Seriously commercial alternative (using that word in a corporate sense) hard rock fare, ranging from nasty grunge moments to the occasional 12-string whining.

This is catchy enough that I like it on my first run-through, but I can also tell that I really won't want to hear it again. A complete lack of original licks and ideas pretty much seals Birdbrain's fate.

More processed-sounding than really shitty, Birdbrain seem to have followed someone's idea of grooming for the big time. And I just don't like that sort of thing.

Sorry.

Plenty of hot (and some cool) blues showcasing the wondrous harp talent of Little John Chrisley.

A member of Howling Iguanas and a veteran of the blues circuit for years, Chrisley has quite a resume for a guy younger than I am (24).

But us guys born in Rochester have to stick together, anyway. With stellar side men like Aynsley Dunbar on drums, Chrisley's band can really smoke when things get cooking. And on the slower numbers, such as "Disappointed", Chrisley and the rest of the group show some real skill.

This is not cliche-ridden white boy wanking blues. Chrisley has tapped a real vein and put out an album of Chicago-style houserockin' blues that almost anyone would envy. The guitars don't overwhelm, and as noted earlier, the harp playing is exquisite.

Absolutely no reason to miss this one. I hope Chrisley never loses the blues.

Four guys who really dig H.P. Lovecraft ("Without whom we'd be singing lame love songs", the liners say) and, obviously Star Wars. I can empathize.

The music is highly-polished punk-pop harmonized stuff, rather addictive and astonishingly accessible. And, much like a Christian rock band, there are notes on each song telling us what Lovecraft story (or merely a pithy paragraph on pretty much nothing) that we should read to understand the lyrics.

The packaging is dead on, and the music is simply divine. This is fun. Really. If you have this, then play it. If you don't, you simply must find it. Darkest of the Hillside Thickets must be heard to be believed. And once the sonic force has cruised your ear, then nothing can be done. The invasion is complete and you are helpless. That's how these things get started, anyway.

Not the ex-Buc, current Colt quarterback. Just so you know.

I hate it when labels do this to me, but this album is the perfect counterpoint to Little John Chrisley's album. When Chrisley's band faced an opportunity to play things safe and rip off a decades-old riff, the boys chose the path less traveled. Erickson, on the other hand, cranks up his guitar sound (as a guitarist/producer is wont to do) and simply starts churning out cliched lyrics and tired lick after tired lick.

If you think Gary Moore plays great blues, then this album is for you. But if you prefer your blues a little more steeped in feel and emotion, then turn somewhere other than Craig Erickson.

Good for the completist, but also a form of a greatest hits sorts thing. You get seven songs recorded for John Peel's show (often marketed as "Peel Sessions"), five live tracks and three things that are probably best described as stuff left in the closet.

The sound quality is quite good throughout (perhaps some judicious remixing, I'd say), and the versions of any songs previously released do differ somewhat (sometimes substantially) from the original.

A nice little unpretentious retrospective package. There are no liners to speak of, except a disclaimer from the band saying, in part: "OK, this isn't a proper album, but we crammed as much stuff on here as possible. People have been asking for this for year, so here it is." Good enough for me.

So in case you haven't fallen completely in love with the world's finest purveyor of extreme hardcore, this set might do the trick. But if the former is the case, then where have you been the past five years or so?

I generally don't review re-issues, but since this one hasn't been available in the U.S. for a long time, I decided to say my peace.

Lighter than Streetcleaner, obviously, but you can hear the elements coming together. With "Wound", one of the bonus tracks, you can hear the beginnings of the ideas that became Slavestate.

Sure, this is probably worth more as a historical document, particularly considering the album that followed. But remember: back in 1990 no one had any idea how to react to this stuff. And most today are still dumbfounded.

Industrial drumming, processed vocals and a grinding buzzsaw guitar attack. Wait, this isn't the first Pantera album, is it?

No, and to call this a rip wouldn't quite be fair (though it's close). After all, Haji's Kitchen is still a little too steeped in the grunge to really be stealing from Pantera (though those King's X and Soundgarden references are downright spooky at times).

A decent, workmanlike album that combines various aspects of current metal trends into a palatable package. This does not suck. In fact, I really got into a couple songs. But in five years will this stuff seem remotely important? No, because the band members seem much more interested in what other bands are doing than in making new music. There is plenty of talent here; Haji's Kitchen should be doing more than surfing metal trends.

While the noise and rhythms are as overpowering as last year's T&G debut, Kepone has created some blue spaces in its sound as well.

So each song doesn't move at breakneck speed and threaten to drive your heart into terminal collapse. There are plenty of aggro moments, but the production overall leaves more space between the instruments, and Kepone attacks this advantage for all it is worth.

After all, the true test of a band is to see how it uses silence and stasis. Anyone can throw noise and distortion in your face. It takes a real artist to manage to empty space to perfect effect. And once again, Kepone is up to the task.

