Electric Six
Heartbeats & Brainwaves
Metropolis Records
8/10

With Electric Six’s Heartbeats & Brainwaves—the disco-punk-metal’s eighth album in nine years—the Detroit-based sextet may not break any new ground, but therein lays their charm. Arguably the most prolific band in existence right now, singer Dick Valentine and his five cohorts are content to crank out their brand of earnest inanity, and they aren’t all that interested in changing up their formula for broader appeal; one gets the impression their flirtation with the mainstream at the outset of their career was enough for them. They’re something of the indie realm’s equivalent to AC/DC—debauched, innuendo-spewing rockers who refuse to take themselves seriously and whose only concerns seem to be having fun and bringing their fans along for the ride.

That’s not to say the band doesn’t add a little spice to their familiar concoction. For the first time since his debut-album duet with Jack White (I’m sorry, “John S. O’Leary,” *nudge, wink*), Valentine shares lead vocal duties on several tracks. “It Gets Hot” is the band’s first foray into hip-hop, courtesy guest rapper Andy D.’s appearance during the bridge, while “Interchangeable Knife” finds Electric Six at their most experimental, thanks to a reappearance by Andy D. and some childlike female crooning from She Bits (c’mon, it’s not like anyone on an Electric Six record will have anything other than a stage name). The album also finds the band returning to some of its ‘80s electro-synth pop roots, an element downplayed on their last couple of releases. Keyboardist Tait Nucleus? (don’t question the question mark) in particular shines, reaffirming his spot as the band’s unsung hero after having his contributions mitigated of late.

Opener “Psychic Visions” finds Valentine hamming up his best Nick Cave impression over a wall of down-tempo synth lines and drum machine beats, though the foreboding gives way to befuddlement once one starts listening to the lyrics. Truly, Valentine’s trademark coupling of witty wordplay with nonsense to make a successful rhyme is in fine form throughout the album, and the first song adequately sets the stage—“I see her dancing in the Latin quarter/Abbreviations make everything shorter.” It only gets more confounding from there with “Don’t take away my good time drinking problem/Don’t mind my demons when they speak to you” (“I Go Through Phases”) and “Now she’s living on a fiery line/with a fridge filled with French bacon/Mouthing all the words of a famous mime/For which she’s commonly mistaken” (“French Bacon”). The specter of Captain Beefheart looms heavy here, something Valentine directly addresses in “Food Dog,” aping a few of the Captain’s lyrics from “Floppy Boot Stomp.”

The head-scratching charisma Valentine oozes comes down to this prevalent absurdity. He delivers every lyric, no matter how ludicrous, with the utmost authority and conviction. Take “Gridlock!” for example: “Science is just a suspension of belief/A way to explain away the grief/And every policeman needs a chief.” As soon as he’s about to touch on something profound, there comes the jackknife turn to the ridiculous. He’s funny, sure, but in a six-degrees-removed kind of way. Is he funny despite his attempts to be sincere, or vice versa? If it’s a joke he’s singing, he’s not in on it, even though he’s the one who penned it. He exists, nay, thrives, in that thin netherworld between clever and stupid. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he is a genuinely gifted vocalist with quite a range (think of him as a more accessible Mike Patton), though again, his macho-baritone may be one long bit or irony.

The band continues the contradictions that define them, such as the direct subtlety of Valentine’s sex-dripping lyrics in “It Gets Hot,” the intense indifference of “Free Samples,” the self-aware ignorance of “The Intergalactic Version” (“We write the same song over and over again”), and social commentary mixed with decadence in “We Use the Same Products.” With that last one, the question is again raised—are they criticizing consumerism and superficiality, or are they mocking artists who are serious in using rock as a medium for airing their discontent? Regardless, their bread-and-butter catchiness remains intact, evidenced by the wild abandon, sing-along choruses (“Hello!/I seeeee you/Hello!/Therrrrre” and “Free samples/They’re giving shit awaaaayyyy”) and the can’t-help-but-move-to-it grooves.

Of course, with every E6 album, there are duds, something the band probably recognizes as a means of proving nothing is perfect, that everything must have its warts to be authentic. “Bleed For The Artist” and “Eye Contact” are the throw-aways.

