Fuck. It’s hard to know what to say about the death of someone that’s been such an influence in my life and musical tastes over the years. Lance Hahn, singer/guitarist for J Church and Cringer, passed away after slipping into a coma after he collapsed during a dialysis treatment.

I first discovered J Church, like I did with so much of the music I loved as a teenager, through a cheap compilation. It was Honest Don’s Greatest Shits, which had the song “Undisputed King of Nothing” on it. I don’t remember anything else on that comp, but I still love “Undisputed King of Nothing” and purchased several J Church albums based on the strength of that song alone. I would reconnect with Lance’s music a few years later through another comp, Lookout’s reissue of their late 80’s classic “The Thing That Ate Floyd,” which featured Cringer’s excellent rendition of “Cottleston Pie.”

I really regret the fact that I never got to see J Church live. The closest I got was when they played in Columbia during a rare tour in 2003. I really wanted to go, but classes started the next day, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to drag my ass out of bed after driving two hours and getting home at 3 a.m. or later.

The first J Church album I bought was a used copy of the singles compilation Meaty, Beaty, Shitty Sounding, which sounded anything but shitty. I can sing the words to most every song on it (even the ELO covers that start things off) and I still go through phases where I’ll drag out my J Church CDs and bask in their greatness. The greatest strength of Lance’s songwriting to me has always been that while you know the guy’s extremely knowledgeable, and his record collection would slay your own, he retains a level of pop accessibility and mastery, and isn’t afraid to let influences through that the “cool kids” would probably shit on. Lance always seemed to me like the kind of guy that’s smarter than you, who possesses the rare gift of being able to capably express feelings and ideas, but who would never rub his intelligence in your face, possessing a subtlety that’s all-too-rare in the music world.

There’s so much more I’d like to say, but I feel like I’m rambling already. I could elaborate on how almost any J Church song makes me feel, but it will only make it seem like goodbye, and with a catalogue as wide and emotionally significant as Lance Hahn left behind, the music will always be there.

The lights are going down,
It’s late at night in an early town,
Save yourself, don’t hang around,
Put your dreams in lost and found,
I know that you’ll want to stay,
I know that you’ll run away,
Your eyes are on the ground,
It’s closing time in an early town

Austinist article
J Church homepage

To say that my Creative Zen Vision:M is getting a little long in the tooth is an understatement. 30 gigabytes is simply not enough storage for any self-respecting music fan. Herein lies the problem: NO ONE is making an excellent high-capacity mp3 player. To get the obvious out of the way, I refuse to buy an iPod. Refuse, refuse, refuse. My reasoning is simple: The customizability on the iPod is atrocious, iTunes is garbage, and I’m not going to help perpetuate the Apple Cult. With that out of the way, my only other option at the moment is the Cowon iAudio X5, a player so close to the verge of being discontinued that I’m not even giving it a second thought. So what is every digital audio player manufacturer on the Earth busying itself with at the moment? Shoddy flash memory-based players with paltry memory or hulking and unnecessary personal media players with criminally bad battery life. Who honestly watches video on a 2.5” screen? Anyone? If so, why?

There is nothing inherently impossible in what I’m looking for. I feel like an LP enthusiast circa the late 1980’s, when it seems as if the market is taking huge steps backwards and perpetuating garbage. I’ll provide a basic break down what I want:

- At least 100GB of storage
- Support for mp3, but support for FLAC and OGG should ideally be included as well.

- A reasonably decent screen. I don’t care about watching movies on the thing, but I would like to see album art and have a custom background.

- Good to excellent playlist creation. The last player I had with decent options in creating a playlist on the player itself was a monstrous Zen Xtra in 2003. Every player I’ve had since then has been a gigantic step backwards. Whoever thought it was acceptable to require users to create playlists on their PCs and import those to the player shouldn’t qualify as human. And this “on-the-go” playlist nonsense is shameful.

- Absolutely no software required. No bullshit, bloated proprietary software should be necessary to drag my already-organized collection over to.

