Music

CD Review Revue

THE TREMENS
Lipsicate
(Shaky Records)
***

I'm not totally sure what this Seattle three-piece is singing about, but from the sound of it I suspect it's dirty, dirty, dirty. Singer Quentin Ertel has the plaintive wail of a registered sex offender hollering through a megaphone, draped around lyrics like the title track's "Scrape it down, kind of low, kind of deep within your bone." Meanwhile, John Mitchell's funky and insinuating bass is doing a horizontal mambo with Curtis Washington's throbbing drums. If there were such a thing as a punk-rock bordello in the stickiest swamp in Louisiana, I would recommend that these boys apply to be the house band. And live? Damn, these boys will put on a show to make even the chilliest hipsters molten all the way down to their Underdog Underoos. TAMARA PARIS

BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLIE
Ease Down The Road
(Palace Records/Drag City)
***

This second LP released under Will Oldham's latest moniker (see also Will Oldham, Push, and Palace Brothers) is half composed of dirges like the ones that dominated 1999's excellent I See A Darkness, and half composed of sprightly violin and choral-backed compositions in the recent manner of labelmate Smog. On "Just to See My Holly Home," a sing-along sours once a closer listen is given to the murderous narrative, like those that made 1996's Arise Therefore so creepy. Mostly, though, these narrators stick to Oldham's new obsession, adultery. Elsewhere, and most affectingly on the straightforward "After I Made Love to You," he sounds like a more defeated Gram Parsons, if that's possible. A great songwriter continues here to pursue an eccentric path with many forks. If it is no longer as satisfying as the classic early Palace, at least Oldham keeps things strange and changing. GRANT COGSWELL

THE ANNIVERSARY/SUPERDRAG
Split EP
(Vagrant/Heroes & Villains)
***

Along with the Get Up Kids, Lawrence, Kansas' the Anniversary is among a faction of emo-core bands that consistently do all they can to bring out the adrenaline-charged fun in angst. Last year's Designing a Nervous Breakdown was a buoyant blast of nerves, not unlike the Rentals' first album, but here the band has found its inner Floyd and revels in synth-fueled languor. Though few would have accused Knoxville, Tennessee's Superdrag of having emo tendencies before this split EP, the first track, "Take Your Spectre Away," is redolent of all the chiming guitars and sudden tempo changes that the genre's fans demand. Superdrag's never been the most original of bands; its 1996 major-label debut, Regretfully Yours, was snotty British Invasion, and its 1998 follow-up, Headtrip in Every Key, aimed straight for Midwest power pop. The three tracks here successfully meld both of the former influences. A maracas-shaking Cheap Trick? You'd better believe it. KATHLEEN WILSON

DUNGEON FAMILY
Even in Darkness
(Arista)
****

At this stage in Outkast's stellar career, it's hard to imagine that André 3000 and Big Boi would be able to compromise their vision to make an entire album with a different group. But by god, this collaboration with Goodie Mobb and a slew of other Atlanta rappers is stunning. The Goodie Mobb and Outkast styles not only complement each other perfectly, they improve on each other's scope and vision. Goodie Mobb, a solid, Southern-sounding rap group, get a push into the absurd--a nudge into Outkast's land of crazy beats, effects, and lyrics. As for Outkast, after last year's Stankonia I hadn't imagined the group could stand any improvement at all. But Goodie Mobb moves Outkast's sex/sci-fi into a new, spiritual territory. This is seen in the gospel melodies of "Crooked Booty" and the Wagner-esque "Excalibur," sounds that Outkast would never engineer (but then again, Goodie Mobb would never write a song telling you to "do the crooked booty"). "Follow lights/they lead to something" is the chorus of "Follow the Light," which puts a wonderful spin on both the sci-fi ATLiens "light" of Outkast, and the fatalistic, moral "light" of Goodie Mob. "High is high/low is low/everybody wants to go to heaven/but nobody wants to die," begins "Rollin'," which features a positively intoxicating down-tempo "shoo-bop shoo-bop" oldies beat. If Outkast ever lacked anything, it was this kind of investigation of mortality and morality, which gives a powerful focus to Outkast's truly bizarre imagination. BRIAN GOEDDE

ANTI-POP CONSORTIUM
The Ends Against The Middle
(Warp Records)
****

New York City's Anti-Pop Consortium is keeping it (hiphop) real by keeping it imaginary. This is where hiphop started: in fantasy. Hiphop was not about the dissemination of important social messages, but was an escape from the hard world. This is why early rappers said the most outrageous things about their status and means. They boasted about money they didn't have, color TVs they never owned, brand new Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals they couldn't afford, because banks and credit cards wouldn't loan them "more money than a sucker could ever spend." Hiphop was once the realm of the imagination, and Anti-Pop Consortium's main project is to restore this dream realm, with artificially intelligent raps and starship beats. The band's latest offering is an EP called The Ends Against the Middle. I don't quite get the title, but it contains pure and intoxicating hiphop. Despite all of the rapid poetry and fancy sounds (fancy in the medieval, numinous sense of the word), nothing on this CD comes from the outside, but from deep within the hiphop dream machine. CHARLES MUDEDE

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