Yes, another singer. But the music goes on. And on, as all but two tracks are five minutes or longer.

I thought Last One on Earth was a great album, but this has all the hallmarks of one album too far. As the musical base becomes slimmer, Asphyx have started to repeat themselves. Long songs can be a sign of real egotism, and I think that can be applied here.

Asphyx should have quit when ahead.

Um, another band that really wishes it was Skin Yard. Sorta like the Sabbath clone thing, this was a nice trend when only a few folks were doing it. Now, it seems a lot more passe.

And while capable, Beats the Hell Out of Me doesn't breathe any life into this sound. The folks seem content to wallow in an increasingly commercial yet creatively dead void.

I've heard better and worse from bands like this. BTHOOM is just another voice in a crowded hallway.

The guys may have cast off from Cruz, but a couple of ALL-sters twist the knobs and keep that familiar punk sound rolling on.

A lot of this harkens back to earlier (and almost long-ago) days, when BDC had the rep of an up-and-coming young band.

They're up now, and no longer all that young. The goods are still around, but when you've been accorded near-legendary status, you should produce a little more. This would be a good album from an average band, but it is barely an average Big Drill Car album. I miss the sparkle.

One of my anal rules about having a favorite artist is that the person or band in question has to have recorded at least two full-length albums. So here come the Boorays, fresh off a great album of a couple of years ago and scattered singles, and me wanting them to be my favorite band.

More guitar this time, but the basic rockabilly construction toes the line. Mark Stephens sounds like he's on the verge of hiccupping every time he opens his mouth, and the resulting voice is one of the more endearing I've heard.

This is happy music, but the Boorays have a cool habit of encoding these poppy tunes with sarcastic lyrics. But no food metaphors this time.

And the coolest thing is the guitar sound achieved by Mike Hellebusch. It's the way a guitar was meant to sound in the first place, pure and pristine.

Who am I kidding? They've been my favorite band for sometime, and this album more than confirms it. The Boorays are perhaps the finest pop band in the whole country (and I've heard a few) right now. You cannot help but get addicted.

If you don't know who's really in this band, ask around. Everything about this band is a joke.

Hell, a Father's Day tribute to Pablo Escobar is pretty damned funny. And if you can't read Spanish, find someone who does. The lyrics are rather amusing.

The flip is, what else, a glorification of the Menendez boys. Somehow I don't think they'll be using it in the mini-series.

Good for a cheap, if morbid, laugh.

Well, the usual Trance band emphasis on bass and drums is here, but with such preponderance you wonder why these guys aren't up in Minneapolis recording for AmRep.

A scatological reference is calling out to me, and I'll oblige: the Cherubs are like one of those prostate cancer-indicating seriously bloody shits. There is no way to derive pleasure from the Cherubs. You must assume the position and wait for the worst. Don't worry, it'll come.

Truly evil music, much more so than any death metal I've heard. After all, this is an honest-to-god hammer blow to the genitals. It doesn't get any meaner than this.

Sleep used to be the last word in Sabbath sound-alike bands, but Count Raven does them one better. Dan Fondelius sounds exactly like Ozzy Osbourne. It's fucking creepy sometimes.

As with Sleep, they don't rip off any famous riffs and generally do a good job replicating the late sixties-early seventies Sabbath sound. The production is even sufficiently muffled.

While Count Raven is fun to listen to, I have a request: no more of these Sabbath-esque bands. A&R people should inform the folks that hitching on to a trend is short-term bucks at best. And next year everyone will be trying to rip off early Scorpions or something.

A nice four-song collection from Pennsylvania's industrial gods. The title track is the most club-ready thing they've released. The second track is some very nice noise work. Add in an edit of "The Machine" from the album of the same name and the "Dead World" track, previously only available on a 7" and a compilation, and you get the picture.

What else can I say. I am completely in awe of what Dead World does. Maybe someone else out there will notice them, too.

Playing the doom/death card to a T, Enchantment bring thoughts of greatness to my mind.

If, perhaps, you found the new My Dying Bride too mellow in spots (for shame!), then this just might be more up your alley. More of the death metal aggression than real musical experimentation, and lots of fun double bass work.

I really hate making a comparison like that, because Enchantment are not trying to rip off anyone. I can say I haven't heard a disc quite like this on before. And Dance the Marble Naked is a great album. Just plain great.

Long-ass dance remixes of Gone material that was, while much shorter, already fairly well-suited for the clubs.

