Devil in the Woods #1.2 $2.50 CONTACT: Devil In The Woods Magazine c/o Subscription Department P.O. Box 6217 Albany, CA, USA 94706 Devil in the Woods website Subscriptions: $6.66/year

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Devil in the Woods is a great magazine. And now that I've tipped my hand so early in the article, I guess I'd better elaborate.

DiW #1.2 takes the successes of the previous edition and pumps them up bigger and better -- despite a 45 cent drop in the cover price! There are more interviews and articles, a healthy stack of record reviews (nearly 80) and the magazine even seems to be printed on better paper. Isn't progress great?

If it's articles you're after, you'll get 'em in spades here, varying in length from "something to read while waiting for an elevator" quickies to "screw the Man" bathroom break epics. The magazine covers an eclectic mix that should please everyone but hardcore techno-heads -- "now" artists like the Promise Ring, Jim O'Rourke, Marine Research and the Get Up Kids rub elbows with such staples as Guided By Voices, Stereolab, the Flaming Lips and Superchunk, while pleasant surprises fill in the cracks. The redoubtable Jimmy Draper covers Cadallaca like no-one else can, Momus provides intelligent commentary on his Stars Forever album, and cover stars Superchunk find some new things to say once the whole "Superchunk has really matured" thing -- a required preface to any discussion of Come Pick Me Up -- is out of the way. Dexter Reid's chat with Stereolab's Tim Gane contains moments as chillingly awkward as our own recent interview with Low; it's nice to see this happen to someone else for a change!

Perhaps the biggest surprise here is an article by Evan Sult, drummer for major label act and one-time commercial alt-radio fixture Harvey Danger. Not having been familiar with the band before "Flagpole Sitta" started showing up on the office radio, I hadn't ever thought of them as anything but Another Radio Friendly Punk Band. It seems that I may have underestimated them. Sult's article doesn't revel in the trappings of 1990s rock stardom -- if anything, the band clearly found its fame awkward -- but he doesn't launch into an Albini-like "Major Labels are Satan" screed, either. He simply tells the story as it happened, addressing the real-world logistics and career choices that face a major-label act. I'm certainly more interested in Harvey Danger after reading his article.

There are plenty of "peripheral" music features, too, from the general-question interviews of 13 Questions (essentially a more serious analogue to our own Pointless Questions) to a feature on Tony Wilson's Factory Records and the scene it spawned, as well as the always-delightful "Rock and Roll Moments". When you tire of music, there's an intriguing article on digital video and a show-stopping interview with porn icon Nina Hartley, who sort of winds up being DiW's first centerfold.

Really, unless your musical tastes aren't represented here or you don't like to read, you can't go wrong with DiW. And if your well-intentioned Grandmother bought you a subscription to Rolling Stone for Christmas or Hanukkah, you'll probably have no trouble guilting her into dropping the modest $6.66 required for a year's subsciption to DiW. If I wasn't too damned lazy/forgetful to buy anything I can't order online, I'd be a happy (and no longer even remotely objective) subscriber by the time you read this.

Reviewed by George Zahora