Old Friends (short reviews of previously-reviewed artists):

Plenty of bands have channeled Big Star over the years. The Posies were right up front about it, and certainly the dBs and R.E.M. and the Jayhawks and many more owe a big debt. Still, I've never heard anyone fuse the disparate visions of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell like Chris Dorn (songwriter for the Beatifics) does.

Dorn's got Chilton's ragged craft down cold, including the descant-like ringing chords that are a Big Star hallmark. But he also has a nice chunk of Bell's unrestrained exuberance. And so, more than anything, the Beatifics sound like true inheritors of the sound.

Even better, Dorn has a few tricks up his sleeve. These aren't simply songs in the key of Big Star. He has a sly wit that is his alone, and the fuller sound of the Beatifics (six players instead of three) fleshes out these ideas to the hilt.

Simply gorgeous, but hardly simple. The Beatifics play pop in a classic style, creating what might well become a classic album. There's so much here to like, I can hardly contain myself.

A good while ago, there was a label called Grass. It had bands like the Wrens and Ditch Witch and did a fine job of discovering new acts. Good bands, but not particularly marketable ones. So Grass morphed into Wind-Up, a label best known as the home to Creed. Not so long ago, Boysetsfire was one of the hottest up-and-coming bands of the extreme underground. Now the boys have cashed in, and it's time to see what major-label cash has wrought.

The songs are more slickly produced. The guitars have a more pronounced "metal" edge. Not what I like, even though I know that's what has to happen if you expect to sell hundreds of thousands of albums. On the plus side, there's a more pronounced space between the instruments, which highlights the band's somewhat proggy (certainly technical, in any case) songwriting style. That's a nice surprise.

Three new tunes, and all of them are up to Boysetsfire's previous high standard. Three live tracks as well, which should serve to introduce new fans to the truly incendiary nature of the band's older stuff. It should be most interesting to hear what a full-length sounds like.

The first single from the upcoming Bronze album, this three-song set runs through so much pop territory it's hard to believe that the same band wrote and played these songs.

Or maybe not. All three are heartfelt pieces, though "Let It Rain" has a certain 60s sense to it, while "The Statue in the Stone" (title track of the aforementioned album) is a straight-up raver and "We Stand Alone" is a contemplative and soulful.

The thing is, each song is immaculately crafted, though all that attention hasn't drained a drop of emotion from the final product. Quite well done.

Imagine New Order as an emo band. Perhaps this seems like a radical concept to you. Not to the boys of Charlene. These songs are stripped down to their essentials, which are then processed through a decidedly low-end technology filter.

And when I say "low-end," I'm not talking about the astonishing lack of clarity in the treble range. I mean the equipment sounds like it's been through WWs I and II and maybe Vietnam just for kicks. Which is cool. Because you don't want shiny techno accompaniment to songs like these. You want fuzzy, barely comprehensible bits of distortion.

Anyway, when all that comes together, these guys really do sound like an emo version of New Order. That's a tribute to the songwriting craft. When the core is this tight, you can spin off all sorts of tangents and still your songs make sense. Indeed, the sum can be greater than the parts.

Not beautiful. Not pretty. Not even particularly cute. Charlene works hard to put mud on its face, and that just what these songs needed. Someone had to think of making music like this at some point. I'm just glad that it turned out this well.

I never dug Rage Against the Machine. One of the people I trust most when it comes to music turned me on even before the band hit it big. Nothing clicked. I liked the political edge, but the music bored me. Thing is, Rage has influenced a lot of bands I really like. Take Glassjaw.

Not unlike Boysetsfire, these guys ride the extreme hardcore train, dressing it up with an expensive production job and a decidedly processed sound. What I dig is the band's ability to step away from the sonic apocalypse and pull in some melody from time to time.

Indeed, I think Glassjaw's greatest skill is dirtying up some truly pretty songs. This stuff may be loud, but it's got a really beautiful core. Hard to hear most of the time, but if you're patient all will be revealed.

What Soundgarden might have become if Seattle wasn't a pop city at heart, methinks. Glassjaw just might have its finger on the AOR sound of the new millennium. That can be a good thing, you know.

Hollydrift places all sorts of noise (much of it distorted) in its collages. Do the pieces all make sense? Not at first listen. But they sure do sound cool.