That’s it. I will put up with lackluster design and fiddle with half-assed controls if need be. It consistently amazes me that people are willing to put up with crap like iTunes and the limited functionality of the severely-crippled mass-market players. I don’t claim to be any sort of digital audio expert, but seriously, there isn’t a single good mp3 player on the market at the moment, and a soon-to-be discontinued player by a minor company is the best we’ve got. Are my expectations too high or are people just willing to settle for crap time and again?

It’s fairly uncommon for me to get jazzed about and anticipate new releases, especially since I’m still discovering old stuff I haven’t heard before (Krautrock and death metal being two recent interests), but there are a couple records with awesome potential coming out in the next month or two…

Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow

I’ve liked Boris since I first heard Akuma No Uta a few years ago (which might make me a johnny-come-lately to long-time fans, but whatever) and I first heard Ghost (Kurihara’s band) shortly thereafter, their album Hypnotic Underworld quickly becoming a favorite of mine. So with that in mind, I’m interested to see what that sort of collaboration can cook up. Here’s hoping it’s more along the lines of the SunnO)))/Boris collaboration quality-wise than the Boris/Merzbow outing (though to be fair, I’ve only heard Sun Baked Snow Cave and not the newest one). Drag City is showing May 22nd as the release date on this one.

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - After the Night Falls & Before the Day Breaks

Harold Budd piqued my interest the first time I heard his and Brian Eno’s brilliant Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirrors (still my favorite of Eno’s Ambient series) and I’ve listened to him fairly regularly ever since. Fast forward to about a year later and I casually hear the Cocteau Twins namedropped on a forum, realize I haven’t ever heard them, give ‘em a shot and fall in love with most of their discography. Early on in my discovery of the Twins, I came across with Moon & the Melodies, their collaboration with Budd. Shortly after that one, I discovered that CT guitarist Robin Guthrie and Budd had also done the soundtrack to the amazing (and disturbing) film Mysterious Skin. The Mysterious Skin soundtrack is one of my favorite albums, one of those rare ambient albums that manages to be both completely relaxing and musically interesting at the same time. Last I had heard, Budd had retired from the music game, going out on top even after 30 years of pretty consistent music, which while completely understandable, was a bit of a bummer. Then I googled Guthrie’s name one day to see what he was up to and found his blog and saw that he had not one, but two brand-new albums with Budd coming out, and better yet, very soon. While his blog isn’t showing any dates, the US release date appears to be June 12th. Can’t wait.

I had another chance to see Acid Mothers Temple last night and it was just as good as last year, and in some ways even better. They played the Grey Eagle in Asheville, NC again this year, this time with a better and more unique supporting act. I also had the opportunity to sample the cuisine at the Grey Eagle’s in-house restaurant, which provided me with my first taste of alligator (mixed in with pasta), which was chewy and tasted a bit like some sort of seafood, but I don’t eat seafood enough to identify the similarity. Anyway, on to the show itself…

The first supporting act, Doom Ribbons, wasn’t good or unique in any way, relying on tired looped guitars and drums. It’s very clear that quite a few dudes in Asheville with beards have heard SunnO))) and Growing records, but it seems that far fewer are those who are willing to put an interesting spin on ripping them off. Next up was the mighty Mammatus, a doom-ish outfit from Santa Cruz that not only both rocked and rolled, but brought a sense of humor to their stage show that’s sorely lacking from the whole doom/stoner/sludge scene. I had mentioned to my friend attending the show with me that they appeared to be “wearing dresses” in their pic on the Grey Eagle’s website, and lo and behold, they were indeed wearing dress-like robes, the singer/guitarist’s looking like some sort of home-made psychedelic moo-moo. Not only that, but he brandished a staff at the beginning of the show and motioned in a hug-like gesture welcoming the audience to draw nearer, as if to gain some sort of enlightenment from his Shamanic entourage. I’m very picky when it comes to music, so it’s extremely rare that I go to a show and enjoy both the opener (kiss-ass local bands notwithstanding) and the headliner, but this was one of those rare occasions. Mammatus put on a hell of a show, complete with a fog machine and a bubble-gun that never ceased to entertain, even if it did get a little over-the-top at times.

