Ducks Vs Kings
Honda Center
2-18-09
8/10

Well, I finally went to my first hockey game and, as The Emperor of Racket, feel like I can review whatever I want to, including this. Now, here’s the deal with me and sports: I don’t follow any sports on a normal basis, but should any game come on, I am immediately engrossed. Football, NASCAR, soccer, baseball, poker, whatever. I rarely know all of the positions and am still confused by “off sides”. So, I was stoked that a lovely young professional athlete went with me …

E Reece and Core Elements
L.I.S.n 2 This Live.In.Studio
Elevated Mental Recordings
6/10
The meeting of the minds between two artists can go either way. For Los Angeles emcee E Reece, stepping in the studio with the soulful, hip-hop band, Core Elements will hopefully go somewhere- like to the top of the charts.
So far it has a magical concept: take tracks already recorded with beats from previous producers and turn it into something original. Unfortunately, after picking a part the collection of songs, the album downplays this exciting concept and begs to …

When my friend, Josh Sullivan, decided to quit his job as a junk yard worker and basically couch surf from town to town, from friend to friend, writing a zine along the way, I was like “OK, cool. See you in February.” Fifty-Two Friends is his project for 2009, a journey that has taken him from St. Petersberg, Florida to San Dimas, CA. In another few days, he continues on his way to experience a week of Sacramento, a week in Oakland and onwards. Somehow along the way, “legitimate media” …

Edguy
Tinnitus Sanctus
Nuclear Blast
4 out of 10
I hate Christian metal so the first three tracks on Edguy’s Tinnitus Sanctus had me worried. Halfway through track three, “The Pride of Creation,” I’m just confused.
Musically, Edguy has the power-pop metal thing down. Decent guitar work, barely discernible bass and fast percussion are all present and accounted for. The vocals are soaring and understandable, but that ends up being a negative for me. Part of the time the lyrics are about God’s mighty fire and how man should be humble about being the …

Dead in Desemboque
Eddy Robert Arellano
Soft Skull Press
8/10
Spanish class, why do you fail me now? Three years of español and a quarter of français and little result to prove my work- I still can’t read a historieta (a Mexican style of comic book). Eddy Robert Arellano’s Dead in Desemboque is surreal and beautiful- and partially in Spanish.
Despite my language barriers, the story is interesting, strange, and at times comical- Eddy travels across the desert with his horse and his two dogs, amidst womanly trickery, a bounty on his head, and …

Hot Chip With Robert Wyatt and Geese
Self-titled
EMI
7/10
In the history of EPs, there have been plenty that could best be described as odd, different, or not part of the mainstream. The self-titled album by Robert Wyatt and Geese is in keeping with that tradition. With an assorted mix of mouth-wa-wa’s, atonal chords and strange lyrics, the album is nothing short of bizarre. What makes this stand out from the others is its brevity and wit. Standing at only four tracks, it is one of the shortest EPs of its kind- closer …

Jon Bonamassa
Les Paul and Friends: A Tribute To A Legend
Immergent
10/10
Les Paul is a legend. Period. He pioneered the electric guitar, invented the world’s first eight-track cassette recorder, hosted a radio show in the 1950s and basically served as the midwife of what would later become rock and roll (or at least, rock and roll as our parents and grandparents remember it). Without him, the rockabilly, punk rock, new wave, and grunge movements would never have happened. So it is fitting that a bevy of music’s most gifted lights would pay …

Jeffree Star
Cupcakes Taste Like Violence
Popsicle Records
3/10

Jeffree Star…a self-made, internet celebrity. It’s great that Star is passionate about music, but all the popularity, celebrity and connections in the world won’t make an untalented musician talented. The use of Auto-Tune is pretty evident throughout the recording, yet it does little to save this EP from itself. Star cannot sing or harmonize, not one lick. He basically drones throughout this entire album, and if not for the use of Auto-Tune it would be a completely disastrous piece of work. …

Oh No Not Stereo
003
4/10
During some poppy points, this album is undeniably catchy. That being said, the majority of this is intolerable. Oh No Not Stereo’s sound is hard to place, but it’s obvious they have a wide range of annoying influences. They will most likely end up on alternative radio where they’ll fit in with Nickleback and Finger Eleven. While there are traces of frat-boy radio rock, there’s just as much OK-Go-esque teeny power-pop.
003 seems to be pioneering a new genre that is the worst of …

Goblin Cock
Come With Me If You Want To Live
Robcore Records
8 out of 10

Moving past the double entendre of this band’s name—fine, one more little chuckle and then move on—Goblin Cock is a smarter group than one would think. When was the last time you heard a song about the Indian revenge movie hero Billy Jack? Or read a title as brilliant as “Beneath the Valley of the Island of Misfit Toys”?
Even if you only saw the album title and didn’t check the track listing, you’d have Goblin Cock’s sci-fi …

Ace Enders and a Million Different People
When I Hit the Ground
Vagrant Records
6/10

Ace Enders was the leader of The Early November – a fairly successful indie/emo band, and now he’s accumulated a million different people to help him with solo project. Unfortunately, his previous band was better. He does the monotonous emo, college-rock thing very well – his vocal abilities are just fine, along with the talent of the “million” a.k.a. three people helping him out on guitar, bass, drums, and piano. The sound suggests Dashboard Confessional, …

ReVamped
J.F. Lewis
Simon and Schuster
3/10
I’m not really sure why, but I love bad sci-fi and fantasy. Movies, books, comics, whatever, give it to me, and I’ll devour it. Wizards, werewolfs, the whole lot of them. I especially dig a good vampire story- from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to turning into a vampire means I MUST sprout a mullet-type fiction (I’m looking at you Keifer). J. F. Lewis is no exception to the rule; as bad as 2008’s Staked was, I still loved it. I read and re-read the thing, reveling the …