An awful lot of what Hollydrift does sounds like it is realized on a keyboard, which is then manipulated (most likely on a computer, I'd guess) and assembled into a decidedly broad canvas.

Most folks who specialize in washes of electronic distortion hide things within the white noise. Hollydrift often hides the white noise behind more coherent sounds. This isn't a small distinction. These pieces are much more approachable than yer Raison D'Etre or other somesuch.

Flash back to the start. At first listen, these pieces are a bit confusing. But after a couple passes, the entire project begins to make sense. With this sort of music, it's always very important to consider the entirety of a piece. Hollydrift insists that the listener consider the full album before passing judgment. One more reason why this puppy blows my socks off.

You might think that an ockodektet is a group of 18 musicians. Maybe that's how Jeff Kaiser meant it, maybe not. After all, there are only 17 musicians listed in the liners. Of course, there are only 14 songs (in two suites), so maybe Kaiser is referring to his players (and not the music itself) with that "17." Hard to say. I will note that I have a number of big dictionaries, and none of them list the "ocko" prefix. I, for one, think the old man is having one over on us.

I say old because this set was recorded on the occasion of Kaiser's 40th birthday. Not a bad idea to get a passel of friends together and play some cool music as a celebration.

The music here sounds like it has its improvisational moments, but in general these pieces are much more controlled (or, say, written out) than most of the stuff I've heard from Kaiser. His often whimsical taste is on full display here, putting his percussionist and other rhythmic instrumentalists to the task. Man times, the melody can be counted out rather than hummed.

This disc surprised me with its delicate structures and deliberate style. I'm used to hearing Kaiser operate in more improvisational settings, but his compositional work is impressive. Hardly conventional (duh), but quite inspiring. A deceptively majestic disc.

Cerebral and contemplative fare that isn't afraid to rawk out when necessary. Not proggy, but definitely into creating a sound in the studio. Much of the impact of these songs comes from the way that musical lines are placed in the mix (say, the way an atonal and fuzzy guitar line drones on in deep background on the first track, "(battlestar) Galactica."

And so while a lot of folks will reference Radiohead (everyone's favorite noodlers these days), I'd say these midwestern boys stick much closer to home to the ever-evolving Chicago noise-pop-fusion movement (is there a decent name for this stuff? I don't know of one, myself). Menlo is quite attracted to anthemic choruses, but otherwise it would fit in pretty well with David Grubbs and folks like that.

I'd be interested to hear what these guys try to do live. There's so much knob-twisting in this sound, I have a feeling the pieces sound a bit more normal on stage. That's not a bad thing, really. Always better to simplify when you're playing for a crowd. When you're in the studio, take advantage of every tool.

And Menlo does. These straightforward songs are cut and pasted into something greater. This album pulsates with a vibe that is impossible to suffocate. Whenever I think the stuff is getting just a bit too ordinary, there's always a little twist that pricks up my ears. These folks know exactly what they're doing, and they're very good at what they do.

Bass-heavy, bouncy, melodic hardcore. From Van--I mean, Ottawa. These boys were raised on a steady diet of D.O.A., Ramones and other classic heavy pop. And when I say heavy, I mean it. The low end here is astounding.

Complicated? Um, no. Three chords and a bottle of beer. That's it. The lyrics are decent enough, though decidedly throwaway. As long as they don't get in the way of the bruising melodies, they've done their job. And to be fair, they're better than that.

I might have mentioned the thick, thick, thick sound. Even the guitar sound is round, without any treble tinniness. This album was engineered for power, and it delivers.

Gets the blood pounding, it does. If there's other criteria I should be considering, I can't imagine what they might be. Million Dollar Marxists, they of the too clever by half name, know just how to deliver one tight load.

John Moremen has been playing eclectic pop (on guitar and drums) for a long damn time. He's gigged with everyone from Half Japanese to the Jimmy Silva Goat 5 to the Neighbors. At the moment, one of his jobs is drumming as a member of the Orange Peels.

Moremen shows a great feel for light pop here. There are a few fun goofy tangents, but the emphasis here is on making truly pretty and effervescent music. Not that the songs threaten to float away; they simply dissolve like cotton candy.