Will Heartbeats & Brainwaves win Electric Six any new fans? Nah, probably not, but for those who have stuck by them for years, it is a welcome addition to the band’s repertoire.
-Cole Waterman

At age 61, the maestro of conjuring melody from junkyard clatter, sideshow soundscapes, and barstool serenades has released his most concise work to date. The 13 songs—16 on the deluxe edition—are direct and immediate as a punch to the gut, perhaps a reaction to the triple-album sprawl of Waits’s rarities compilation, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards.

More than ever before, the seminal Waits tips his hat to his own influences and peers. “Get Lost” sounds as though Waits has been mounted by the shade of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the ramshackle frenzy of brass clanging together like the finest of the bokor’s rave-ups, while the demented title track comes across as a nod to Nick Cave.

“Satisfied” is a rollicking blues number, a response to Muddy Waters’s “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” Waits blusters and brays about how he is going to be gratified, even if he has to break through your ribcage and rip contentment straight from your heart. The song takes on a bit of a meta quality thanks to the presence of Keith Richards on guitar and Waits name-checking both he and his songwriting partner: “Now Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards/I will scratch where I been itchin’.” The song also showcases Waits’s knack for warping the grotesque into the poetic in the opening, “When I’m gone/Roll my vertebrae out like dice/Let my skull be a home for the mice/Let me bleach like the bones on a beach/I’ll be hard like a pit from a peach.” How fitting is it that the accompanying grainy black-and-white video features Waits lurching around like an epileptic zombie whose scenes were cut from Night of the Living Dead? The definition of danse macabre.

Richards returns to duet with Waits on “Last Leaf on the Tree.” The song continues the Waitsian tradition of pathos-eliciting balladry and is the most heartrending piece on the album, an ode to one’s own resilience, at once defiant and mournful. “Kiss Me,” with its despair masquerading as hope, is a self-referential nod to Waits’s own early years on the Asylum label, sounding like it could have hailed from Blue Valentine. And were Johnny Cash still around, the country waltz “Back in the Crowd” would surely have appeared on his next American Recording. It’s not all doom, though; there’s a fair helping of the glitter.

“Chicago” romanticizes the notion of forsaking stagnancy on a whim for the chance of a better life. One gets the impression Waits is of the mind that the act of plunging into the unknown is the objective, not merely the means of achieving it. It’s about the adventure, not the arrival. And it can’t be an accident that a song called “Chicago” is carried by Waits’s best Howlin’ Wolf impression.

Similarly, “Face to the Highway” conjures the mood of a long-time coming drive out of town, of heading down a deserted stretch of highway at 4 in the morning as an endless series of overpass lights stream by. But where “Chicago” lauds solidarity as a means to foster bravery and inspire bold decisions, “Face to the Highway” credits the narrator’s abandonment of another as necessary, that it is the road and freedom or a stilted existence in a prison cell that lies before him.

Bad As Me also builds on Waits’s ever-increasing dabbling with political matters, featuring no less than two finger-pointing ditties.

“Talking at the Same Time” bemoans the futility of American politics, the Sisyphian nature and influence of selfish interests increasingly defining the process. “We bailed out all the millionaires/They got the fruit/We got the rind” he hisses like a coiled snake in his smoothest falsetto yet. No more are his pipes shrill and alarming when tapping into a higher register. Well, not as alarming; Waits will always carry a sense of dread in his vocal cords, something that can’t help but make your heart flutter in unease. The melody and seesaw rhythm evoke the soundtrack to a 1940s film noir; one can envision a sleazy gumshoe chain-smoking in the neon blue haze of a no-tell motel somewhere in the Deep South.

The second political number, “Hell Broke Luce,” is the most challenging, and engaging, track on the record. Equal parts blues stomp, field holler, and military march, the pastiche is a dispatch from the frontlines of war. Waits doesn’t shy from addressing the innate absurdity of war, and makes no bones about depicting the horror in appropriately profane terms: “Listen to the general, every goddamn word/How many ways can you polish up a turd?” Rumor is, the song was inspired by Jeff Lucey, a U.S. Marine who returned to America from combat in Iraq only to commit suicide. The industrial rattle of melodies and instruments competing for dominance make for an unsettling listen, with Waits sounding like Old Scratch reversing the tides of damnation, unleashing his hordes on the world. Now it may be a coincidence, but an interrupting tuba solo amid the bedlam can’t help but be reminiscent Waits’s own “God’s Away on Business;” is the message here that when God’s away, the Devil will play?

