THE CORKSCREWING CATCHINESS OF AMANDA X

(Rendezvous) How often do Siltbreeze Records bands come through Seattle? Not very, so fans of that venerable Philadelphia indie label’s sporadic output should swarm to this show to witness Amanda X. Their new album, Amnesia, deals in the sort of congenial, burly melodic rock that groups like Scrawl, Helium, and Sleater-Kinney elevated to an art form. Amanda X’s tunes rumble and corkscrew in patterns just slanted enough to keep your jaded ears happy and surprised. Amnesia is actually pretty unforgettable.
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GET PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY THE CAREENING ASTRO-JAZZ OF SPONTANEOUS REX

(High Dive) When an unknown band or solo artist sends a CD-R with Sharpie’d names and titles on it, a critic immediately lowers expectations. Experience repeatedly prepares us to be underwhelmed by such artifacts. So when Seattle quartet Spontaneous Rex’s Come at the King CD-R arrived recently, I didn’t expect auspicious things. Thankfully, Spontaneous Rex sucker punched the skepticism right out of me. The four long, eventful songs here circulate in the higher realms of jazz fusion, prog rock, and electronic improv. If you dig the turbulence of Miles Davis’s Get Up with It and Sonny Sharrock’s ’70s work and the elegant, complex melodies of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and Chick Corea’s solo LPs, you’ll want to investigate Spontaneous Rex. You can hear Come at the King at spontaneousrex.bandcamp.com.
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