Bill Withers
Just As I Am
(Columbia Legacy)

A

Website: www.billwithers.com

Bloodhound Gang
Hefty Fine
(Geffen)

D



Website: www.bloodhoundgang.com

If the members of Blink 182 went on a drug bender, developed a love of cheesy dance music and liked to talk about poop and sex even more than they already do, they would be The Bloodhoud Gang. TBG’s albums, while sometimes mildly entertaining, become annoying by the fifth song or so. This is exactly the case with Hefty Fine. I believe these guys would do much better for themselves releasing singles than whole albums — one can only take so many penis jokes in a matter of minutes. The single Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo is honestly just vulgar sex-related statement after vulgar sex-related statement. It’s funny once, but listening to it twice in one sitting would be like watching a guy repeatedly getting hit in the crotch with a football.
Brodie Sanderson

Fruit Bats
Spelled in Bones
(Sub Pop)

A

Continuing with the recent pop-rock trend, The Fruit Bats’ Spelled in Bones is their second for the Sub Pop label. Chicago’s Bats have been compared to Modest Mouse and The Shins but sound like White Album-era mop tops to me. Finely structured and precisely crafted, Spelled in Bones is a soaring, textured album. Head Bat Eric Johnson intended to write a dark album but, with titles like Everyday that we wake up it’s a beautiful day, the project has turned into a disc of hopeful pop. The production sounds clean yet still has an analog warmth to it, while the vocal harmonies are tastefully done and recall a young Paul McCartney. The odd banjo or lap-steel lick adds a little something extra without being overdone. Sweet mini-vinyl artwork and design make this the full package.

Ashley McCurdy

I had never heard of Kaddisfly before popping this album into the player, and I was blown away. Their version of new rock is unlike any I’ve heard before, and their musicianship and unique choices of sounds and instrumentation will make them a force to be reckoned with in the ever-expanding genre of alternative rock. The music sounds like Radiohead and Incubus battling it out in space, while the vocals of Christopher James Ruff make him sound like the love child of Hot Hot Heat and Finger Eleven (Ick! — Ed.). His range is simply amazing, falling from screeching falsetto to gritty tenor and back again. Lyrics that at first appear to be disjointed and un-rhymable are forced into submission and end up sounding like a insanely articulated stream of consciousness that even the sane can love.
Brodie Sanderson

It’s hard to listen to Mark Bragg’s Bear Music without recalling vintage Violent Femmes. While more electric than the Femmes, Bragg works with that same kind of appealingly odd minimalism, to say nothing of his Gordon Gano-like vocals and lyrics. That’s not a bad thing, by any means. Bragg’s press release characterizes this project as a trip “to the circus of life with a ringside seat to a cast of carnival characters,” and there are moments when I think he must have read the great American novelist Flannery O’Connor and noted that she views the grotesque and unconventional as ciphers for the truth and grace of our own lives. Again, not a bad thing at all, but it does mean this album requires careful listening. As background filler, Bragg will never make it into the elevators. And that is really, really not a bad thing.
Jamie Howison

Relapse Records is home to the heaviest of the heavy, and Nile fits right in with labelmates such as Mastodon, Cephalic Carnage and Soilent Green. Annihilation of the Wicked is indeed heavy as shit, but it also has the epic scope that characterizes Mastodon’s Leviathan. The 10 epic grindcore/death metal tracks here show an Eastern influence and focus predominately on Egyptian mythology. In fact, the liner notes could easily have been pulled from the pages of the Necronomicon, and don’t bother trying to decipher the hoarse lyrics without them. The music, on the other hand, could easily shake the pyramids into rubble. This is violent, extreme chaos that falls apart at times and succeeds brilliantly at others. Lashed to the Slave Stick and the title track are highlights. Ra will indeed be pleased.
Mike Warkentin

I know a lot about pests. I live with one, I have a sister who is one, and one of my cats is the Pest King. Unlike the other pests in my life, this five-piece group of the same name is far from annoying. The instrumental and vocal specialties of each member have been brought together to produce a melting pot of sounds. Matt Chandler shows off tight guitar riffs on Pat Pong, and Benjamin Mallot’s electro keyboards complement the turntable skills of Adrian Josey on Click Bitches. William Urquhart and Thomas Marriott on electric bass cello and trombone, respectively, play a soothing jazz tune over slow hip hop beats on Downward Steps. The skips and scratches on Ogres get ominous when the deep drum ’n’ bass rhythms swirl around Josey’s rhymes. Finally, a pest you’ll actually like.
Shannon Ander

I’m sitting here, listening, completely blown away. This album is being hailed by the Canadian press, and rightly so. This Canuck band has been hiding for far too long. The music evokes feelings of The Mars Volta, Iron Maiden, System of a Down and He Is Legend — but with a new twist. Protest the Hero is completely unique, not like anything you’ve heard before. The band consists of five 18-ish guys, which is hard to believe in the face of the superb musicianship displayed on this alb. The lyrics are politically charged poetry with elements of hardcore, screamo and metal. Any fan of hard, epic, intricate rock music really needs to check out this album. I can’t stress this enough, people.

Brodie Sanderson