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Custom Made Scare / The Greatest Show on Dirt / Side 1 Dummy (format)
Hot-rod hick-punk that reminisces about such intellectual topics as wicked
strumpets
("Peterbilt"), suspect lifestyle mannerisms ("White and Lazy") and trailer
trash ("White
Trash Girl"). Cross the Supersuckers' better days with a big fuckin' bottle
of Jack Daniels
and Custom Made Scare is the drink of choice for the night: short, sweet
and full of biting,
cow-punkish commentaries. Whether you sway back and forth in a happy
drunken stupor or lay
down in a big pile of puke all depends on how much guitar-laced rock 'n'
roll agrees with
your stomach. Personally, you can find me at the bar, enthusiastically
orderin’ another
round of CMS. -- am
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Mr. Wright / Star Time: Sidereal Sounds from Mr. Wright / Le Grand Magistery (CD)
"Swankily introspective" -- that's what I'd call Kevin Wright's
new bout of cabaret navel-gazing. Most of the songs on Star Time
are loungy and glitzy, percolating with devilishly subtle Momus-esque
melodies -- "You're a Queen" even stakes a claim for a modest share of glam rock turf.
Wright's vocals, however, lead me to wonder if he really wanted to sing on his album
or not; he's the most disaffected of singers, a muted mixture of Ferry and
Bowie
who often performs as if worried that he's going to distract the other
musicians.
And hey, that's his style, and it's cool -- but on a few particularly wan
cuts, like
"Lost in Space" and disc finale "Strange Feeling", the sparse instrumentation
leaves him sounding like Daniel Treacy after a botched cold-medicine OD
suicide. Speak up, Kevin! -- gz
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Jeff Dahl / All Trashed Up / Triple X Records (CD)
What can I say? It's Jeff Dahl: loud, driving, slightly goofy good-time rock and roll. Lots of guitars, guitar solos, guitar riffs, guitar players, guitar sandwiches, you name it. Dahl, who has been in some pretty cool bands (like The Angry Samoans), obviously has this rock and roll thing down. Great music for a long, fast drive. -- ib
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Cats & Jammers / Hurray For Everything / Beluga (CD)
Other than having a name that'll give your parents (or grandparents) a
giggle, Cats & Jammers ably encapsulate 35 years of pop rock history
in a single fun-n-frothy volume. There's unrequited love ("My Love")
rendered with vivid lyrical irony, good love turned bad ("Good As Dead"),
social criticism ("People are Stupid"), awkward moments ("Not Gay") and
many more nuggets of human interaction, all provided in a jangly pop style
that only a Grinch couldn't love. As its title suggests, Hurray For
Everything is not a CD that's going to send you scrambling for a prozac
fix after every spin -- you'll be hard-pressed to listen to its darkest
moments without some degree of grinnage. -- gz
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Various Artists / Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music, Vol. 2 / Nettwerk (CD)
Less cloying than last year's double-disc tour companion, this
disc (and the concurrently-issued Volume 3) offers a considerably
more varied look at the state of the art vis-a-vis female musicianship.
Scattered between the polar regions of Angry Artists and Nurturing
Artists, the fourteen acts presented here will be more likely to please
those more adventurous Lilith-goers who acknowledged the existence
of the second and third stages. It's telling, however, that acts like
Wild Strawberries and Morcheeba have downplayed their more
electronic elements in order to fit into the pack, and even Queen
Latifah seems unusually subdued. While Lisa Loeb and Tracy
Bonham are less annoying than usual, Natalie Merchant's overly
sincere massacre of "In the Ghetto" once again begs that she be
taken off and beaten with baseball bats as punishment for
messing with previously sublime material. -- gz
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The Icicle Works / The Best of The Icicle Works / Beggars Banquet (CD)
Over the course of four albums for Beggars Banquet, The Icicle Works managed to
become one-hit wonders in two countries with two different songs.
Rather than buy those four albums -- and really, why would you? -- you can
now purchase this handy historical concatenation. While tracks from the
eponymous debut album, which gave us "Love is a Wonderful Colour"
and "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)", were consistent, hummable, and indeed consistently hummable, the band meandered steadily downhill from there. By 1988's Blind,
they'd degenerated into an unfocused, slightly embarassing AOR act.
Thanks to programmable CD players, you can avoid the nastier bits
and remember the Icicle Works at their brief, possibly memorable best. -- gz
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Gluecifer / Gluecifer / Munster
(7")
By way of Madrid's Munster Records, our favorite Norwegian "Kings of Rock"
return with
another pair of winners, 7" style. Imagine Elvis' gyrating pelvic moves
genetically
crossed with Buddy Holly's vocal flair. Add a pair of cloned Angus Youngs
on guitar,
and besides having one hell of an imagination, you also have the
deliciously good "Get That
Psycho Out of My Face", which riffs through a crunch-fest of first class,
distorted mayhem.
Equally as good, the overdriven rock of "Drifting Away" spills forth with
plenty of wanky
solos, slick changes and devilish hooks that treat you just right. -- am
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Chupa Cabra / Flake-Out King / Captive (CD)
Raw-throated vocals, resonant basslines and chugging, squealing guitars
are the active elements in this above-average power-punk outing. To
their significant credit, Chupa Cabra neither capitulate to downbeat
post-grunge navel-gazing angst, nor compromise their edgy sound to
heighten their radio-readiness. Instead, they recognize that melody
and intensity can co-exist, and set out to prove their point in five tracks
reminiscent of the classic hardcore anthems of yore. A dual-vocalist
assault adds even more variety to this tasty package. This one definitely goes on the "hurry up and put out a full album" pile. -- gz
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