After Mammatus impressed the shit out of everyone, it was time for Japan’s premiere psychedelic troubadours, Acid Mothers Temple, touring this time as Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., on what was labeled on the tour LP I picked up as the ‘Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Tour.’ Last year they toured as a 4-piece, but this year they brought along a female member who sang and played theremin (though both the singing and the theremin were almost comically drowned-out by everything else going on). The sheer output of Acid Mothers Temple and its many variations, offshoots and solo discs is mind-boggling. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s definitely among music’s most confusing discographies and family trees, so it’s no wonder that, when touring the US, they have a couple of tracks that have become staples of their live show (otherwise, no one would recognize much of anything). That said, they played two of those tracks, the menacing “Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky” and the more laid-back “Pink Lady Lemonade,” both of which comprised last year’s tour CD “Power House of Holy.” The only other song I recognized immediately was “Starless and Bible Black Sabbath,” from last year’s album of the same name. All in all, everything they played was pretty good save for a few bouts of unfortunate scat-style singing interrupting the epic encore they put on. AMT head honcho Kawabata Makoto’s guitar playing was legendary as usual and the bass player crammed as many notes into his busy lines as possible, all backed up by whacked-out oscillating synth and a drummer who had to be fairly exhausted by the end of their set, which lasted at least an hour and a half, probably longer.

Anyone who’s ever been to an AMT show can tell you, their merch table is one of the most epic you’ve ever seen, with upwards of 30 CDs for sale, many of which are impossible to get outside of their merch table. I was a bit disappointed this year to see that they didn’t print up their tour shirt in XXL for fatties like myself, as last year’s tour shirt has been a regular in my wardrobe for the past year, but that just means I didn’t spend as ridiculous an amount as I did last year. In a rather odd (and arguably arrogant) move, they had a few relics from past live shows for sale at the merch table too, like used drumsticks ($10), a used pickguard ($150!) and the body of a smashed guitar ($400!!!). Yeah…somehow I don’t see those higher-dollar items going home with anybody. All things considered though, it was a great show and reiterated the fact that they’re one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen. It’s still pretty early in the tour, so there are still quite a few dates left, all of which can be found at their website.

Looking back on my youth, some of the fondest memories as far as entertainment was concerned were the stellar original shows that Nickelodeon produced in the early 90s. Any given afternoon (or Saturday night; I was around for the beginning of Snick) was an embarrassment of riches as far as live-action kids shows were concerned. Between Hey Dude, Salute Your Shorts, Clarissa Explains it All and The Adventures of Pete & Pete, you were guaranteed a good time. What all of these shows had in common was a trait so common to great entertainment (whatever the audience) that it’s rare to find a great show without it: they didn’t talk down to their audience. They took great pride in being off-kilter and made no scurried attempts to over-explain their sometimes dysfunctional nature. Okay, enough rambling about nostalgia, let’s get on to this week’s album of the week…

Polaris - “Music From the Adventures of Pete & Pete”

The Adventures of Pete & Pete was one of those shows that just oozed charm, and thus was never destined for the mainstream (hence the reason that Nickelodeon has put further seasons of the series on ‘indefinite hiatus’ for DVD release). The show wallowed in its own off-beat happy-go-lucky world, which is a fitting metaphor for the music the show featured. Jangle-pop band Polaris provided the instantly-memorable theme song and also many of the background songs featured throughout the show’s run. Any fan of indie-pop or catchy guitar-driven pop songwriting will have a hard time finding much (if anything) to dislike here. The album features 12 cuts from the show and not a one among them is a dud. While there are certainly tracks that outshine others, it’s merely a difference in the degree of goodness. This album has been a listening mainstay since entering my collection about a year ago (I was unaware it had been released in 1999). It takes only a short while to worm itself into your brain and then you’re hooked. You’ll be singing along to almost every track on the album in no time. There are several instances on the album of sampling, clips usually of a space-related nature (no surprise given that the band is named after a constellation) that in most cases have little to nothing to do with the songs themselves. At first these are a bit unwelcome, especially when they lie between your ears and the opening track “Hey Sandy,” but after a few spins, you’ll come to appreciate them for what they are, and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself counting off with the sample in preparation for singing along (and mangling) “Hey Sandy.” Tracks like “She is Staggering” deftly demonstrate the saccharine sweetness of the beginning stages of love (fittingly, as it is first heard in the show when older Pete begins to take interest in his best friend Ellen) while “Summerbaby,” first heard in the show as a mysterious song the younger Pete hears on the radio and becomes enamored with is every bit as captivating and catchy as a song that would warrant such obsession should be.

