THE PINKOS
The Pinkos
(Empty Records)
***

The acoustic guitar has often suffered dismissal as being the soggy harp of crybaby singer-songwriters. The Pinkos' guitar player, Vanessa Veselka, toughens up the humble axe and its reputation with aggressive chord-changes, ripping leads, and plenty of distortion. Together with drummer Steve Moriarty, the duo reclaims alternative rock's chunky roots in an acoustic-punk band that provides a strong enough dose of old-school punk to infiltrate the watered-down MTV version. The Pinkos finds the club-experienced team shredding through scrappy ditties aimed at the present state of Amerikkka, while providing plenty of harmonized verse-to-chorus pop. With the musical rawness of X-Ray Spex and Violent Femmes, obvious single "Billy Jack and Me" points a finger at the police state, retaining the nascent vibe of the punk rock born in beer-bottle-littered practice spaces and makeshift clubs during the late '70s. The wit and maturity of Veselka and Moriarty, as musicians and activists, provide humorous, intelligent musical diatribes and leave out the studio magic that bleached punk rock for mass consumption. TESS. LOTTA

RED HOUSE PAINTERS
Old Ramon
(Sub Pop)
**

After three years in record-company-merger limbo, Red House Painters' Old Ramon is finally seeing the light of day on Sub Pop. Opening with "Wop-A-Din-Din," a popward strummer about frontman Mark Kozelek's cat patiently awaiting his return, the album seems to be off to a lighter terrain than past recordings. Kozelek's mournful voice is still the focal point, but the songs are fleshed out by guitarist Phil Carney, bassist Jerry Vessel, and drummer Anthony Koutsos. The neo-folk underpinnings of the band's music are at the forefront for most of the album, and after the feline opener, Kozelek's lyrics turn to focus on emotional travails. Four of the songs clock in near or over the 10-minute mark without building much emotional steam or sonic interest. Old Ramon may have the unenviable task of shouldering years of expectations, but Kozelek's solo projects in the interim have shown more passion and involvement. The miserablism that he has manifested on previous records seems muted to moping on this album. NATE LIPPENS

ROBERT SCOTT
The Creeping Unknown
(Thirsty Ear)
***

As the bassist for the Clean and the singer/guitarist for the Bats, Robert Scott has been a force in two seminal New Zealand bands whose influence far extended beyond their geography. The melodiousness and innate pop smarts that illuminated every corner of the Bats' wall-eyed wonder and quirkiness are not immediately evident on Scott's solo debut. The album is mostly instrumental, though there are a few vocal tracks that jump out with the immediacy and craftsmanship Scott is renowned for. The rest of the album is moody and atmospheric, creating soundscapes that pay homage to the open spaces of Scott's homeland. Clean bandmate David Kilgour plays guitar and keyboards, with Scott adding Mellotron and mandolin on a few songs for a sound that suggests a melding of Calexico with Rick Rizzo and Tara Key's instrumental forays--only with Robert Scott, there is a self-assured pop stalwart just beneath the surface. NATE LIPPENS

ALPHA
The Impossible Thrill
Melankolic
***1/2

Alpha's only mistake on The Impossible Thrill, the group's second full-length CD, is that it dropped the samplers and drum machines to pick up live instruments. This is regrettable because Alpha's first CD, Come from Heaven (1997), successfully shaped jazz songs out of looped digital noises and samples. Indeed, the blocks of robot realities produced by Kraftwerk on Man-Machine (1978) were complicated into robot reveries by Alpha's childlike sensitivity to simple things like sunlight, apples, and oranges. (Yes, we are talking about memories! Android memories!) Alpha, like Tyrell Corporation, blurred the line between electronic circuitry and the nervous system. The new CD still draws from the jazz song form, but the music is now made by humans--composers, orchestras, pianists--and only one sample ("Blues" from La Dolce Vita) drifts through the dub haze. Despite its failure to fulfill Heaven's destiny, I haven't stopped listening to The Impossible Thrill all week. It's abnormally beautiful. CHARLES MUDEDE

OSCAR TONEY, JR.
For Your Precious Love
(Sundazed)
****

Lord, I'm a S-U-C-K-A-H for the Deep Soul. You know, that weepy, hollerin'... GOSPEL-driven SOUL, which reaches through you and twists and pulls and pulls and twists on your heart till every last DROP of feelin' bad and blue, even if you got NUTHIN' to feel bad about, spills over and drips down your face. Whoo-whee... it is THAT feelin' which Toney nails! Now, overall, this reissue of Toney's Precious Love LP is solid chin-wigglin' and tear-jerkin', but... there's a song or two that kinda crosses over, um, into "classy pop." Please don't be afraid of "strings," since Toney is NOT given to schmaltzy "Warwick" soul... oh, and there's even, at least, ONE Northern soul mover... thankfully, which'll give me time between weepers to dance over to a fresh box of tissues. MIKE NIPPER

ST. ETIENNE
Interlude
(Sub Pop)
**

I was folding my laundry, thinking I should put on some music, when I realized I already had, and had been listening to it for the past 45 minutes--St. Etienne's collection of B-sides and effluvia, Interlude. It was kind of soothing and pretty, in an in-one-ear-out-the-other kind of way. I hummed tonelessly under my breath, letting the gentle beats meander around in my head. My laundry tucked away, it was time for me to leave. I rose to turn the CD off, only to discover it already was, and probably had been for five minutes or more. I put the CD away and left. BRET FETZER

