I guess I never figured that hippies were big Black Sabbath fans, but bands like Sleep, Count Raven and now Acrimony are making me change my mind.

Like the aforementioned, Acrimony's riffs have a definite Iommi/Butler-esque quality, though Dorian Walters doesn't have Ozzy's pipes and he doesn't try to sound much like Osbourne at all.

The playing is good, and the production astonishingly close to the original fuzzy Sabbath sound. That took some real work.

A mildly amusing disc, but Acrimony wallows a little close to the bone for my comfort. If I wanted to listen to something like this, I'll just whip out Master of Reality or something.

Sounds like the sort of metal that was popular about five years ago: pretty fast, shouted-not grinding-vocals, shred-type riffs. This is a couple years old, so I would assume the band has evolved a bit, but there's plenty here to talk about.

The technical performances are quite good. The production showcases each player well, as well as keeping the whole sound together quite nicely.

Within the genre, the songs are well-written and thought out. The band finds a groove and sticks with it (one of my favorite soapbox points). And it sounds like these guys know each other fairly well.

I'd love to hear what newer stuff sounds like. Circle of Force may be a somewhat silly name, but the music is good, indeed.

Circle 9 delivers a dose of solid feedback-filled pop on "Agreement Song". The distortion only makes things sweeter. A nice driving tempo and truly outstanding lead work (by the far the highlight). Great song.

Noel the Coward crams four songs onto its side, including a real short one titled "(Why Are All the Cool) Rock Chicks (Dead)". So you get the idea: loopy humor that's not necessarily in good taste.

The music is also in a pop way, with more attention paid to the lyrics and song construction than Circle 9. I get YFF vibes from some of this, which isn't a bad thing. None of the songs are great, none suck. A nice collection.

Civ, of course, is/was lead singer of Gorilla Biscuits. This is his new band, with many original Gorilla Biscuits taking their usual places. Don't be confused. CIV will sound familiar: cool pop hardcore with just a hint of attitude and great tunesmithing.

"Can't Wait..." is a jaunty little piece of fluff with a great drum beat. The flip, "Et Tu Brute?" is harder edged, yet still rather catchy.

CIV, the man and the band, is reminiscent of Gorilla Biscuits, with good reason. A full-length is expected one of these days. Be happy.

Finally, Engine Kid writing real songs!

It had to happen someday. While many were enamored of the way Engine Kid could string along a single music idea in near-silence for a couple minutes before just ripping everything to shreds in a sonic fury, I longed for a little structure. Just a little.

The dynamic extremes have been toned down a bit (the absence of Albini probably helps there), and I can hear real evidence of song construction. Amazing.

I'm not sure if this is a step forward or back artistically, but I like Angel Wings a lot better than the tracks on the EP split with Iceburn (and I liked those pretty well). One step in from chaos for Engine Kid leaves the band still firmly in the sea of musical anarchy. But you can see the shore from here.

Flowing to the commercial side of death metal with nice doom overtones. Expulsion grafts some euro-metal conventions, particularly in the guitars onto a death base, with catchy results.

The boys know riffs, and each song fairly explodes with a set of outstanding melodic ideas. While perhaps not as crafted (no keys, for example) as an Amorphis-type band, Expulsion is probably listening to the same source material.

Some punk ideas wander around the riffs as well, providing a nice counterpoint to the soaring anthemic style that pervades the disc. All of this is smoothly incorporated into the whole sound, which is a multiplication, not a sum, of its parts.

Positively irresistible. You may dig the old school more (I don't), but you have to admit that Expulsion has cranked a disc full of great tunes. Perhaps the production would leave things a bit fuller, but the sparseness helps at times as well. This is a classic of the genre. Period. No excuses will be given for missing out.

To explain: Hissanol consists of Scott Henderson (lives in Victoria, B.C., works for Shovlhed, Swell Prod. et. al.) and Andy Kerr (lives in Amsterdam, used to work for Nomeansno). Like famous authors who put their names together on a book in order to make a shitload of cash, Scott and Andy made this album on two continents, schlepping tapes back and forth.

Sorry guys, mega sales aren't going to happen. Mostly because the music is simply too cool to be snapped up by the mainstream. Oh, what are we to do?

A lot of the disc sounds like a mutant and mean version of They Might Be Giants merged with the compositional sensibilities of Frank Zappa. Yes, indeed, it is that good.

