Thy Pale Dominion 7"
(Red Stream)

This sounds a lot like the first Darkthrone, except sub in traditional death metal vocals for the yelping.

Which means this lies somewhere between black metal and death metal. And I think Bethlehem is better off for it.

To be sure, there is little musical creativity, but at least it doesn't sound absolutely silly. If you're into the darker side of death metal, Bethlehem does it pretty well.

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These guys may be from Vancouver, but the sound is pure Chicago noise, with a few grunge pop inflections.

Not a pure cross of Jesus Lizard and Mudhoney, perhaps, but pretty close. The styles certainly compliment each other, and Big Gulp emphasizes the heavy side of things with one Vancouver trademark: monstrous bass work.

The production also brings out the lower registers and aids the brain pounding attack. Big Gulp has a very clear and coherent vision, and this comes through very well on this disc. I can think of any number of labels who would be quite interested in these guys.

Sloppy enough to keep the music interesting and polished enough to keep everything together, Big Gulp is more than worth a listen.

A pounding industrial-sonic construct attack. The guitars split the air and lots of loops keep you on your toes.

Confusion reigns once the meat-and-bones chords of the song really kick in. And once everything has stopped, the question remains: was that a song?

Hell yes. Music doesn't have to be coherent. Much of this is reminiscent of Swans of 10 years ago, though not quite as sterile. If the folks would cut down on the silly guitar solos...

But a brutal attack nonetheless.

This 7" features two pop bands. Pop in the barest sense, of course.

Chune drops "Duel Rectums" into the party, and it's a pretty noisy tuns about the nastiness of teenage pregnancy. Or something like that. By the end of the song everything is nicely incoherent.

"Stickler" comes from Garden Variety, and while it does follow some sort of regular song construction, it's still nicely vicious. Compare to Rocket FTC, Gnome or many other great, noisy, pop acts.

Whenever a disc wildly hypes a producer (in this case, Chris Randall of Sister Machine Gun, who produced seven of the 12 tracks), I am immediately suspicious. Trading on a (semi) famous name is a dubious practice at best.

But Crocodile Shop turns out to be a good band, merging industrial beats with sparsely rendered techno and acid house riffs. In other words, good, accessible dance music.

Sure, this stuff gets a little generic at times (particularly when things get repetitive), but when I'm dancing I don't mind that so much. This should be shipped right out to the club, because that's where it will be best appreciated. Lots of fun.

Remember the ska wave of the early eighties? The one that spawned Madness, the Specials, UB40 (before they really went dance hall) and other such things? Dunderhead combines that sound with an odd new wave overwash, most of which comes from the huge amount of keyboards and sequencers in use.

The result is a fairly appealing set of pop tunes that turns back the clock about 15 years. Dunderhead makes sure the lyrics are loopy and the music just slightly off-kilter, lending a somewhat eerie feel to the disc at times.

If quirky pop is your bag, then this will perk up your ears. The sense of amusement rampant throughout the disc is pretty well addicting.

These boys are certainly extremists (the album is dedicated to the "Vegan Straight Edge", not exactly a group Phil Gramm is courting at the moment), but why bitch when the music is this fucking good.

Yes, fucking good is the only appropriate term. Earth Crisis plays hardcore with a small (but shiny) metal inlay, omitting most of the cheese that plagues NYC metalcore acts and leaving the monstrous attack and mean sound.

And the boys manage to play this music without getting dull (a real feat). Each song reels you into the pit, chews you up a bit and then expectorates you back to the bar (juice bar; EC is straightedge, after all).

The strongest heavy hardcore album I've heard this year. Earth Crisis has a great rep, and this album should only advance the cause.

Monster fans of pop music as practiced by Big Star, the Posies and such, the Falling Wallendas replicate the sound quite faithfully, but don't quite have the songwriting spark to quite join the ranks of the hallowed.

Which is not to denigrate the album whatsoever. This is fun, earnest pop music that at times threatens to become exquisite. But just when the knockout blow should be delivered, the windmill misses.

The production is great, giving the music a full voice. I just wish the songs had a little more to say. I can hear a good amount of potential, but a little spark is needed to really kick this band into gear. Something to move these folks from retro band to current sensation. Some sort of inspiration, I guess.

Without a doubt the most anticipated album release in the independent label community so far this year. And that goes for alternative MDs as well as loud music directors.

As one of the few bands willing to take every musical risk presented, Fear Factory earns respect just for what the band attempts. And then to follow through...

Merging the industrial-goth flow of Soul of a New Machine with the techno flavor of the FLA-remixed Fear Is the Mind Killer, this album is a fresh breath of mordant musical madness (who says I can't turn a phrase?). To pick favorite tracks is an impossibility.

