A Gun Called Tension bears the half-assed (okay, three-quarter-asssed) feel of a side project. The handiwork of Dann Gallucci (Modest Mouse, Murder City Devils) and Sean Reveron (Exodus 77, Beta Band), the group's debut, A Gun Called Tension, nonetheless possesses enough interesting ideas to make it worth a fraction of your spare time. Don't expect Modest Mouse's epic emo, though "Treason" comes close to it with some rabble-rousing dance rock egged on by guest Spencer Moody's passionate vocals. AGCT--with help from several A list Seattle players, Airborn Audio's Priest, and Roots Manuva--are more about stark, lopsided electro dub á la Mark Stewart and the Maffia and backpack-hiphop righteousness. However, they may have a hit single in the atypical "Gold Fronts," in which Reveron's Wolfman Jack voice croaks and Pixies-like guitars stutter and blare over a chunky funk rhythm. Tension's a sporadically thrilling diversion, but it can't help seeming like a footnote in many important musicians' resumés. DAVE SEGAL

SNITCHES GET STITCHES
I Liked You Better When You Were a Corpse
(Empty)
***

Hell hath no fury like a musician scorned, and local progressive hardcore trio Snitches Get Stitches strike with such torrid irons you'd think they were retaliating for an exceptionally scalding attack. At the core of SGS's Empty Records debut is the dervish delivery of one Roddy Chops, who reels off the rails into a blistering howl one moment and coils his disdain into a red-hot sneer the next. The fact that he's not always in demon-child mode adds to the band's multifaceted sound--but he nonetheless spits out his words like bloodied, broken teeth. Lyrically, Chops trails off from the acrimonious to the absurd, with the threat of violence omnipresent throughout. Whether he's offering a bayonet to the neck or snuffing out cigarettes on skin, Chops takes plastic culture down at every turn, salting every wound he opens with ample sarcasm. Musically, SGS puncture the various skins housing the giant rock genre--everything from math to electro-noise to damaged indie gets a bruising from the Stitches, as overpowering melodies get squashed by noisy punk interludes, only to rise from the ashes and lead out a song. JENNIFER MAERZ

Snitches Get Stitches play two shows this week: Fri Feb 18 at the Sunset (CD release) and Wed Feb 23 at Studio Seven.

THE M83
Before the Dawn Heals Us
(Mute)
***

If M83's last album was the sound of the impersonal made gorgeous, this is the sound of the impersonal made goopy. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts was a towering success--it had the same ending as Kid A, and much of the same power. Its secret was perhaps that it mined its wondrous beauty from such unlikely places that it was fundamentally incapable of being kitsch. Dead Cities… sounded like it was culled from the swan songs of a hundred dying synthesizers, which made it proof against criticism from even those circles where beauty requires an excuse. With Before the Dawn Heals Us, that's no longer the case. Here, M83's collection of robot ghosts is caught reaching a little too strenuously for the epic. Their austerity has slipped and kitsch has crept in. This is still a fascinating and highly enjoyable record, but it's a strangely guilty pleasure. CHRIS LESLIE-HYNAN

JENNIFER GENTLE
Valende
(Sub Pop)
****

Jennifer Gentle's Marco Fasolo (guitar, vocals, production) is psych-rock eccentric Syd Barrett reincarnated as an Italian whose voice is stunted at a witchy preadolescent whine. The Barrett connection extends to the band name (copped from lyrics in Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam"). But Jennifer Gentle--who also include drummer Alessio Gastaldello--don't ape '60s psychedelia as much as they distort it into myriad beguiling shapes. The band's third studio album, Valende possesses astonishing range, morphing from Ummagumma homage "Hessesopoa"'s shrieking free-jazz intensity to "Universal Daughter"'s woozy vaudevilledelia to "I Do Dream You"'s Nuggets-y rave-up. But Valende peaks on "Circles of Sorrow," which offers an acid-refracted glimpse of what a Brian Wilson/Skip Spence collaboration circa 1968 would sound like. This is rock drained of all angst and set adrift on absence-of-memory bliss. That Valende comes from a basement studio in Padova, Italy somehow makes it all the more delectable. DAVE SEGAL