Following such a tour of chaos, the morning-after feel of “New Year’s Eve” is a bit of a letdown. That being said, it’s not a poor song, depicting a dysfunctional family’s festivities as another year draws to close, but it fails to move with the same gravitas as the best Waits closers—“That Feel,” “Come on up to the House,” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” This boils down to personal taste, but bonus song “Tell Me”—with its pondering of the mundane and spaghetti western guitar lines—would have been a more suitable and rewarding capstone.

All told, the album straddles that delicate line of breaking new ground while acknowledging the past, making it Waits’s most accessible album in more than a decade.

- Cole Waterman

Star Fucking Hipsters
From The Dumpster To The Grave
Fat Wreck Chords
2/10

Oh, shut up. “From the Dumpster To The Grave?” REALLY? You would think that after a few decades, the socially-conscious arm of the punk movement would have something new to offer. But, I guess we’re stuck with the same contrived, cliche bullshit that does nothing to forward any kind of change towards the system that SFH loves to bitch about. Yes, yes, “the system,” “the Vietnam War,” “bitching about Christianity,” I GET IT. At least the riffs are decent, so if you zone out the lyrics, it ain’t THAT bad. Thirteen tracks of fast-paced moaning ska-punk does nothing to instill a sense of passion in me, except maybe to take a shower. Which probably makes me a fucking sell-out.

-Jonathan Yost

Goddamn, reviewing depressing music is depressing, even if it IS really good. Tidelands’ If… is really good. With Gabriel Leis’ droning baritone and a barrage of orchestration, Tidelands weaves tales that are full, if not a bit melancholy, and at times, fairly chaotic. How they got all that to work together is beyond me, but I’m not going to ask too many questions. I WAS gonna try to clean my room while listening to it, but it lends itself to reading a book far more than it does to being productive. Here, take a look/listen:

Photo by Wendy Day

Devo
with The English Beat and Tom Tom Club
San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino
August 4th, 2011

As a child of the 80s, I was pretty fucking stoked to see The English Beat and Devo. Together. With The Tom Tom Club clogging up valuable stage time in between. I was even a bit more excited to see that the show was at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino, which is all of 8 minutes away from me. Then I discover that the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino has absolutely no idea how to run a music venue.

Upon entering the casino, you’ll find that the box office is downstairs, however, that’s where you BUY tickets. Will call is upstairs and to the right, but our tickets (generously given to us by The English Beat’s publicist) were to the left…through the security checkpoint. But you can’t get through security unless you have a ticket. Do you see the problem here? I need a ticket to get to where my ticket is. I was allowed through (but had to leave all my personal belongings, including wallet, keys, and all my media-type stuff in a basket next to a casino-cop) to get the tickets for me and my photographer. The marketing person for the casino told me to bring over my photog so that she could give her her media pass, but it turns out she needs the media pass to get through the security point. So she had to leave over $1000 worth of equipment next to the casino-cop, get her badge, go back, get her shit and come back.

We are then escorted to our seats. Yup. Seats. Third row. Seats. We were in assigned fucking seating…in the pit… of what was ultimately a fucking rock show. I’m not seeing YoYo Ma here. It’s not like I’m seeing the National Ballet, for fuck’s sake. I’m seeing The English Beat and Devo! You want me to sit down for “Mirror In The Bathroom,” “Tenderness,” “Jocko Homo” and “Whip It?” What a joke. The English Beat’s Dave Wakeland told me that the place had “too many rules for rock and roll,” and he was not kidding. Add to that the sound system designed for a venue 1/3 of that size and a line for drinks that was a hundred people long (I’m NOT kidding), and I can say that I hate the production staff of the bingo hall.