But they're much more filling. I wasn't sure about that after my first time through, but return visits reveal a few hidden textures in the songs. These songs are good-to-go for the long haul. And even if this is just another rare solo shot for Moremen, it proves he doesn't have to take a back seat to anyone. He's got chops to spare.

An awful lot of bands wish they were Yes. I know why this is, and I also understand why an equal number of people would turn up their noses and ask, "Why the hell would you want to do that?" In any case, Nemesis owes a big debt to that most popular of prog acts, but rather than rehash an old sound, these boys thrust modern ideas into a tried-and-true formula.

Not unlike Fates Warning some 15 years ago, Nemesis utilizes sharp metal guitars, mechanistic drumming and thick drums. The keyboards provide both electronic washes and something approximating an acoustic piano. Zoltan Kiss (that's really his name, poor guy) does sound like a poor-man's Jon Anderson, but he wisely doesn't try to push his range. He lets the music do the soaring.

The result is a most attractive blend of modern progressive metal and 70s sensibilities. Yeah, these songs are awfully long. They don't seem like it. Rather, each piece draws the listener in by creating an entirely new world. Each song is a new experience.

One that I kept wanting to hear. Prog is not one of my favorite sounds (I'm always happy to sacrifice a little precision for a more intense connection to the music), but Nemesis makes music that really reaches out to me. When something works, it works. Labels just don't matter.

There's no way to put this gently. The Reunion Show isn't hardcore. It isn't punk in any way whatsoever. This shouldn't surprise me. After all, years ago Victory put out albums by the likes of Iceburn and Hi-Fi and the Roadburners. And there have been other Victory bands that employ a good amount of power pop.

But still. The Reunion Show is power pop, major-label style. This album is thickly produced, complete with wonderfully fuzzy keyboards and hooks that ooze honey. Shoot yerself back 20 years and imagine AOR-style anthemic choruses draped over guitar-heavy new wave pop. Except that no one did this 20 years ago. In fact, I've never heard anyone attempt quite this sound.

There is a definite Joe Jackson (in his blisterpop phase) feel to the rhythms and harmonies. The muscular guitars feed right into the crunchy and addictive choruses, and the overall manic energy of the band is astonishing. Like I said, this is power pop that the majors could actually sell to the kiddies.

But Victory gets the spoils instead. That's more than cool. The Reunion Show deserves to explode all over the damn place. Pop is often sweet, but rarely is it this incendiary. I simply cannot turn this album off. Gotta hit repeat again. And again. And...

There's a song on this album called "The House with the Dreadful Nibbling in its Roots." In a way, that says more about Silt Fish's intriguing music than anything I might write.

And yet, I ought to fill in a few spaces. These songs are jaunty with a warped wackiness about them. Imagine if King Kong and XTC were to down some peyote and put the post-puke results on tape. Except, you know, even more so.

The kinda utterly self-absorbed stuff that either completely entrances or utterly disgusts. I can understand how many folks might find Silt Fish tiresome. Tiring, in any case. You've gotta commit completely if yer gonna truly get into this stuff. No half gestures.

I took the plunge. I'm one of those folks who find self-congratulatorily clever music to be one of the few unfettered joys in life. And so I dove so deep into this disc that all that silliness at the top of the stew was nothing more than a shadow on the surface of the sea. Down where the critters reside there are jewels aplenty.

So you've gotta wonder how an emo band from Newark, Del., couldn't manage to get a deal. I mean, it's not like the area doesn't have a track record or labels or anything. After listening to this album, I can only ask the question more insistently.

It's not that these boys reinvent the wheel or anything. This is standard emo of, say, 1996 vintage. Tres-strident, atonal guitar work and slow, meandering verses that culminate in loud, if not apocalyptic, choruses.

The structure of that last sentence was an attempt to illustrate how these songs are put together. The syntax sucks, but it makes sense in an elliptical way. Same with this stuff. You've gotta hang in there a while and figure out what's going on, but every piece is in place.

The kinda album that sneaks up on the listener. With a vengeance. Not a grabber by any means, this puppy is still chock full of charms. Just takes a while for them to appear.

This album has so much hype that my local newspaper reviewed it. Not the hip weekly, mind you, but the corporate daily. Big feature in the Sunday reviews. P.E. was right, but sometimes there's substance beneath the glitz.

