Cannibal Corpse
Kill
(Metal Blade/Universal)

B

Website: www.cannibalcorpse.net

Chet Doxas Quartet
Sidewalk Etiquette
(Justin Time Records)

B



Website: www.justin-time.com

The saxophone gets a bad rep from musicians who overplay and substitute aggressiveness for chops. Chet Doxas is a refined and talented player who has musical ideas he wants to explore, and he mostly succeeds with the help of a talented and understated jazz band. Improvisation is the cornerstone of the genre, but only if solos add to the musical dialogue rather than compete for attention. Doxas and pianist John Roney get this concept and are prepared to support the song as much as they are given to solo. Rather than explore the extremes of the instrument, Doxas uses the notes available to fashion soundscapes, playing with a song’s rhythm and phrasing rather than trying to blow holes through it. It takes balls and talent to cover John Coltrane’s Moment’s Notice and do it justice — nice job, Chet.
Chris Brown

The Deadstring Brothers
Starving Winter Report
(Bloodshot Records)

A



Website: www.bloodshotrecords.com

It seems hard to believe that a new band’s debut release could have the heart of a classic Stones album, the sacred swirl of Garth Hudson’s best organ play with The Band, and the charging blue-eyed soul of your favourite Faces album. Detroit’s roots-rock saviours The Deadstring Brothers work all kinds of special magic on this 10-track album, and the sweet vocal harmonies of leader Kurt Marschke and sultry sidekick Masha Marjieh knock it all wonderfully on the head. These two heavenly howlers make the little hairs on the back of your neck rise with their tight but loose wailing — it’s just that good. Marschke has in spades what Ryan Adams wishes he could conjure more regularly — cosmic country soul with one boot in the bluegrass and the other on the honky-tonk hardwood floor.
Jeff Monk

Jeen O’Brien
Sixties
(Sonic Unyon)

C



Website: www.jeenobrien.com

Hawksley Workman produces this Jeen O’Brien release, and you can feel his presence all over the disc. The cover-art line drawing is brutal and will ensure that any casual buyer will walk right on by, and Jeen has a bit of the rock-chick edge, making the guitars bite and distort appropriately. Her songwriting is all right, characterized by lines such as ‘to gather someone else’s greatness only to shatter mine.’ So why am I so unexcited by this record? It seems too safe, too close to whatever Avril Lavigne slipstream is working its way through Canadian women gigging the rock ’n’ roll circuit. Jeen, kick out the stops and give us something that’s all you.
Chris Brown

Many think the only thing Jimmy Eat World has to offer is substanceless, poppy punk tunes, but this EP may prove them wrong. Stay on My Side Tonight shows a new side of Jimmy Eat World, and it’s a more mature side that shows the band isn’t afraid to step out of a genre and do something a bit different. This EP contains five songs, all of which are different and have their own merits, and the overall impression is of the Jimmy Eat World you know channelling Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. This album is much more mellow and ambient than you’d expect from the writers of The Middle. See the amazing opening track, Disintegration, for an example. Anyone who wants to be pleasantly surprised should check out this album.
Brodie Sanderson

In the often-isolated world known as ‘Christian contemporary music,’ a small handful of interesting and engaging artists can hold their own as musicians of substance. Winnipeg, in fact, has produced more than its fair share of such artists, and anyone at all familiar with the local scene knows of whom I speak. Sorry to say that Chicago’s Matthew West is not one such artist, or at least his work on History doesn’t move him above the very predictable Christian pop pack. Formulaic, bland and mired in the ’80s and early ’90s, this one is destined for the CD section in your local Salvation Army thrift store. Too bad, because West has a decent voice and even the occasional good idea. Really too bad, because it’s clear that someone actually sunk some pretty serious time and money into this project.
Jamie Howison

Does the heir to the Nigerian throne contact you daily for assistance after you download a couple of free MP3s? This two-disc collection of unreleased and hard-to-find tracks puts an end to days of searching and downloading — and won’t fill your in-box with spam. On the remix disc, time flies as Will Saul’s Tic Toc gets glitched out and cut up to a shoulder-shaking beat. Drums roll on the slow-building Smoke on the Water as Senor Coconut’s Latin flavour collides with whiny bursts of sounds and beats. Disc 2 serves up rarities such as I Love Lassie and Saints, from the mid-’90s, to more more recent releases, like Slave to the Hard Drive and Mike Up Your Mind. Take the Route de la Slack — spend less time searching and more time listening.
Shannon Ander

These classic railroad tracks from deep inside in the Folkways Records archives aren’t the typical ‘choo-choo’ songs you might imagine. Rather, the archivists at the Smithsonian gathered 29 railway-related folk songs that tell human tales which are at once chilling, macabre and mostly downright joyless. But, to a song, they are uniformly brilliant in their stark readings. Well-known folkies such as Pete Seeger and The New Lost City Ramblers are here in all their glory, as are the very artists that influenced them and their ilk. These ‘ribbon of iron’ classics by Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston, Huddie Ledbetter, Doc Watson, and Elizabeth Cotton affected a generation of singer/songwriters. These influential versions are ripe for rediscovery.
Jeff Monk