The beauty part of this music, as well as the show in which it originated, is that it holds up well regardless of the age of the listener and/or viewer. It’s almost a shame for the band that this wasn’t given a prominent release when the show was at its peak, as I have no doubt that it would have become an indie-pop classic. As it stands though, the fact that this is available in any form is of great benefit to music fans everywhere; this is pop music at its very finest.

Related Links:

Mezzotint Label

The Adventures of Pete & Pete @ TV.com

Here I am, almost a week late with this update, but I’ll try and have another AotW entry up real soon to make up for this one being so far behind. Anyway, dust off the air guitar and if you’re of the long-haired persuasion, get ready to whip those locks around like a windmill in honor of this week’s Album of the Week…

Wolf - “self-titled”
It’s a daunting task to attempt breathing life into the corpse of a genre gone stone-cold nearly two decades ago, but Swedish revivalists Wolf have done just that. Taking the NWOBHM template perfected most prominently by bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Wolf treads very similar ground without sounding like an also-ran. The driving melodies, dual guitar attacks and falsetto vocals certainly don’t give any indication that this record came out in 2000 (released in the US by Prosthetic Records in 2004).

The vocals retain a lot of the qualities of legendary Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson without being a direct ripoff and the music stays just a bit to the left of the classic Iron Maiden sound so as to distinguish it as more homage than plagiarism. The album starts off with a bang and doesn’t let up until “243,” the next-to-last track and the only instrumental on the album. While it works well enough for what it is, instrumentals on metal albums are generally a letdown anyway, so it’s hard to pick on it too much. Every one of the tracks before this point is absolutely stellar and is sure to have any old-school metal fan dusting off the air guitar for a wicked good time. The final track is a bit of a letdown after such a brilliant start and juicy middle, but when you manage to produce an album with 7 stellar tracks and only 2 that are, at worst, merely “okay,” you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

Standout Tracks:

- In the Shadow of Steel
- Moonlight
- The Parasite
- Electric Raga
- The Voyage
- Desert Caravan

Links:
Official Site
Prosthetic Records

In an effort to start writing more and hopefully turning people on to tunes they may not normally consider or have knowledge of, I’ve decided to start doing a write-up on a new album every week. Music has played a big part in my life since the age of 14 or so (before that I had pretty much sworn off music since the bulk of it I had been exposed to at the time seemed to be so vapid and worthless). Hopefully I’ll be able to meet my self-imposed deadline of having a different album up every Tuesday (the day new releases hit stores).

Without further adieu, I present this week’s “Album of the Week:”

The Thing That Ate Floyd (1988)
This week’s Album of the Week was an impulse buy for me when it was first issued on double-CD in 2002. Lookout Records was one of the first record labels I latched on to when I first got into punk, pop-punk and indie rock in the late 90’s/early 00’s, and with good reason. Their lineup at that time (and during the years preceding it) was fantastic. Lookout still feels to me like the perfect pop-punk starter label, what with bands like the Mr. T Experience, Pansy Division, Crimpshrine, Fifteen, Screeching Weasel, the Groovie Ghoulies, the Queers and Operation Ivy to name a few. (Sadly, due to well-publicized disputes over royalties, many of these releases are now out-of-print or have shifted to other labels).