Eleven tracks of pure pain and suffering, accessible enough to be "cool metal" for alterna-fans who usually turn up their noses at such fare, and heavy enough to keep the fans who have been clamoring for this disc. A miracle? Perhaps. But then, if there is a band that can pull this off, Fear Factory is it.

Song for song, this is the strongest album I've heard from anyone this year. Fear Factory is pretty big, but this could be the big breakthrough. I can't imagine who could possibly resist.

Short spoken word pieces on hobo life broken up by folky, funky, bluesy pop tunes (sounding more than a little like Timbuk 3 at times). The spoken pieces are a little overbearing and silly at moments (I'm all for hobo worship, but some of it goes a bit far).

The songs are nice traveling music, but this is also a drawback. They follow the lines of the spoken pieces and really don't advance any new ideas. They sound nice, but I can't really say any of them are anything special.

This project is rather interesting, and taken as a whole it is a nice diversion. But when compared to a similarly-themed album like the Magnetic Fields' Charm of the Highway Strip, it falls short. The train moves fine, but in the end I'm where I started, with little new insight on the life of the itinerant traveler.

No middle ground on this disc. Integrity plays hardcore the old school way, with all of the style and panache that brings fans to the genre and gives detractors plenty of ammunition.

The songs follow the time-worn construction: jam about for a couple of minutes and then rip off the lyrics in a fast-as-we-can thrash riff. Integrity is a little more polished than some, but the sound remains the same.

If you are in the "fan" group (and many are), then Integrity has included 9 demo tracks in addition to the 13 on the album. Plenty of love to share.

Three pop tunes in the post-punk tradition. And "Speedracer" is not the cartoon theme song. The song doesn't seem to have much to do with the show at all.

Short, pleasant riff works that make me think of summer somewhere other than Florida (where it has been summer ever since I moved here last fall). Nothing complicated, nothing particularly astonishing. Just nice pop music. And that is a real achievement all by itself.

The power-punk split from Cargo. Uncle Joe's... brings us "Lip Gloss", a wondrously bouncy punk raver which promised great things for the upcoming album Chick Rock. The tongue is firmly placed, by the way.

Lustre's tune, "Junior", is a great pop anthem with heavy guitars that remind me somewhat of Fluf. In my book, that's not too bad. It's pretty hard to get away from this song without humming along. And FYI, Lustre used to go by the name of Shiner.

The few and the proud who ground the Meshuggah EP into dust a few months back have been rewarded. The full-length is now here.

And if you thought the prog-industrial-death metal tendencies were strong on that disc, wait until you get a hold of this. Mind-numbing and pulse-flattening, pure and simple.

Sure, some of the effects seem a little forced and overly-layered, but for the most part the little bits flitting about are mere window dressing for the feast provided. If you don't care for this lead break or that keyboard riff, you still have the band jamming in the foreground to occupy you.

Sure, there are some boring Swedish bands out there. But Meshuggah is on the cutting edge of the "heavy" death metal movement (if you want to call a band like Tiamat "light", that is). Musically innovative and still heavy as hell. The mainstream won't get it, but then that simply leaves more scraps for the faithful.

Five years ago, this might have been huge. Bands like Warrior Soul and Law and Order were cranking out anthemic albums with grungy riffs and soaring vocals. The time has passed.

I liked this sort of stuff back then, and I like what Podunk's sound now. The lyrics are a bit hackneyed and cliche, though, which bums me a bit.

The industry hack inside of me says that even with better lyrics Podunk will have a hard time selling this today. But the idealist inside tells these folks to keep on, and work a little harder on the lyrical end of things. Time can work wonders.

Gentle, mid-tempo pop that usually breaks out at least once per song. This is my favorite Seam release to date, mostly because the band seems to have finally gotten a handle on what it wants to accomplish.

The riffs are less idiosyncratic, and the mood is more playful than anguished. To some, that sounds like going commercial. But Seam has never been one of those "play in a corner" type of bands, so I think this may a case of everything coming together just right.

The production is reasonably lush, but sparse enough to keep the instruments distinct. Perhaps the best way to present this sort of mellow pop.

With this disc, Seam has become a band that I truly like. This either means I have completely changed my mind about the minimalist pop movement, or Seam has gotten a whole lot better. More than likely a little of both, but that doesn't matter.

This is a fine disc, regardless of my mindset.

As many of you know, STR has been one of my favorite bands since I first saw the boys live in KC years ago. This is a LIVE band.

Which is why the self-titled debut of a couple years back was so disappointing to me. Simply put, it sounded canned. When I talked to singer Steve Tulipana at a gig in Michigan (when I lived there), he said he would have preferred a rougher mix, but then, he was just glad to get the thing finished. The future is paramount, he said.

