you'll have to be content with tracks like "Futurist Limited".

I'm never going to bitch about a band that likes to take chances. Some of the stuff here sounds just a bit contrived, but you've gotta try stuff to see what works. Spahn Ranch is simply doing what comes naturally.

Casio-driven cheese rock, a la "Maniac" and such stuff. The sort of thing you really have to hear to truly believe.

And believe me, it's bad. I think it's some sort of joke, but even then it fails to rate much of anything.

Bad singing, bad lyrics, bad guitars and that nasty Casio pre-programmed drum machine going wild. This is the sort of thing I'll hear when I go to Hell.

I'm sorry. There's nothing nice I can say at all.

New singer (Scott is doing Pulley--not to mention the Dodgers--full-time now), but the same old same old. Which is not bad at all.

The songs are a little looser than Rev, but I don't think that's a terrible thing. The new singer (a certain "Dennis") sounds a lot like Dave Smalley, which lends more of an ALL (or probably more specifically, Down By Law) sound to the whole proceeding. Not that I'm complaining.

Fun and good. Good and fun. All that stuff. Ten Foot Pole has always been missing that certain "kick" to break them out of the pack, and that doesn't change here. Everything is solid, but there is a little piece that's still missing. Of course, I'm also comparing the bad to the new Pennywise, and it doesn't quite match up (though it's closer than you might think).

A fine effort. Perhaps I'll find what I"m looking for next time around.

In the fine tradition of hardcore bands recording metal albums (and there IS a difference, believe me), Withstand has added a big sheen to the guitar sound and turned the somewhat anthemic into gawdawful pretentiousness.

There are lots of reasons why I generally am disappointed by this sort of thing, and Withstand presents me with almost all of them. The songs have nearly identical constructions, things move along at a dirge-like pace for far too long, the attitude comes across as idiocy; that sort of thing. In a word: Bleah.

Yes, I understand that many folks are enamored of this kinda thing (someone bought the new Rollins Band, for reasons unknown to me), but that's really no excuse. Eve an interesting interlude like "All Souls" comes off like "Lick My Love Pump".

Too much posing for my taste. I need a bit more substance.