That said, what The Thing That Ate Floyd presents is not from Lookout’s late 90’s bands, but goes back a decade to the late 80’s, when the Bay Area was literally hemorrhaging great pop-punk, hardcore and ska-influenced punk bands. The thing about compilations is that they’re rarely listenable all the way through, especially the label samplers. TTTAF isn’t like that at all. Instead of focusing on one specific label’s roster, it gives a great glimpse into a scene that folks like me (who were all of 4 years old at the time) could only dream about. For most people, the orange sticker affixed to the shrinkwrap indicating that there was an rare Operation Ivy song inside was enough to warrant a purchase, but that track (”Hangin’ Out”) is so outclassed by lesser-known bands that it’s almost a moot point to even bring it up. Afficionados of pop-punk will find a lot to like here, what with early tracks from bands whose members went on to bands like Samiam, J Church, Green Day (yuck, I know), and Fifteen as well as bands who have made a much bigger name for themselves than they had at the time (Neurosis, No Use for a Name, Steelpole Bathtub, the Mr. T Experience, etc.). Your typical compilation album is generally pretty anemic as far as liner notes are concerned, but Lookout wisely chose to replicate the entirety of the excellent liner notes from the original LP release, giving each band a half-page to list lyrics, lineups, contact info and whatever else they damn well pleased.

Yeah, yeah, so the packaging is good, and the morsel certainly sounds tasty, but how does it stack up with the music factored in? Very well, my friends, very well. Neither disc is vastly superior to the other thanks to an excellent spread of great tunes on both.

Highlights from the first disc:

The Skin Flutes - “Straight Edge Song”
Corrupted Morals - “Big Man”
Cringer - “Cottleston Pie”
Eyeball - “The Incredibly Blue Mustache of Mr. Tinselteeth”
Complete Disorder - “We Must Do Something Now”
The Well Hung Monks - “Product of Misdirection”
Swollen Boss Toad - “Broken Strings”

Highlights from the second disc:

Relief Society - “Abandoned Beer Messiah”
Mr. T Experience - “Boredom Zone”
Sewer Trout - “Vagina Envy”
Sweet Baby - “Andorra”
Surrogate Brains - “Extreme Racial Pride”
The Lookouts - “Outside”
Spent - “In My Past”

Whether you want to get pumped up and punch the floor, have a ridiculously catchy sing-along or hear some of the best pop-punk ever laid to record, you’ll find what you’re looking for here. One of the more interesting things about the album is to see how the bands that are still going have progressed in the almost 20-year timespan since the release of this punk landmark. No Use For a Name’s track in particular is so drastically different from what they’re doing now that you have to check twice to make sure that the track you’re hearing is theirs. The Mr. T Experience track isn’t really different if you’ve traced the world’s best pop-punk band (I’ll defend that statement til death) back to their early days, when their albums were more cynical and a touch less poppy, but for those who are only familiar with the style they’re best known for, it’s an eyebrow-raiser. If I had to pick an absolute favorite from all the songs, and believe me, it’s a fairly close call, I’d have to go with The Well Hung Monks’ “Product of Misdirection.” Rarely has a song so full of pop-culture references and biting social commentary been so spot-on, funny and intelligent all at once.

Sorry to anyone that’s read this far, I promise I won’t be so long-winded next week, but I REALLY love this album. Pick it up. You won’t be disappointed.

Also, as a bonus treat, here’s an HTML version of the booklet for TTTAF. This used to be hosted on Lookout’s site, but when their old site went down in favor of a new one the link to this no longer points to the right place, so I assume it’s fair game for me to upload this myself: The Thing That Ate Floyd (.zip)

Links:
Lookout! Records
The Thing That Ate Floyd (product page)