So don't get scared off by the unusual. Is it industrial? Is it hardcore? Is it pop? Is it good?

Yes.

The coolest thing about Iceburn (among a multitude) is that while you can hear an Iceburn piece and instantly know it is an Iceburn piece, you never know what to expect from Iceburn from recording to recording.

Well, apart from lo-fi sounds that still manage to completely convey every intricate idea spawned the musical genius of the band.

I would guess that Iceburn never plays any one song the same way, from recording rehearsal to released versions to live, every time the band hashes out the jam the song is accomplished in various ways.

The easiest example is to compare the studio version of "poem of fire" to the live version (a bonus track for those of you who have the CD). You'll hear the same musical ideas with some differences in the order and intensity. Of course, there's also the Black Sabbath medley in the middle of the live version.

And that's why I like Iceburn so much. Impeccable musicianship, highly creative songwriting and an amazing ability for group improvisation. If for some reason you have never heard of Iceburn, then play this disc. After a spin, you will be hooked.

Defined: Iceburn-perhaps the most amazing band in the universe. In a sentence: Iceburn is the most punk band who doesn't play anything resembling punk music. Iceburn. I-C-E-B-U-R-N. Iceburn.

Eclectic doesn't begin to tell the story. Mind Riot merges about every idea wandering around hard rock circles these days with plenty more.

You might get a grungy tune with goth overtones ("Ballerinas") or a tune with a grinding core, progressive melody and chord structure and female vocals popping in and out ("For the Spirit"). And those are just the first two songs (in reverse order).

Each of the eight songs do sound somewhat related, but Mind Riot tries to make each song its own world unto itself. While this makes it difficult to identify a Mind Riot sound, the musical philosophy is easily discernible. Anything can be good music.

This is the strangest album I've heard in some time. I haven't a clue where (figuratively) the band is coming from. But there is more than enough here to keep me interested. I've never been one to shy away from weird music and I'm happy to embrace Mind Riot.

Where bands like Laughing Hyenas take the blues and wrap cool sheaths of distortion and rock and roll riffs around that base (while keeping it whole), Morning Glories prefer to flay the blues with a caterwauling orchestral grunge attack.

But the MGs do revere the blues format that they deconstruct. Like Johnboy or the Cherubs (or other bands found on the Trance Syndicate label), Morning Glories take a while to appreciate. This is about as far from easy listening as a blues band can get.

And yet, that's what this is. I think the sound is much more mature than their first album, and everything simply comes together much better. The more you listen, the better it gets. If Morning Glories keep improving like this, I can only imagine what the next album will sound like.

Hack-and-slash old school death metal musings spliced together by bits of classical mellowness. Much like an Iron Maiden tending to greater extremes.

The playing is technically awesome, even when things get moving quickly. The spots of acoustic guitar and singing are nice, but they really aren't worked into the songs very well. Just another bit of tile in the mosaic.

I like this disc, but it doesn't make me cry out in joy. Worth spinning, definitely, but the flashes of brilliance do not carry throughout the disc. With more attention to songwriting and song flow, Mourning Sign may really have something going. Just give the guys time.

Ripping into the well-torn flesh of Black Sabbath, Pentagram (once known as Sanctuary) adds flavor from other Brit metal bands (Priest, Maiden for starters) to fill out the sound.

Add just a dash of the currently hip death-doom sound, and the soup is ready to savor. While his voice is much thinner than Ozzy's, Bobby Liebling pretty much follows his phrasing style. This gets a little unnerving at times.

Pentagram doesn't do anything particularly original, but you cannot call the band a strict Sabbath rip-off. On the other hand, if these guys want to be known for their music, they will have to work a little harder at finding their own niche.

Good for starters. Now Pentagram has to evolve to survive the ever-expanding Sabbath sound-alike backlash.

Rhythm-based industrial stuff. When the guitars are around, they're nice and heavy, but even then everything revolves around the machine.

Psychopomps have two moods. When guitar is used, the emphasis is on a more "live" sound, with few samples, kinda like latter-day Godflesh. But when the guitar is left out, the drum machine ascends to even higher significance, and samples are used more often of necessity, leading to a more Die Warzau-like sound.

I'd be the last one to try and guess what these folks are trying to do. The sound is wonderfully schizophrenic, which has it's benefits and drawbacks. The main drawback is that Psychopomps has no distinct sound. The music is good and well put together, but both sounds the band creates are nothing original.