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Get Low Down! The Soul of New Orleans '65-'67 (2 CD)
(Sundazed)
****

The other week, as Pioneer Square squirmed in the clutches of them Fat Tuesday jackasses, I was in my room a-bang-shang-a-langin' to THIS! Lordy... I mean what else would I be doin'? I ain't got no teets worth flashin'! Well... um, anyway, GLD is a fine testimony to producer Allen Toussaint's blazin' "git downda work" action circa '65-'67. Y'all, this is ONE deep investigation of his hot poe-tata boogie--GLD sports FIFTY fuckin' tracks of prime New Arleens soul/R&B! All performed, of course, by a number of different entertainers, and each of which Toussaint was, in some way, responsible for (via writin' or producin')! But who, exactly, is on GLD? Well, if I mention one name, I'd havta tell you 'bout each and EVERY one... dig? So, the way I figger, you ought go get this and get yer own partay on! MIKE NIPPER

MANIC STREET PREACHERS
Know Your Enemy
(EMD/Virgin)
**

Five years ago, the Manic Street Preachers' Everything Must Go was unashamedly significant, a breath of fresh air for a pop-saturated music industry in which no one with a guitar would dare hint at ambitions of grandeur for fear of being sent to the knives. The band's next release, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, though admirably grandiose, suffered under the weight of expectation. And now it sadly seems as though the band has stuck its tail between its legs and gone "back to the basics." Know Your Enemy actually has some brilliant tracks, such as the Beach Boys-inspired "So Why So Sad"--the problem is it has a lengthy 16-track roster, plus a bonus song, that drowns would-be classics in a sea of uninspired filler. KUDZAI MUDEDE

JEB LOY NICHOLS
Just What Time It Is
(Rykodisc/Rough Trade)
*

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I'm not up on my mergers, but I have a hard time believing that Rough Trade is near the hands of the folks that once ran it if it's brewing this weak tea. Jeb Loy Nichols is being widely compared to James Taylor, justifiably: He sounds exactly like him. The publicity for this CD makes it out to be some kind of reggae/country hybrid, I suppose on account of the fact that Nichols was born in Wyoming and the record was partially made in Jamaica. Some Rastaman effectively freestyles at the beginning of the first couple songs for a few seconds but is whisked offstage, as Nichols' chief m.o. is self-congratulation at how sweet life is for him--not exactly the hard-won Jah vibration. When I was plushly suffering an all-expenses-paid climb on the Ivy League greasepole, the sweetly cynical Manhattanite who was my island of sanity called people like Nichols "goodlifers." Through surplus energy, connections, and freedom from debilitating circumstance, they fill the airwaves with twaddle; now with the hype of an apparently effective publicity engine, the world is Nichols' coffeehouse. This five-inch, silver-backed Frisbee is going to shift units. But don't believe this is anything you should spend your money on. GRANT COGSWELL

BLAKE BABIES
God Bless the Blake Babies
(Zoe/Rounder Records)
*

The Blake Babies imploded 10 years ago, having released a handful of albums with some genuinely inspired pop moments that smeared post-punk and gamine-voiced melody into a combustible mixture. Juliana Hatfield went on to a frustratingly mixed career that first displayed and then obscured her talents of playing her girlish voice against prickly, churlish music. Her Blake Babies bandmates John Strohm and Freda Love Smith meandered through a succession of fair-to-middling bands and projects that never caught the bottled-lightning fragments of their earlier band. Hatfield accepted the advances of Smith to re-form the Blake Babies and it is a real shame. The music lacks any bite, sounding reminiscent of Hatfield's weakest solo material. The world also never needs another Evan Dando and Hatfield duet like the one on "Brain Damage," which features the former couple singing the truly awful line, "The brain damage is all in your head." Elsewhere the lyrics seem to reach for maturity, smoothed out at the cost of having anything to say. Most disturbing is the besmirching of the modest but respectable legacy of the band's earlier incarnation. It's hard to believe that this is the band and the woman who played "I'm Not Your Mother" with such ferocious compression. It's true, though--she's not my mother. My mother says more insightful things than anything offered on this album. NATE LIPPENS

THE BUTCHIES
3
(Mr. Lady)
***

As guitarist and co-vocalist of the Northwest's Team Dresch, Kaia Wilson was a baby-dyke foremother of the queercore movement that inspired and agitated the indie and underground rock subcultures in equal measures. When Team Dresch imploded, Wilson headed east, settling in North Carolina where she formed the Butchies with bassist Alison Martlew and drummer Melissa York. Over the course of three albums, the Butchies have grown into a strong band that has honed its musical and cultural chops. Their latest album, 3, finds the Butchies at the top of their game. The songs have become more hook-laden while remaining raw and textured. York and Martlew anchor the songs and Wilson burns wild magma and cleverness across her guitar lines. On her quieter songs she displays a beautiful voice, which can loose to a furious yelp on the punkier numbers. The unevenness of the Butchies' first two albums has been smoothed out without any loss of velocity, and didacticism has burned off like a fog, leaving behind a bone-deep fury and rueful humanity that offers subtlety in its tough and righteous worldview. NATE LIPPENS