Now, the actual show was fucking amazing. The English Beat’s Dave Wakeland acted like he was a precocious scamp hellbent on making everyone in the place dance. As well as they could with a chair in front of them, anyways. Plowing through their hits, The Beat let everyone know that in the two decades plus since their first release, they’ve still got the goods. I’m sure a whole new batch of women got pregnant to “Tenderness” that night.

Next up was the Tom Tom Club, whose entire set I spent in line for a drink. Blah blah blah James Brooooowwwwn, James Brooooooooown blah blah blah.

With a Long Island Iced Tea and a Hangar 24 Orange Wheat in my hands, I was ready to witness Devo in all of their mask/hat wearing glory. Flashy lights, jumpsuits, synthesizers and me wiggling as best I could between two fucking seats that they use for bingo. I mean, here’s Mark Motherfucking Mothersbaugh, a bit grayer, a bit chubbier, but still whippin’ it like a champ, and I have limited mobility. Goddamn it. This is why you see concerts at concert venues. Stupid casino.
-Jonathan Yost

Sublime With Rome

So, the first new Sublime album since Brad Nowell’s untimely death is… fucking good. While I hate, HATE, that it’s called “Sublime with Rome” versus, you know, a new fucking name, I can’t stop myself from humming along to this shit. Seriously. It’s not “Journey with that Filipino dude,” or “Guns N Roses W/O Slash.” I know that they were hampered by a lawsuit involving the name, but pick something new, guys. While obviously lacking any references to Louie Dog, Sublime with Rome is one of the few bands who have competently pulled off a new lead singer. Rome Ramirez may never live up to the legend of Nowell, but he sure can sing like him.

You know what, so far I can’t think of anything negative to say that isn’t bitching about the name or the weirdness of listening to the new Sublime album. I mean, just writing that is weird. That aside, the album does pick up where the last album left off… 15 years ago. Jesus.

Yours Truly isn’t a regurgitation of previous Sublime albums, however. It shows the mellowing of original members Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson while having the youthful energy of a guy who is about half the age of them.

You know what, I know it’s a big deal to have a new Sublime record, and I’m sure that a lot of reviews will tear it apart for defiling an institution or blah blah blah, but I’m going to go play this shit again, hang with my cat and fucking relax.

-Jonathan “The Emperor” Yost

City And Colour
Little Hell
Vagrant Records
9/10
He is sad.
I am sad.
He makes me sad.
I am happy that he makes me sad.
Our sadness is beautiful.
Our sadness is glorious.
Our sadness is…well produced with rock solid instrumental arrangements.
Our sadness is totally gonna get me laid when I put this on during makeout.
Our sadness is boioioioioioing.
Frank Turner
England Keep My Bones
Epitaph Records
9/10
I speak English, but I am not English.
I grew up on a continent, not an island.
I know not of what he expresses in song.
But, it is expressed.
Feelings, expressed.
Longing, expressed.
Desire, expressed.
Homesickness, expressed.
History, expressed; a capella, even.
Kicking ass, expressed.
It is expressed in songs of godlessness.
It is expressed in songs of oldies.
It is expressed in songs of…wanting to be inside me?
Is that what I am hearing?
It is expressed in “Hi, my name is Chris Hanson, why don’t you have a seat?”
It is expressed in sweet tea.

Weerd Science
Sick Kids
Horris Records
7/10

This is not science, it’s Weerd art
Weerd art about, you know, drugs and stuff
The Weerd art about being a fuck up
A scumbag, a loser, a dipshit
The art of mixing anxiety
And fat beats, the fattest, or is it phattest?
My art of empathy is lost to the jealousy
Fuck I wish I could drum like that
Fuck I wish I could rap like that
Fuck I wish I was that lyrically clever
Fuck I am glad I’m not that neurotic
Art’s a bitch.

