White Out
(In the Red Records)
**White Out is, to put it simply, a bad record, weaving somewhere between slightly less than decent to damn-near unlistenable. Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez, once the epitome of hip New York power couples, seem to have fallen into a deep chasm of domestic bliss. The result is pure snooze-o-rama. Boss Hog used to sound like a cleaned-up Pussy Galore. Now they sound like a dirty Letters to Cleo. BRADLEY STEINBACHER
FU MANCHU
King of the Road
(Mammoth)
**The new face of skate rock is here -- although it still springs from Southern California. Fu Manchu grew up on Bad Company and Ted Nugent, and possess an ability to emulate their idols without compromising their own originality. King of the Road is driven by heavily distorted power chords and deep, low-end bass grooves, making it a modern metalhead masterpiece full of bong hits, Chevy vans, and Marshall stacks. Reverb-coated guitar solos and clean, anthemic vocals provide the finishing touches. Fu Manchu are the ripple that will soon become a wave of late '70s/early '80s arena rock revival, and believe me, after seven full-lengths and numerous tours, it's about time someone started paying attention.
The disc comes with CD ROM videos and a band bio, as well as a washed-out, sludge- metal version of Devo's "Freedom of Choice." ELLIOT RICH
ALIEN CRIME SYNDICATE
Dust to Dirt
(Collective Fruit)
***You know that flu that's going around? It's really catching. Highly infectious. Everyone's getting it.
You know that Alien Crime Syndicate album? It's really catching. Much more infectious than the flu, and a lot better for you.
No ballads here. Nothing for wallowing in Kleenex and TheraFlu. None of that sick, sad music for Alien Crime Syndicate. Just punchy little tunes: head-boppers, toe-tappers, finger-snappers. Put it on the day you get out of bed. It's clean and confident, and that's how you feel now that you've kicked the flu.
And if the lyrics are a little throwaway, well, that's not the point. They're easy to remember and often repeated: "I want it all/I want it all," "Do it again/Do it again." But if you've just had the flu, plain toast makes you feel better, and pizza with the works is going to make you puke.
And if you hear a few licks here and there that you'd swear are lifted from a Pixies song, well, it could be a lot worse. If you're gonna borrow, borrow from the best, right No. 13 Baby?
Dust to Dirt is simple and happy, the perfect cure for what ails ya. ERIN FRANZMAN
THE CURE
Bloodflowers
(Elektra)
****I always greet new albums by favorite artists with a mixture of anticipation and dread. "Hooray! A new Echo and the Bunnymen album? Please, dear God, don't let it SUCK."
Thankfully, Bloodflowers doesn't suck. Wait, that came out wrong. What I mean is that Bloodflowers is really good -- and the reason that it's good is that it sounds like a new Cure album. Confused? What I'm trying to say is that unlike oh, say, Love and Rockets or U2, Robert Smith isn't trying to stay "contemporary" by adding electronic elements or any- thing embarrassing to the mix. Bloodflowers is dark, atmospheric and melodic, and full of songs about night and confusion, and having and losing love. It's nearer to Disintegration and Pornography than it is to Head On the Door or Boys Don't Cry, but it's purely, brilliantly, unmistakably the Cure. Whew. BARBARA MITCHELL
THE VUE
The Vue
(Sub Pop)
**The Vue predict the rebirth of Rock & Roll (their caps, not mine) in 2000 -- but if their self-titled album is any indication, the reality is closer to recycling.
That's not to say that the Vue's particular brand of revved-up rock is anything less than satisfying, or that they're not providing a much-needed shot in the arm to the all-too-present complacency of most contemporary music; it's just that listening to the Vue sounds like a game of spot-the-influence waiting to happen.
