Black Turtleneck
Musical Chairs
(Normals Welcome Records)

B-

Website: www.nrmlswlcmrcrds.com

Clit 45
2,4,6,8… We’re the Kids You Love to Hate
(Sonic Unyon)

B+



Website: www.clit45band.com

For the younger generation of punk rock fans, Nirvana and Green Day are considered old school. For them Rancid invented punk rock. It’s good to know there are some who sifted through their parents’ catalogue to find The Germs, Discharge, All, The Subhumans and The Dead Kennedys. Clit 45 from Long Beach, Calif., has taken all these influences and mashed them into short blasts of self-loathing, snotty lyrics; teenage angst; and loud, abrasive guitars. 2, 4, 6, 8… is a compilation of older unreleased material re-recorded to add more balls to the originals. With titles such as Your Life to Choose, Fight Back and Used to Have a Life, these tracks prove that Clit 45 lives and breathes punk rock. Authentic punk should make you want to fight, fuck and scream at the top of your lungs. That’s exactly what Clit 45 accomplishes.
Ashley McCurdy

Damone
Out Here all Night
(Island Records)

B+



Website: www.damone.net

Kicking it like it’s 1985, Damone is the perfect pop-punk-metal up-all-night summertime soundtrack for nothing but a good time. Sure, frontwoman Noelle has a voice that’s way more pop than punk, but that shouldn’t keep anyone from unskinny bopping. Outta My Way is a motley little number, a fist pumping anthem if there ever was one. If you want action, Now Is the Time brings the metal health, giving you that twitch in the back of your neck that means it’s time to bang your head. When You Live is way more teasing than pleasing, a wimpy pop ballad that won’t rock you like a hurricane, but all is forgiven when Damone ups the irons with a kick-ass acoustic cover of Maiden’s Wasted Years. Slide this one in and let’s get rocked.
Jared Story

Danny Michel
Valhalla
(Universal)

B-



Website: www.dannymichel.com

I admit it: I am a huge Danny Michel fan. He’s one of those artists you just know has a monster album in him, and with each release I hold my breath and hope that it will be the breakthrough that will make Danny a star. Well…. Valhalla ain’t it. Not that there aren’t great songs here. The single Midnight Train is catchy and accessible, and Black Tornados offers lines such as “She sells gun shells by the seashore.” The Michel shows I remember (nine and counting) have been just him playing one of his numbered Teles and over-working a smoking loop machine, creating dense layers of sound above which he delivers each gem of a song. On his albums you lose that unpredictability and his off-kilter phrasing. Michel has to make room for other instruments, structure and personalities on disc and dumbs down his best qualities. Damn!
Chris Brown

Bluesman Eddie Turner is a combination of Jimi Hendrix and David Wilcox. If you love electric blues with stinging solos, scorching tone and bent-till-they’re-broke string pulls, this is your guy. I really liked Eddie’s big, distorted guitar sound. He’s totally confident that he can pull it off and doesn’t hesitate to drop a sizzling riff at the slightest provocation. Switching to acoustic slide guitar in the beginning of I’m a Man, I’m a Man, he captures that ’30s blues feel while adding a modern amped electric overtop. After all the Hendrix wannabes, Eddie Turner is the real deal. Competing with a legend is tough, but if this is who you are at your core, the comparison quickly fades and the audience begins to see you as artist rather than imitator.
Chris Brown

This disc is a little like opening a bottle of blood-red port with an axe — on the one hand Memorial is grim and gloomy and rank with atmosphere, while on the other it’s surprisingly violent and harsh for a goth metal disc. Take Upon the Blood of Men, for example. Organs open the track with classical charm before Mike Gaspar churns it up with double kicks while Pedro Paixao and Ricardo Amorim throw down some tight tremolo riffs. Fernando Ribeiro howls about something bloody or scary or both, and you’ve got yourself a pretty cool track that can’t decide if it’s angry or sad. At times this gargoyle gets a little full of itself, but it’s nice to see goths with a little self-confidence. You try changing your name to The Decomposer and wearing a cape and eye shadow to work — see what that does for your self-esteem.
Mike Warkentin

MSTRKRFT wouldn’t fare so well on Wheel of Fortune, but the vowel-less house-rock duo of Jesse F. Keeler and Al P. is getting nationwide attention from beat-lovers for this debut album. The Canadians give the French a run for their money on the Daft Punk-esque Easy Love. Picture speeding cars packed with ultra-sexy passengers on Paris. The grinding beat and whiny electro will tempt you to the dance floor. Give the mirror a pouty stare as The Looks pounds the ugliness away. Several of the tracks lose their appeal and originality, as on Street Justice, a seven-minute lesson on the perils of repetition. Images of one-piece leotards and 1970s aerobics classes shine through on Bodywork. Want to get all the looks this summer? You know what to do.
Shannon Ander

Haters love to beat on My Chemical Romance, but the band is still clearly one of the freshest, most innovative and most musically gifted groups presiding over the new alternative heavy rock scene. This set is a must-have for any fan because any question about MyChem will be answered by the two-DVD-plus-live-CD set. No matter how jaded you’ve become with the whole scene, it’s quite uplifting to see a group of guys succeed in a last-ditch effort at putting a band together to “save their lives.” The members of MCR seem to have a lot of creativity coursing through their veins, and they no doubt have least a few more tricks up their sleeves. This compilation will serve to whet any fan’s Chemical appetite until the band’s highly anticipated next album hits stores.
Brodie Sanderson