And so it is. With Martin Bisi at the knobs, STR has cranked out a wall of vitriolic noise that rivals the most cacophonic moments of Jesus Lizard. Indeed, most of the grungy melodic trappings of that first disc have been completely forgotten, leaving only the bitter taste of fear and disgust.

Which is where Season to Risk wallows best. Bisi captures a big chunk of the band's live energy and caterwauling moments, and the songs are just as mean this time around. I think STR always knew its niche, and this album places the boys right there, dead center. A fine piece of workmanship, though to catch the full experience you still must see these guys live.

Moody, distorted pop that perfectly fits the name of the band. Even when the band finds itself at a climactic chorus, the decibels remain restrained.

But there is a nice fuzz level at the more aggressive parts. I've heard quite a few bands with much the same idea fail, and Slumber pulls off the trick, if barely.

Slumber will need to craft its sound a little more in order to find a distinctive niche, but these two tracks are a fine start.

Rising from that hole that is called Detroit comes a band that has more than a little in common with a certain pre-punk band that blasted off from the same city over 25 years ago.

Blistering old-time rock riffs explode from a wall of feedback and attitude, which is where Speedball does draw a few (favorable) comparison with the MC5.

Of course, the extreme years ago is passe today, and Speedball is mostly a riff-spewing machine fueled on mid-tempo rockers. And nothing wrong with that in the slightest.

Sure, you can call this punk, but it really is following the tradition laid down by 50's and 60's garage bands, plastered with 90's delivery and attitude. Simple, to-the-point and a load of fun to boot. Lean back and enjoy.

Longtime readers know that Suffocation is not one of my favorite bands. But, like Death before, Suffocation has taken a more technical approach to the music, and the results are more satisfying.

Yeah, maybe it is something as simple as the guys finally learned how to play their instruments or Scott Burns figured out how to produce a clean-sounding record (which has become a recent hallmark for him), but this disc is by far the best Suffocation ever.

I still think the band wallows in the old school death metal conventions a bit much, but unlike previous Suffocation outings, I am willing to give the guys a conditional thumbs up. I must admit to severe (pleasant) surprise.

Eight bands, twelve songs. Mudball is a cassette only label, and the sound is pretty much demo quality. Most of these bands are obviously young and just starting. Most of the time they just don't recognize when they have hit upon something really good, and the song returns to the same old same old.

One bright spot was something called "Orpheus". I don't know if this is the name of the song or the band (the liners aren't helpful on this note). This is a sort of Nick Cave-y goth narration piece. Quite different from the rest of the fare, approaching brilliance.

Twenty-four of the most "alternative" bands Australia has to offer. While a few punk and pop bands pop in and out, most of the fare is electronic and/or industrial in nature. And while the production may not be the finest (many of these are demos), the creativity is top notch.

Like last issue's Gosh, I'm So Punk compilation (not to mention the last Spill set), the emphasis is on exposure and unique sounds. If you're expecting the latest version of Midnight Oil, then tough luck. Spill is a clearinghouse of demos and self-issued discs. This compilation gives you an idea of what to expect. If you like something, check out the catalog.

The norm does not exist on this disc. Every band is fairly strange and "out there", and so I love it. These bands are playing true to their ideas, instead of playing for the almighty (Australian) dollar. Bravo!

The last VF show, live and direct from Amsterdam (in front of an amazingly small crowd, or at least that's how it sounds).

The best and worst sides of Victims Family are showcased here. The progressive rock influences that separated VF from most hardcore bands are in full force and the live sound is even better than some of the studio records.

But VF is also a little self-indulgent, even in the studio, and live those tendencies are only amplified. VF was perhaps the loosest hardcore band in existence, and so you must take the good with the bad.

Twenty-three songs that wander all over the history of the band. All in all, a most fitting conclusion.

A lot of post-punk pop bands out there today, and many of them are decent. Vitreous Humor lies a little above that group.

This sort of music requires a sly wit. Nothing overdramatic or bombastic, but little sill jokes you get five minutes later. Cool titles like "She Eats Her Esses" and "Applaud Water".

Vitreous Humor has all the tools to fight the good fight and escape above the fray. These seven songs are all strong pieces, and the performance and production are all up to par. I hope these folk stick around, because I want to hear more. This is a band with real potential, and this is a great EP.

Punk-tinged pop that shows strong songwriting skills and above-average production for a demo.

This sound is sort of a Midwestern specialty (VLM reminds me of bands like Ditch Witch and Bent), one that I like. The songs are so complex as to almost be orchestrated (various musical and vocal lines crossing each other), while the spirit is fast and loose. Not easy to accomplish, but very impressive when done correctly, as it is here.

If VLM can put out more stuff like this, I can't imagine why labels would pass on it.