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Live from the Morning Alternative: A Benefit for the Vera Project
(self-released)
***

With a goal to raise $50,000 for the Vera Project in 2005, 107.7 The End has been bombarding the music community with opportunities to throw money at the deserving all-ages music and art organization. The station has auctioned off various rock memorabilia via its website (www.1077theend.com), hosted shows where portions of the ticket price act as a donation, and most recently has released Live from the Morning Alternative, a compilation CD featuring live, in-studio performances from nine local bands. Whether or not everything on the disc falls into your spectrum of taste, it's undeniable that all the songs sound fantastic. And if you don't like one song, you'll indeed like the next since a number of genres are covered here. Mountain Con, Visqueen, the Lashes, Idiot Pilot, the Ruby Doe, and Gosling are just a few of the featured artists. There's also the only acoustic performance ever recorded by Schoolyard Heroes (which is amazing), as well as previously unreleased songs from Mon Frere, the Divorce, Smoosh, and Pretty Girls Make Graves. And while most of the tracks were performed during the Morning Alternative show (DJ No Name and Timberlake feature a live performance from a local band every Friday morning at 8:30 a.m.), there are also a few previously unreleased EndSession tracks from Harvey Danger, Death Cab for Cutie, and the Presidents of the United States of America. All that for only seven bucks, with every cent going to Vera? Yes, please. MEGAN SELING

The CD-release show (w/Schoolyard Heroes, Alien Crime Syndicate, and guests) is Fri Feb 18 at the Vera Project.

THE SHARP EASE
Going Modern
(olFactory Records)
***

Blank Generation revisited! The Sharp Ease's Paloma Parfrey sings like a Riot-Grrrl Richard Hell, strangling and yowling while her band plays '80s punk and barks (tongue-in-cheek, maybe?) oi backups. But where Richard was all Please Kill Me, who says it's good to be alive? onstage, Paloma and her girls have fun. They sing odes to life preservers and crush songs about a local coffeehouse worker, and shriek like fruit bats with no warning whatsoever. It's never dumb, or too punk for its own good. Going Modern may not be all that tight, but the Sharp Ease are always playing well, getting adventurous with the breakdowns, and riding the bridges like the Bangs. AND they bend strings in their solos, like long, drawn-out AC/DC string benders--which most everybody's too cool for nowadays. Sharp! Easy! Yes! ADAM GNADE

MARIANNE FAITHFULL
Before the Poison
(Anti/Epitaph)
****

With her craggy yet elegantly restrained voice, Marianne Faithfull has carved out a second career as the grande dame of rock, built on her images as '60s survivor, Mick Jagger's consort, and former junkie. On each album since her 1979 resurrection with Broken English, she has slyly elaborated and deconstructed her public image, becoming more elusive while simultaneously revealing more of herself; it's a striptease as a disappearing act. For Before the Poison Faithfull has found two simpatico collaborators in Nick Cave and PJ Harvey (both of whom are no slouches in the persona-making art). The guest songwriters create musical atmosphere with jagged guitars and unhinged pianos for Faithfull's rasp to inhabit and push against. The singer sounds positively restrained on the title song, leaning into the lyrics, slowly twisting the words, and then twisting the knife as the narrative turns bitter. She makes the sentimentality and self-pity palpable before she lets her hand show. Faithfull may remember the time before the poison wistfully, but in the end she wouldn't have done it any differently. NATE LIPPENS

THE GAME
The Documentary
(Aftermath/G-Unit)
**1/2

Gassed up as the Left Coast savior, the Game's hubris seems boundless. For an uninspired gangsta rapper, he's got an irritating habit of comparing himself to rap's elite; allegedly, after waking from a gunshot-induced coma, he absorbed the skills of Pac, Big, Jay, Nas, and NWA á la Rogue from X-Men…. I just can't buy the premise that a hybrid of hiphop's icons from the last 10 years would end up sounding this fucking contrived. There is a certain genius in his moniker, however: dude embodies the industry's standard of mediocrity--hence, "the Game"! No matter how big his buzz/head gets, he's simply not the caliber of emcee to carry his unwieldy shtick; when 50 sounds more earnest than you on your own shit, it's time to call it a night. LARRY MIZELL JR.