A fun disc, but an evolution needs to happen for Psychopomps to really break out.

My second experience with Raw Power, and I like it about as much as the first time.

Pretty banal hardcore, very strangely recorded. Too Tough to Burn sounded to me like a joke, and I can't exactly say why. Fight is no joke, but it isn't very interesting, either. And the drums sound like, I don't know, something other than drums. The snare sound is so bizarre I can barely explain. Why don't you just listen?

Ten years ago, Raw Power had a few good songs and a decent rep. This is the last prayer of the dying. Best just kick the corpse.

Pop from an extremely minimalist camp. The melodies are delicate and yet dissonant as well.

Traveling the same highway as Silver Jews and Pavement, rex is even more leisurely than most, spending most of the time stomping on the flowers (in slow motion). It sure is amazing how much effort had to have gone into making such an effortless-sounding disc.

This is not the sort of disc on which I can make a real quality judgement. I really don't get this stuff. It's kinda nice for chilling out, I suppose. I'm just not a stoner and I don't dose.

A nicely arranged disc, with lots of morose moments. Perfect for field trips to the frontal lobes.

As you may have noticed, Kansas City has been emerging as a real center of bands who take the punk ideal and then tear it a new asshole. Shiner follows nicely in the footsteps as such cool bands as Season to Risk and Cher U.K.

Shiner prefers to stick to a little more alternative pop format than either of those bands, with more emphasis on the guitar work as well. The result is a stringent sound that is right at home on Jawbox's DeSoto label.

Some nasty anthems, some rave-up types and a few completely indescribable (yet wonderful) pieces make up this disc. Shine shows range and a good command of their sound. Some of that Lawrence grunge stuff flits by, but it passes quickly. Shiner's too cool to sound anything like Paw. Thank goodness.

Now I only wish these folk had been around when I lived in the area, so I could catch them live. One of these days, I guess.

The cover of "Stranglehold" is no coincidence. Sweat is a fan of long extended jams with winding guitar riffs and sorta mystical lyrical benders.

But if Sweat is going to play in this mode, the band needs a real singer. Dennis Randall is a great guitarist, but his voice is extremely limited and while he does well in the softer moments, his vocals don't lend themselves well to the times that Sweat really start cranking the sound.

The best moments are when the band simply jams. Sure, it reminds you of the Nuge at times, but I liked those free-form Amboy Dukes jams, and Sweat carries on the spirit. This is a guitar album, and anyone who likes to hear experimental, yet catchy, riffage should check in. While they don't necessarily help the DJ, the longer pieces are much better.

Perhaps the best name for a band that plays music like this. Wrapping up elements of Kiss and grungy alterna-rock around a core of the least subtle hard rock I've heard in some time.

It works well some of the time, like on "Creature I.T.R.", but more often it sounds like a band trying to play music. Too much effort; the seams are showing.

But AOR could really go for this in a big way. Twisted Roots are too pop oriented to really attract a metal audience, and too simple to really snag an alternative one. But Twisted Roots beats the shit out of Live and Van Halen and whatever else them big rock stations are playing these days.

Not my bag, but I know some folks who would dig in and be satiated.

One of the reasons more real alternative videos aren't shown on MTV (apart from no kickback money and general lack of taste) is that alternative songs often actually say something, which is not a problem most major label videos are encumbered with.

While a few of there videos are interesting (the Die Krupps and Spahn Ranch, among others), many are just fake performance clips or so astonishingly amateurish you can't watch without laughing (the Electric Hellfire Club clip ranks highly in that category). The lush, erotic feel of Big Electric Cat's "Christabel" is completely missing from that video, which features the band standing in billowing clouds of dry ice and mouthing the words to the song. A real disappointment.

Which brings me back to my original point. This stuff is too complicated to really get across in a video. Listen to the music. The pictures in your head beat a video any day of the week.

Thirty-three tracks from 33 bands on two discs. Some new, some old and some in between. The sound? Well, if anything, this set proves that goth or darkwave or whatever you call it is a varied musical universe.

Everything from dance mixes to the ambient. Cleopatra kinda just threw much of their current music roster into the blender and this sampler came out.

Like any such sampler, the output is varied in quality as well. You can't please everyone all the time, so Cleopatra seems to have tried to please everyone some of the time. Not a bad strategy. There's plenty to choose from here.