Mariachi El Bronx
II
ATO Records
8/10

the latin passion+
pulses
the horns *
tooting
the outfits
matching. )(tassled. skin-tight;
i eat chips and salsa; a celebration
i dance,, a celebration
es bueno
es mas bueno;.
ee cummings) was a twat
these guys kick ass

Less Than Jake
Greetings From
Sleep It Off Records
7/10

There once was a band from Gainesville
Whose ska was anything but plainsville
Catchy hooks in your brain
Their trombone has slain
You dance til your ankles are sprainsville

Rival Sons
Pressure and Time
Earache Records
6/10

Amazing
Badass
Course
Diabolical
Exceptional
Frantic
Grungy
Heavy
Intense
Juvenile
Kinetic
Libidinous
Massive
No kidding
Opulent
Party
Quarrelsome
Ravaging
Savage
Thrilling
Untamed
Vociferous
Wolfmother-y
X-treeeeeme
Youthful
Zippy

Of Mice and Men
The Flood
Rise Records
5/10

You scream
We don’t understand each other
What are you trying to say
Different generations
Dark and complex
Harshness surrounds you
We beat to different drummers
The difference between you and my mother
Is better guitar riffs

Nick 13
Self Titled
Sugar Hill Records
8/10

Rockabilly Sucks
But your country album rules
Fuck yea for flannel

Gentleman’s Pistols
At Her Majesty’s Pleasure
Metal Blade Records
6//10

My dad.
The bastard.
The bassist.
The chauvinist.
The mildly racist.
The pervert.
The man-child.
The guy who called White Snake “The Gods of Metal.”
The guy who would fucking love this record.

The Dear Hunter
The Color Spectrum (CD)
Triple Crown Records
9/10

The colors of the rainbow shine bright through the darkness
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
Fuck poetry, someone buy me this fucking set, the CD’s a total cocktease.

-Jonathan “The Emperor” Yost

Jim Bianco
LOUDMOUTH
10/10

Bars across America need a new anthem, and Jim Bianco’s first track off of LOUDMOUTH is the solution.  With lyrics about the fun life you led and no matter the outcome, classic rock style drums, and just enough mandolin to bring out the Irish drunk in everyone, “Sinners” is sure to have everyone, sinner or not, singing.  Jim Bianco is full of wit, heartbreak, lust, comedy, and fun, but all with a great amount of honesty.  “But I Still Want You” tells the truth of something we’ve all been through at one point: being treated like shit by a significant other, but staying regardless.  But it’s not just what he sings about, it’s the passion he puts into his music, and if you ever want to argue that point listen to his vocals; there’s so much soul (and so sexy, too!).  This album is what I love: stripped down instrumentation with slightly offensive, but truthful, lyrics.  The icing on the cake: LOUDMOUTH was completely funded by the fans.

Describing how good LOUDMOUTH is is a challenge, so I’ll say this: I made myself a delicious smoothie, which spilled all over my kitchen floor, and the glass cup that it was in broke and cut my leg. ‘Twas a sad day indeed, until I turned this album on.  A must have when it releases on April 5th.

Tommy Simms
Then The Archers Bowed and Broke Their Bows
8/10

Man, someone REALLY enjoyed their parents’ record collection, didn’t they? That someone was Tommy Simms, vocalist for Win Win Winter and the scruffier of the Simms siblings involved in Automatic Loveletter. His solo release separates himself from the Warped Tour crowd and finds himself much more at home at Woodstock. The original one, you know, the one with the metric tons of marijuana, topless hippies and free love. Not the one with fucking Metallica, riots and rapes.

I’ve been sitting at my computer, beer in hand, for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to pigeonhole ol’ Tommy boy into some clever little quip, but for the life of me, can’t do it. Running a gamut of styles from hipster-fare, such as “Here In The Horse’s Heart” (bonus points for the alliteration, by the way) to the more fist-pumping/booty shaking “Baker Avenue”, Simms even provides a slow jam that’s as enjoyable for Skynard fans as it is for, well, everyone else.

While some of my highest praise lends itself to the sounds of early rock inspiration apparent throughout the debut album, that’s also where my only bitch lies. The production values are consistent with the equipment from the same era. The vocals go from “garage-rock” to “I’m recording into a modified Mr. Mike.” Hopefully, this is simply because he is just getting his solo career set, or he developed a distaste for excessive production. Either way, I look forward to a better balance of recording on his next record.

Also, Tommy, sorry we hit on your sister. Sorta. Gabe’s still lonely.

-The Emperor