***
I have all the respect in the world for a band that takes irony and runs with it to the point of actually pointing and laughing. Love the old-sounding new as much as you despise it? Do new Queen sounds, not quite ELOs, Cheap Trick pretenders, and messy wavers scratch an itch while at the same time causing the spread of a nasty rash? Then Los Angeles (via Detroit and San Francisco) band Hard Place is for you. Their self-titled debut sounds like the above-mentioned acts plus Sparks, XTC, and even some one-off guilty pleasures like, say, Nick Gilder. You might hate Hard Place for its no-holds barred ha-ha lyrics, but eventually you can't get way from giving yourself over to the rock anthems, hooks, and ass-kickers--and by ass-kickers I mean the kind delivered to the tender rumps of those who think old is new is still new. KATHLEEN WILSON

MADVILLAIN

Madvillainy

(Stones Throw Records)

****
MF Doom and Madlib, as Madvillain, have released what many are correct to rate as the most important hiphop record of the 21st century, Madvillainy. MF Doom is a London-born, New York-raised rapper who got his start in the early '90s with KMD, vanished in the mid-'90s after being dropped by his label, and reappeared in the late '90s. Madlib is a member of the L.A.-based Lootpack, and since the mid-'90s has established a reputation as one of the most inventive producers of hiphop beats. Madvillainy is the resultant mess of their big brains colliding: Through one brain, Madlib's, a shamble of samples arrive from forgotten times and remote corners of popular culture; through the other, MF Doom's mind, arrive raps that are once funny, sad, political, and personal. Some tracks are too short, others are too bizarre, others too dense. But the whole thing is damn perfect. Indeed, it's hard to believe that another CD will match or surpass the orgasmic brilliance of this effort that stands as the only hiphop masterpiece outside of the 20th century. CHARLES MUDEDE

THE BETA BAND

Heroes to Zeros

(Astralwerks)

**1/2
The last thing you want to have happen to a band is that their only hit becomes their albatross, a song the public won't shut up about until they write another smash. But such is the case with the Beta Band, who struck it rich in 1998 with The Three EPs' "Dry the Rain." Six years, one John Cusack mention, and two full-lengths later, the Beta Band can't seem to hit that same high, although their third full-length, Heroes to Zeros, does soar in places. In the band's trademark method, Heroes is a pastiche of styles, with hushed vocals and dreamy pop landscapes recalling acts like Gomez or the Stone Roses with a more schizophrenic beat; then, with the effects loaded on, suddenly they're almost as playful as the Flaming Lips. But the Beta vision moves beyond those benchmarks: Their expansive sound grows grander with the addition of pianos, string sections, or toy instruments, although without feeling like it's moving somewhere interesting. The best track on this record is "Space Beatle," which twinkles and sparkles around the repeated admission, "I love you to pieces"; but in the end, the band sounds too swallowed up by its own celestial, orchestral odysseys to plant itself in the firm ground alongside the public's diminishing fascination. JENNIFER MAERZ

EYVIND KANG

Virginal Co-ordinates

(Ipecac/Angelica)

****
I've listened to Virginal Co-ordinates a number of times, and I still don't know what to call it. (For a critic, this is as horrifying as paying to get into a gig.) What I do know is that Seattle composer/violinist Eyvind Kang operates at an exalted level, finding the precise tones and timbres that inspire you to, as one track here commands, "Go in a Good Way to a Better Place." Kang's Live Low to the Earth, in the Iron Age, proved he is a master minimalist; the disc's sublimely majestic droneage fused Spiritualized's psychedelia with Henry Flynt's cosmic fiddling. Virginal Co-ordinates--recorded live in Italy with a 16-piece orchestra, Mike Patton, and myriad local ringers--is sacred ritual music even atheists can worship. At various points, the album reminded me of the Velvet Undeground's "Ocean," Ujang Suryana's "Sorban Palid" (the most beautiful song ever), Carlos Santana/John McLaughlin's Love Devotion Surrender, a kimono-wearin' John Fahey pickin' an acoustic, and incidental music from Twin Peaks. Let's call it "awesome." DAVE SEGAL

**** chlorine *** snot ** duck shit * baby diapers