Todd A

Millencolin are from Sweden and sound like Bad Religion. There’s nothing indispensable or terribly original on Home From Home, but there’s great hooks galore and the music is played with such frenetic enthusiasm that the record’s a great listen. “Fingers Crossed” with its dramatic pauses and melodic guitar riffing gets stuck in my head all the time. As does most of the album. What the hell, we all need balls-out rock with great hooks every now and then.

The Early Years EP, as its name implies, is a short collection of Tiger Army’s earliest recordings. As such, it’s meant primarily for fans of the band who have been unable to locate the vinyl Temptation EP or unwilling to purchase Give ‘Em the Boot II for the one Tiger Army track. I feel the same as Nick 13 of Tiger Army who writes in the liner notes, “If I really dig a band/artist, I want everything they’ve ever done…. If you’re like me in this way, then this EP was put together for you.” (continue reading…)

Rosey comes across like a Nelly Furtado with cred. The music is mostly a low-key dance-pop, more nuanced than the Britneys of the world. Actual dynamics and instruments will no doubt confine Rosey to the “adult-alternative” radio stations of the U.S. Maybe she’ll be huge in Europe or Japan. She should be. Her throaty voice is like a gutsy version of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons — or maybe that’s just me.

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Holy crap. It’s like 1994 all over again. I mean that in no mean way. I love this record. It’s fantastic girl-sung indie pop like The Breeders, That Dog, Letters to Cleo, and all those Throwing Muses, etc. “Things I Imagine” should be a college radio hit. Ultra-catchy.

Bad Religion have long sounded like they swallowed a thesaurus and vomited it up during their two minute punk songs. Any glance at the lyrics will confirm this. A favorite is “The arid torpor of inaction will be our demise” from “Kyoto Now.” At least Graffin possesses the panache to pull it off. But it’s a bit strange as a listener to hear something as energetic and catchy as “Kyoto Now” and be unable to sing along. (continue reading…)

Weezer’s resurfacing last year with the eponymous “green album” raised more questions than it answered: what took them so long? why was the record so short? what happened to the complex songs of Pinkerton? Weezer gave all sorts of excuses and justifications in interviews but it really takes the release of Maladroit to begin to answer the important questions.

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Band moves to wilderness, makes weird record. Unfortunately, such a scenario doesn’t sound all that original these days what with home recording equipment becoming cheaper and of higher fidelity. Nevertheless, the Promise Ring, those chirpy poster boys of Midwest emo-pop, having pulled through brain tumors and Spin interviews, retreated to England with Smiths/Blur producer Stephen Street and made a record unlike any they’ve previously done. The result, Wood/Water, is altogether… wholesome. It’s warm and soft and greatly unlike their last full-length, 1999’s Very Emergency. Gone is the pop sheen. Present is a newly found exploration into the textures of the instruments.
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No matter how much one reveres a musician, there’s something about the posthumous release that smacks of “cash in.” Thankfully, Joey Ramone’s first solo project gives Ramones’ fans something more than shelf-filler. It becomes obvious when listening to the painfully simple and honest songs here that Joey has crafted his own obituary.

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The comparisons of Don Lennon to Jonathan Richman are spot on. It’s not only his simple guitar chord-led music, or his baritone voice or his mighty silly lyrics but a melange of all of the above. His absurd songs are made only moreso by their pop culture references. Not one but two songs about Dave Matthews appear on Downtown and despite myself I smile everytime I hear the lyric “Dave Matthews Band comes alive / at a microbrewery / or a Chili’s bar and grill” from “Matthews Comes Alive.” The song is of course told from the point of view of Dave himself — an hilarious concept. Likewise, “Lenny Kravitz and Lisbon” ridicules Kravitz not with savage bon mots but by the simple inclusion in such a ridiculous song. At first listen, such pop culture humor seems to weigh the album down, but the songs’ ultimate tunefulness and the concise length of both the songs and the album as a whole leave it bubbling in your memory. “Gay Fun” is just what its name implies. It might be the tenth listen before you crack up at “Jean Michel”’s metric measurements. And Don’s dream in “John Cale” is melancholy and warmly amusing and a perfect closer.

Joe Queenan’s Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler is a collection of his articles on movies. Collections of articles are great for dedicated fans but generally a bit difficult to get through for the mildly disinterested reader since rarely is there a narrative focus to the whole collection. Queenan’s book presents just this dilemma. Finally, I find his article “The Remains of the Dazed” — an article I’ve been telling friends about for years though couldn’t remember the author — wherein Queenan is challenged by his editors to sit through every single Merchant-Ivory film ever made. I won’t give away the ending. Only Joe Queenan could write a few thousand words on the dullness of Merchant-Ivory and manage to excite his reader. But often, articles drag despite Queenan’s indefatigable wit. There’s always a laugh to be found in his descriptions, but the articles from which his quips come are not entirely amusing. (continue reading…)

As I see it, press kits are most useful after you’ve thought up your review and you want to make sure you don’t sound like a jackass in print. In this case, I was about to say that the singer (whose name I found is Joe Gittleman) from Avoid One Thing sounds like a tuneful Dicky Barrett from Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Then, I learned Gittleman is in Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Ahh. Well, okay then. I would hope bands I review are pleased to know I usually listen to their records with few preconceptions of the music. But then, maybe their publicists are annoyed to know how little I consult bios and press kits. (continue reading…)

The easiest and truest criticism of this record is why did it get made? Who wants to hear some nincompoop emo bands covering Weezer? The (harsh) reality is that Rock Music is not a bad compilation. Most of the bands do a great job covering or interpreting one of their favorite bands. The sad fact, though, is that while most of the bands all do a great job, they do so because it’s the best material they’ve ever worked with. (continue reading…)