LeatherfaceFrankie Stubbs may very well be the best and most heartfelt singer punk rock has ever had. As frontman/guitarist for Leatherface, Mr. Stubbs has spent a good chunk of the last two decades eating gravel and spitting it back up as lyrics that sound as if what he’s telling you will be the last words he will ever utter. The music backing him up is no less than outstanding too, with riffs and basslines that would make Campbell’s Soup rethink their definition of chunky and some truly inspired drumming (especially in contrast to what the bulk of their peers have phoned in).
(mp3: “Wax Lyrical” from “BYO Split Series Vol. 1: Leatherface/Hot Water Music”)
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Link: Leatherface Unofficial Site
CodeineIt’s one thing for a band or singer to be able to capture a mood with a well-written song from a lyrical standpoint, but far fewer are the groups that can not only get their point across in words, but also set the same mood with the music as well. Codeine’s “Frigid Stars LP” is perhaps the most melancholy record ever recorded and is the perfect record for wintertime. The vocals are delivered in a nonchalant fashion and the instrumentation is one of the best examples of minimalism I’ve ever heard. Codeine’s modus operandi seems to have been expressing alienation and loneliness but without a complete deprivation of hope.
(mp3: “D” from “Frigid Stars LP”)
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Link: Codeine Unofficial Site
J ChurchI still remember the first time I heard J Church. I was young, stupid and my tastes were a pretty blank slate. It was on some compilation that Honest Don’s (an imprint of Fat Wreck Chords) put out and the track was the rockin’ “Undisputed King of Nothing.” Their track easily rendered the rest of that comp useless to me from then on. J Church has been criminally overlooked for the bulk of their career (thank in no small part to their numerous label switch-ups), but for my money, I don’t know if there’s a better pop-punk/indie rock storyteller than singer/guitarist Lance Hahn. The man is literally a factory of great songs, as any of their multiple singles collections will attest to. The “Meaty, Beaty, Shitty Sounding” singles comp still holds a special place on my shelf as it was the first J Church album I ever owned. I can (and often do) sing along to every one of this album’s 20 songs.
(mp3: “Closing Time in an Early Town” from “Meaty, Beaty, Shitty Sounding”)
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Link: J Church Official Site

**NOTE**: I am in no way implying ownership or copyright of these songs and provide them here to hopefully spark interest in bands that I like. Please don’t sue me. If you are in one of these bands or from a label that put out one of these records and want me to take anything down, let me know via email. Also, as I have limited bandwidth PLEASE RIGHT CLICK > SAVE TARGET AS and DON’T HOTLINK THE MP3′S. When new stuff goes up, the old stuff comes down, so grab them while you can.

Working in a music store, we get more than our fair share of just absolutely crazy people. Maybe it’s something to do with that old adage of music ’soothing the savage beast,’ but I’d venture to guess we have an almost equal number of crazy and sane regulars. Most of the time I don’t mind them. There are quite a few crazy folks that are entertaining or just plain ignorable. We have one crazy in particular, let’s call him Mark, that is absolutely batshit insane, almost in a ‘danger to society’ sort of way. There are days you would think that Mark actually works there. Sundays seem to be a particular favorite, as he often comes in up to 3 or 4 times in the 7-hour span of time that we’re open on Sunday (dipping out in between visits to go to one of the restaurants around here that serves beer on Sundays). Mark takes his medicine I would imagine, but the problem is that he likes to wash it down with several beers, in effect nullifying any effect his medicine would have had in the first place. It should also be noted that Mark has time and time again continually proven himself to be bad with money, which he chalks up to some degree to the “voices.” For instance, Mark has bought several albums, sold them back the next day because they “freaked” him out, and then come in the very next day to rebuy the used copies he sold back the day before. This happens quite a bit, with Motorhead being the usual culprit, but lately TV on the Radio, David Bowie and My Bloody Valentine have joined the ranks. This whole cycle happens at least once a week.

The other day Mark walks into the store and approaches the front counter (not unusual), and then plops down a wallet stuffed with about $250 in cash and numerous credit cards and other potential ‘valuables.’ As it turns out, Mark found the wallet in the parking lot and turned it in without so much as removing a dollar from it. We contacted the owner as soon as possible and he arrived the next morning to pick up his wallet, amazed as we were that everything was intact. He ended up leaving Mark a reward for us to give to him, which took little time to be claimed (Mark walked in about 10 minutes after the guy left). I guess the moral of the story is that you never know who can be trusted. It’s damn lucky Mark found the wallet too, as we’ve had our share of people we’ve had to run out from the front of the store for bugging people for money and whatnot.