Actually, instead of adding dance beats, there is more of a hip-hop feel added to the industrial instrumentals. The originals sounded great, and the remixes keep faithful and yet also expand the musical theories involved.

Nice to see Senor Ginn on such a recording kick. Even if only half his stuff is this good, it makes for plenty worthy of play.

An almost-disturbing sing-song quality pervades throughout, but for some reason these folks are funnier and much more interesting than, say, Billy Goat or Poi Dog Pondering.

Well, Heavy Vegetable has the crucial knack of figuring out when the joke is getting old. And not all of these songs are dumb jokes. More than a few are nicely crafted straight pop tunes with relevant lyrics.

If you don't like one song, don't worry; another will start up in a minute or so. But even if most of the tracks come in under two minutes, they still feel complete.

With everything on course for failure, Heavy Vegetable managed to crank out a good album. No small feat, that.

Um, yeah, this is Swedish death metal. No deviation from that norm.

I kinda wish there was, because this EP is just a water treading exercise for these boys. No moving forward; just sitting in a pool of redundancy.

Sure, this was a cool sound three years ago. But it's getting pretty stale. Time for Hypocrisy (and quite a few others) to forge ahead.

Even as I complain about the Sab-sound rip off proliferation, here's another one in my discer.

Internal Void do well with the cover, which is in the style of a few Sabbath ones. Unfortunately, I do hear some actual riff-stealing here. The "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" bass line is repeated a lot (though others have nabbed it, too), and a couple solos are disconcertingly similar to some Iommi work.

Even in the rip off, cash in sweepstakes, Internal Void fallS short. If you have to pick a Sabbath sound band to play, there are better. On the same label. This pretty much sucks.

C.J. "Ramone" and a few pals get together and cover a Ten Years After tune for charity. The proceeds go to the Oglala Lakota College on the Oglala Reservation in South Dakota.

A little rougher edged than most Ramones recordings, C.J. seems to enjoy his slumming for a good cause. Dead-on punk with a golden heart. And a nice single besides.

Where I (heart) Mekons was highly calculated and occasionally mesmerizing, this 17-song compendium of sound is consistently stunning.

Not afraid to attack any side of the pop or punk universes, Mekons shift gears more times than Richard Petty during a day at Daytona. So if you want any semblance of sameness, go somewhere else.

But Mekons have always meandered, and it's in those wanderings that I've found greatness. Mekons refuse to be categorized, and since the assembled musicians are more than up to the task the end result is bliss. Wonderful musings.

Perhaps the first album mixed in a blender, or maybe it just sounds that way. There is a huge wall of distortion that individual instruments and the vocals fail to pierce regularly.

Believe it or not, this reminds me of a low-tech Killdozer (or early Melvins). I didn't think it was possible, but these things occur when you push the edges of musical existence.

Very simply put, a god-awful racket, and of course, I love it to death. Brutal in its disregard for music, Milkmine redefines what was originally known as grunge. This might very well kill you.

The title says it all. Sure, there are moments of melody, but with Albini producing, not much chance of extra takes on those vocals.

And who needs 'em, anyway? Morsel prefers to investigate the finer points of noise. There's the recurring sound of an electric drill (really). Not a sample, but a real-live drill grinding to the music.

Nothing is as it seems here, and once you set in expectations another weird thing comes along to kick your ass. To say much more would spoil the surprise.

While Albini is not known for helping to craft textured albums, he may have inadvertently let one get past his watch. Morsel has a real grasp on the finer points of noise from white to black, and the members feel compelled to let you in on their secret.

Bask and feel the glory.

Mythic had one report (from various stations) most of last year. When one station dropped off, another had picked it up. Of course, even by then the three-woman lineup had disbanded.

Relapse is good enough to inform folks that Mythic is no more and still release this three-song disc. The production is a little weak, but despite being over two years old, the songs are still fresh.

A nice bit of history.

One track: 34 minutes of electronic disturbances. The only notes on this thing war you not to turn your stereo up too high or you might destroy it.

Okay, but really. As 30-minute things like this go, I would rather listen to Arc again. But then, I really like Arc. This is alright, but it does get repetitive after, say, a minute.

Experimental, yes. But listening to the sound electricity makes as it passes through circuitry (or whatever this is) can get a little monotonous. It will freak out anyone listening on the radio, though.

They traded in the grind for pure riffage an album ago, and this is more of the same.

While no longer trendsetters, Napalm Death can bash it out with the finest. Album comes soon.

While I'm not sure if these guys have ever been to the U.S., much less Arkansas, they still win the album title of the year award-so far.

These boys seem to be Harvey Keitel fans, as the liners contain a monologue from Bad Lieutenant and the album title comes from Thelma and Louise ("I'm in deep shit. Deep Shit, Arkansas").

This is simply wailing industrial warfare with no let up. Kind of a less technical sound than Pitch Shifter, which manages to sound even more immediate and menacing.

More of a slow burn than an explosion, Nonoyesno have cranked out a fine album with full sonic arsenal. Damn.

Their first album caught on at radio, but it did seem a bit of a struggle. Now that you've had a while to digest it, this should be easy to accept.

Same high-aggression melodic punk, with a few more artistic flourishes. Smash definitely establishes the Offspring as a band in the ascent.

Sure, they had a little exposure on the trailer and soundtrack of the Charlie Sheen exploitation flick The Chase (I'm sitting in a theater, and suddenly I go, "Wait, I know that song..."). You should still blast this puppy lotsa times. It may be the slightest touch mellower than the debut, but it satisfies just the same.

Their first album was quickly recognized as genius at the station where I used to work. And here again are fast and tight hardcore pop tunes.

The references to the No Control/Against the Grain - era Bad Religion sound are obvious, but I'm certainly not going to complain. And adding to that wonderful core is a distinct Pennywise sense of irony and approach to melody.

Perhaps the brightest new light in pop punk around (up there with the Offspring, anyway), Pennywise have made the grade with their second album. Highly crankable.

Perhaps a little more groove-oriented than previous outings, Pungent Stench manage to evolve and still stay relevant.

This is not nearly as heavy as in the past. Hell, you can even understand the lyrics rather clearly. But when you are dealing with musicians of the highest caliber and creativity, everything seems to sound great.

As usual, Pungent Stench is not afraid to get silly at times, evidenced by "Klyster Boogie" and of course, the liners. While certain border types forced a somewhat truncated form of the pictures to be printed, you still get the idea.

Most of you have bit into this release with full relish already. Let me encourage the slackers to do so as well. Growth ain't necessarily a bad thing, now.

I've heard some of their earlier stuff, and this pales a bit. General Brit snyth pop (though the real drummer is appreciated) done rather well. But the oddly muted production (the samples are all but completely buried) makes some of the songs come off as mellow Sisters of Mercy stuff.

The saving grace is good songwriting. These folk have always had a head for fine pop, and it has served them well again. The at-times demo quality of the production is a hindrance, but the quality does manage to will out.

So you wish Napalm Death would go back to the grind? Try this instead.

Siege still retainS a few hard core conventions, but the glory hole here is when it kicks into a true grindcore blitz.

Nine songs in 17 minutes, every one a serious blast. Siege manages to find the groove in the grind and also competently manage the adrenaline rush.

A more than pleasant surprise lurks in this disc.

I know, I'm not supposed to mention it, but this band is a descendant of Angkor Wat, one of the most prescient metal bands of five years (and beyond) ago. If you have those albums, dig them up and appreciate the genius.

Skrew retains that core and adds even more excellence to the mix. The first album was just a hint at the power possessed by this band. Dusted puts Skrew at the head of the industrial class.

At once more commercial and more aggressive than the current industrial poster boys, Skrew eschews the artsy feedback for a straightforward balls-out sound. Simply put, the guys want to pulverize your soul.

And it works, to great effect. This is more addictive than crack. And a better high.

Words of their demise were essentially correct, but singer Johan Edlund and bassist Johnny Hagel are keeping the name alive with new members at the other posts.

This is supposed to tide us over until the end of the summer, when the new Tiamat is tentatively set for release.

Somewhat muddy production, which is hindered further by not quite getting the sound on the keyboards right. The performances are nice, but only five songs? As a momentum-saving release, this is barely passable. Tiamat is (Was? We'll see) one of my favorites. This live set does rekindle my desire for new stuff (not a difficult task). But if it had to stand alone, it would be a disappointment.

If you're used to the squeaky-clean sound more of the Epitaph bands have, then this might come as a little bit of a surprise. There is a lot of sloppiness going on.

But if you listen closely, the production is what causes that sound. These guys have control of their instruments and are just trying to sound like hacks.

Add entertaining, if not entirely relevant, lyrics and a straight-for-the-gut hard core style, and you find this. Perhaps not the best punk album of the year, but it sure is tasty.

Napalm Death
Fear, Emptiness, Despair advance cassette
(Earache/Columbia)

Focusing more on the riffs than the death, ND is on the verge of a commercial breakthrough. God damn, this is clean.