That's certainly the case here. The Streets seems to be a group of DJs from across the pond and a veddy British MC. The beats consist of au courant electronic fare and trippy samples, but the real key are the rhymes, which are delivered in an old-fashioned on-the-beat rhythmic sensibility.

The stuff is funny. Cutting, really, about as mean and incisive as any hip-hop I've heard since Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Though this disc is more likely to critique culture rather than politics. And just maybe that tack actually manages to make a deeper impact.

Now, this is white-boy rap. Hip-hop for the college rock crowd. Decidedly not music from the streets of America. The streets of London? Maybe. Doesn't matter much to me. There's too much greatness here to worry about small stuff like that. I'd rather spin this puppy once more.

Something of a dancehall reggae variety show, complete with skits and everything. I have to guess (I can't find the press info that may or may not have arrived with this disc) that the twenty or so people on the cover are the folks who have worked very hard to take a well-established sound to the next level.

Or maybe a few past that. There's everything from a P-Funk kinda grooves to truly inventive beat work--dragging in jungle, drum-n-bass and other electronic trends.

The rhymes don't suck, either. In fact, one of the things I've always liked about dancehall (and despite all of the new wave ideas, that is where this disc resides) is that the rapping is on the beat. Rhythmic. Call me old school, but you've gotta at least acknowledge the music when you're laying down some rhymes. If you're just talking over music, you sound just as dumb as those beatniks did back in the 50s.

There isn't a consistent sound or feel on this album. The songs really jump all over the place, through the sequencing does provide a great flow. I'm still not entirely sure what brings all of these people together, but whatever that may be, this is one fab album. Absolutely smashing.

I often agree with the sentiment expressed by the title of this disc. The fact that Watsonville Patio specializes in midtempo pieces (though still peppy) could be seen as a fun irony. I dig the stuff, so I'll go along.

Straightforward bash'n'pop. The rhythm section is stellar, always keeping the songs in motion. This stuff isn't doesn't have the pedal pinned to the floor, but it doesn't make any rest stops, either. The five songs here are all tightly-wound, finely-crafted works that shimmer with the energy of a well-oiled band.

There's nothing wrong with music done well. Watsonville Patio doesn't do anything new or unexpected. It simply plays great pop music with a heavy rock edge. Simple pleasures are some of the best.

I thought this trio was perhaps the perfect My Pal God band. Utterly offbeat music that sounds something like a Tom Waits take on new wave (I mean that in the musical, rather than the vocal, sense). Of course, these folks are just as at home with Self-Starter.

I know that the keyboards help, but the sound here is much fuller and orchestral than you get from yer average three-piece. The core of each piece is pretty simple, but an awful lot of ideas get added before the process is finished. That the songs sound like songs at all is impressive.

This disc is more fleshed out than the band's first (which also impressed the hell out of me). The pieces sound more assured and surely more complete. A lot is going on, but even the strangest tangent is tied to the center with 100-lb. line.

Yeah, yeah, this is more music you've gotta think about. There are visceral charms aplenty, but the cerebral aspect generally takes precedence. That's fine by me. If I start to overtax my brain, I simply turn up the volume. A good prescription for anyone.

Old Friends:

Brad Dutz/Jeff Kaiser The Order of Her Bones (pfMENTUM)
Kaiser is impressive as usual on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dutz plays just about every percussion instrument available on the continent. The songs fall on the coherent side of the block, so don't afraid. Kaiser has a way of making the avant garde accessible. Dutz shares this ability, and the result is at once adventurous and comfy.

Farces Wanna Mo Transcend & Subsume EP (self-released)
Self-consciously clever lyrics and music. Farces Wanna Mo reminds me of nothing less than non-snarky Zappa without the genius. Which is to say that everything is a bit conventional in its whacked-out way, but it still is a lot of fun to hear. It's nice to hear people have fun with what they're doing.

River City Rebels No Good No Time No Pride (Victory)
Good times melodic hardcore, complete with horns. The River City Rebels are a guilty pleasure, and this album shows why. Each song sounds great, in a kinda slutty way. By the end there's no avoiding singing along. As my friend Kenny once said, don't fight it.