Setting a new standard for noise rock, Kepone has ripped of an ambitious bite for its sophomore release, and somehow fulfilled every expectation. Once again I am left at a loss for words to describe how I feel about this disc. Simply stunning.

Sample heavy and full of distortion, Martin Atkins has dropped his heavy touch with the knobs on a band again.

And not a bad thing, either. After all, the mastermind of Pigface must have a good idea or two left. And Lick has the vicious grunge-cum-industrial songwriting style that seems perfectly suited to this sound.

Ten doses of meager melodies and booming beats, with swirls of fuzz guitar and bouncing bass notes ringing throughout. I'm not sure hope this translates live (and I missed the band when it trekked recently through the area), but on this disc the sound is simple awe-inspiring.

Pile-driving (what else from Atkins and Invisible, anyway?) mean-spirited grungy industrial sludge. Yowzers. All that and this is still a great album.

Yes, the remix album that will not die, and I finally get a change to piss all over it.

Well, actually, anyone who knows me knows my opinion of Scorn (something like a dose of Scorn away helps keep a person sane and happy), so you will not be surprise to find out that I dig the remixes almost as much as the originals.

Well, except for "Silver Rain Fell". That is my all-time favorite Scorn piece, and Meat Beat Manifesto kinda dulled it out a bit. The thing is not bad, but I do prefer the original. Most of others are such departures from the original songs that it would be hard to really compare. So I won't.

Earache calls Scorn an ambient project, and I guess it fits in somewhere there. But like the best of the genre (a good chunk of Aphex Twin comes to mind), Scorn insists on taking artistic chances and writing interesting, if long, drawn-out and mellow, pieces. Scorn may be ambient, but it's still not terribly AAA listener-friendly. Ain't that a shame.

Mostly your basic NYC hardcore spiel, except on specific tracks, where the influences turn into photocopy material. For example, "Civilized Man" is a basic rip-off of "Waiting Room", except that the chorus is lame. "Empathy" sounds like a cheesy version of about three ALL songs, and the verse of "Here We Go" sounds a shitload like Green Day (and thus, the Buzzcocks), though once again the chorus peters out. And I'm not even going to talk about "Not the Flesh". Yikes.

Wading through the morass of this disc, I am struck by how many times Shelter tries to re-invent itself, even while staying moderately close to the NYC ideal.

At times, particularly when the band is really trying to write a pop anthem, Shelter sounds decent. But I'm just not sure where the guys are heading. A little more work and they could be really quite good. Or the wrong A&R guy will tell them to follow another 10 trends and the next album will sound like this one.

Perhaps if Shelter could get comfortable in one mode, then the attempts to borrow from influences wouldn't sound so contrived.

Sounding like a lo-fi glam metal band stuck on Gwar-ish subject matter, the Snaut attack rolls on towards the precipice on the wheels of a Geezer-esque bass attack.

So this is weird and cheesy, but in a good sort of way. Like if Mercyful Fate had a sense of humor about things. I mean they cover "Like a Virgin" just like Stone Temple Pilots would, except the STP boys would be serious.

I mean, if the band is willing to enclose a rabbit turd (and a blue feather) inside every disc, you can't get too pissed. This is highly amusing, particularly after a few beers. Nothing wrong with puerile pabulum every once in a while, particularly when it's this fuckin' funny.

Average blues attack (better when Spinner unleashes his slide) completely let down by Spinner's reedy, glam metal vocal style.

And while the great blues singers can compensate for less than sterling material with great playing or an amazing vocal presence, Spinner has neither. He is a good player, and his slide work is very nice, but the lyrics are dull and as previously mentioned, he does not have a good voice for the blues.

Add to these woes a one-dimensional view of the blues (the rhythms barely seem to change from song to song; where did the idea of many shades of blue go?) and an over-amped guitar and you get a blues album that is not quite up to my standards.

Spinner would be much better off recruiting a new vocalist and slowing things up a bit. Fast and flashy playing is alright (and even appreciated somewhat) in hard rock circles, but the test in blues is to make one 30-second note say everything in the world. Spinner isn't quite there yet.

The basic story: prog rock bands (one of which is named Dark Side of the Moon) get together to record a new version of Dark Side of the Moon, track by track. The ultimate tribute? Or just a really stupid idea.

Both, really. Cleopatra has a goth and industrial tribute to the Floyd that walks the line of cheesiness, and this is simply too much. Bands who worship Pink Floyd far too much as it is re-recording the longest-charting album of all time. Not a good idea.

Now, they do a decent job of reinterpreting the songs, but a lot of the technological excesses that Pink Floyd hadn't quite gotten into back in 1972 are dumped in here, and that is certainly to the detriment of the music. Many of the versions on this disc sound like they were created in a studio by a machine, not by people. Before 1980, Pink Floyd had a decent knack for making spacey music sound human. This collection strips these songs of their humanity.

A hell of an idea, alright. But not what I'd call a terribly good one.