The blues-punk howl of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club? It's here, as is the darker, post-punk yowl of Ian McCulloch and early Echo and the Bunnymen. The primal fury of the Birthday Party or the Stooges, the angular fierceness of Bauhaus -- all are represented; track #11 even sounds a bit like Gene Loves Jezebel meets PiL. And that's just for starters. In fact, listening to the Vue doesn't feel like a giant leap into the future so much as it does a stroll down post-punk memory lane. I've seen the future through the eyes of the Vue -- and it looks an awful lot like 1983. In a good way. BARBARA MITCHELL
WAYLON JENNINGS
Love of the Common People
Honky Tonk Heroes
This Time
Waylon Live
(Buddah/RCA)
***
Something happened to country music in the '60s -- something bad. It tried to become "pop." A perfect example is Waylon Jennings' fifth album, Love of the Common People, which was orig- inally released in 1968 and has recent- ly been reissued by Buddah, along with several other Jennings titles. Although Jennings has an excellent voice, Chet Atkins' over-embellished production drowns the Texan in a sea of corny strings and female choruses. Soon this would change: In 1972, anticipating the "outlaw" movement in country, Waylon negotiated a new contract with RCA in which he took full artistic control of production, song selection, and -- most importantly -- musicians. Jennings even began using some of the new independent studios in town (like Tompall Glaser's, for instance), which pissed off the Music City top brass.Needless to say, there was a big transition between Love of the Common People and Honky Tonk Heroes (released in 1972) -- not the least of which was the repeal of Jennings' buzz-cut for some of that hippie hair. One can hear the rolling boogoid overtones in the band's looser, organic format as they toast "lovable losers and no account boozers." The next album, This Time (1974), sees Jennings getting more maudlin ("It's Not Supposed to Be That Way," "Slow Movin' Outlaw"), and his voice more gruff and "mature" (think Charlie Rich). Perhaps this was because he'd settled into a restful domicile with Jessi Colter (who's all over this album, as is "outlaw" co-conspirator, Willie Nelson). But Waylon Live, from the following year, is a treat: The band churns like butter, and Jennings acts like the stage is his natural habitat. Expanded here to double-length, as far as party albums go, it's only slightly behind Exile on Main Street. JOE S. HARRINGTON
SALARYMAN
Karoshi
(Parasol)
**This is the kind of no-vocals, keyboard-and-drums techno rock one might have heard playing in any hipster cafe in urban North America in 1997; the kind one found creative enough to provide a pleasant backdrop to a caffeine-fueled conversation about books and plans, but not interesting enough to ask what the CD was. Some of this is only a step above what Rush would be playing if they had been born around the time 2112 came out. It's not unsubtle or without its own propulsive energy: There is a perceptible intelligence behind this music and a relative density of inventiveness that would be rewarding on a 12-inch dance record. But it's been a long time since I've had the drugs that would make this music danceable. Karoshi doesn't suck -- it got my apartment clean. But unfortunately it left absolutely no impressions after it ended. This may be the definition of arty, inoffensive late-'90s coffee shop music -- after a while you just wish they'd throw on some Built to Spill, or something that had some relationship to life. GRANT COGSWELL
CHAPPAQUIDDICK SKYLINE
Chappaquiddick Skyline
(Sub Pop)
***Joe Pernice's sticky-sweet lullabies remind me of why I liked the Eagles in high school. The Pernice Brothers' Overcome by Happiness and the Scud Mountain Boys' Massachusetts (pretty much the same lineup in those bands and Chappaquiddick Skyline, and exactly the same sound) are great afternoon nap albums: Souped-up, upholstered vehicles to carry you into that territory between waking and sleep, the land of the eternal tequila sunrise. This is more of the same, and you'll either be a little embarrassed to love it, like I am -- or it'll make you want to barf. Pernice's music hypnotizes the listener with perfectly executed structures. The harmonies on the surface of each song, and reverberating throughout his records, create a dark calm that cannot really be compared to anything since the dissimilar (and yes, far superior) My Bloody Valentine. Chappaquiddick Skyline is a quintessential Pernice title/band name. It evokes the Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan collaboration Nashville Skyline, and name-drops the island best known for Teddy Kennedy's drunk-driving mishap with Mary Jo Kopechne (a story that could have come straight off Massachusetts, with its car wrecks, suicides, and stupid choices that are regretted for a lifetime), which is also a place where non-famous people continue with ordinary but dramatic lives. The previous records seemed to come out of a pot-hazy, suburban, 1973 rec room-of-the-mind. With this record, Pernice stays on that basement couch until the second to last song, a cover of New Order's "Leave Me Alone." The song starts off with an edgy drum and bass line, which, in its momentary, radical shift, acknowledges all the musical heritage Pernice has digested but not yet begun to quote, and gives a hint of how fierce his voice might get when he finally raises it above a whisper. GRANT COGSWELL
IN STORES 2/15
THE AUTUMNS, In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour (Risk) Could there be a gothier title?
BACK OFF CUPIDS, Back Off Cupids (Drunken Fish) Ass-kicking, wonderfully named John Reis (Rocket From The Crypt) project.
TRACY CHAPMAN, Telling Stories (Elektra) In 1987, people thought she sounded like a man.
GOV'T MULE, Life Before Insanity (Capricorn) More from the slide guitar of Warren Haynes.
THE NEED, Is Dead (Chainsaw) More quirky queercore from Rachel and Radio.
THE POSIES, Alive Before the Iceberg (Platinum) Live recording of 1998 performance in Spain.
SUICIDE MACHINES, Suicide Machines (Hollywood) Occasionally checkered thrash punk.
TRICK DADDY, Book of Thugs: Chaper AK vs. 47 (Atlantic) The Miami metal-mouth continues to rap about thug life.