This Will Destroy You - “Young Mountain” (Magic Bullet)

Working at a record store, you’re exposed to so much day-in and day-out that it’s easy to become jaded on new music, especially when what was fresh and new only a few months prior becomes the new black and yet another subgenre becomes oversaturated. For a while there I was burnt out on the whole ‘post-rock’ thing (mostly because 90% of those in the genre have an ‘also-ran’ vibe). Then something like this comes out and knocks some sense back into a sometimes lazy genre. Somewhere between favorites Explosions in the Sky and relative unknowns God is an Astronaut lie This Will Destroy You, with their influenced, yet original take on the whole instrumental thang.

Comets on Fire - “Avatar” (Sub Pop)

At first listen, you’re almost taken aback at how…well…relaxed this album sounds in comparison to their last one. Then a minute later you realize that it’s not a bad thing after all. You can tell this one’s taken some influence from the Colossal Yes side project their drummer released this year, which I think makes the album even more well-rounded and awesome. After all, the world already has enough bands in it that are more than happy to release the same album over and over again, and not only is this different, but it’s great to boot.

Boris - “Pink” (Southern Lord)

Last year’s “Akuma No Uta” hinted at another side of Boris: the side that just wanted to rock the fuck out. This time around, there aren’t just a handful of songs like that, but instead, most of the album is balls-out rock ‘n’ roll. There’s still the droney track or two (which are still great) but most of the time is spent rockin’ it the hell out.

Final Fantasy - “He Poos Clouds” (Tomlab)

I’m a walking contradiction. I think Sufjan Stevens and Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) are two of the biggiest pussies indie rock has ever produced, yet here I am digging a strings-laden concept album about Dungeons & Dragons. I can’t begin to explain why I like this, so don’t ask. It’s just such a happy album, albeit one with lyrics like “his massive genitals refuse to cooperate/no amount of therapy can hope to save his marriage,” that make you go “what the fuck?” out loud.

Edguy - “Rocket Ride” (Nuclear Blast)

Yeah, yeah, shut up. I know these guys are “cheesy” and that some folks call them “Edgay” just because they aren’t all that serious, don’t wear corpsepaint and don’t have their name written in some thorny-looking font, but I don’t care. These guys make some downright fun metal that harkens back to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal while adding power metal elements. If you’re not smiling and wanting to sing along by the time the titular track hits its chorus, then you should probably lighten up a little.

Zombi - “Surface to Air” (Relapse)

If I ever make a horror movie, I know exactly who I’m calling first to score it. Zombi have single-handedly made prog-rock cool again (that is, it could be argued, if it ever was in the first place). Goblin would be most proud.

Gossip - “Standing in the Way of Control” (Kill Rock Stars)

The Gossip finally made a great album. I sort of liked their earlier albums, but on this one it all sort of came together (note to every guitar/drums only band: while the bass isn’t necessary, it can only ADD to your sound). Beth Ditto is once again in top form as the reigning queen of rock ‘n’ roll vocals and the music is rounded out by the addition of some great bass playing and the addition of a dance/disco layer to their already-mastered blues/soul/rock ‘n’ roll abilities.

Wizardzz - “Hidden City of Taurmond” (Load)

Who knew the bass maestro from Lightning Bolt could beat the living shit out of a drum set too? Well he can, and does so with authority on tracks like “Whispers From Wallface.” If you ever played the NES on acid, (which I sadly haven’t) I’m convinced this is what it would sound like. Also check out his animation project “Barkley’s Barnyard Critters,” which is as awesome as it is absurd.

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - “Have You Seen the Other Side of the Sky?” (Ace Fu)

AMT is hands-down the best live band I’ve seen in 2006 (so far), and their new album is a fine addition to their already-massive catalog. Trippy acid-folk ballads nestled in-between full-blown psychedelic freakouts best served with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose.