Ours - Mercy

American/Columbia/Sony BMG

Ours play a brand of alternative rock that seems much more relevant in Britain than in the U.S.A. U2 anyone? While singer/band organizer Jimmy Gnecco is missing the annoying nasal tone than Bono plays off to me, the band's musical work and production quality reminds me painfully much of late '90s U2/Bono work that does little to peak my interest.
Everything is reverbed to hell, which I do appreciate, but this genre is just soulless and pointless to me. While I can't deny liking aspects of this (the drumming is as good as possible for this genre, the artwork is grim and abstract, and there are a few moments of Joy Division that seep through), this is, all and all, not appealing for me. But then again, I don't have any drive to U2, so, as always, this is just not for me.

Hayes Carll - Trouble In Mind

Lost Highway/Universal

Hayes Carll is technically a country singer, but his soul really is in blues. While it's hard to imagine, his formula seems to be pretty similar throughout: Carll takes blues progressions, lyrics, and themes, but presents them in country forms.
He has the country voice, and his style is certainly suburban, but still. While he sounds country, he is very much blues. Songs are incredibly depressing, feeling much like they are all just a buildup of a lifetime of broken hearts, but it certainly doesn't come off self-deprecating. Check out the song "She Left Me For Jesus".

Keyshia Cole - Just Like You

Confidential/Imani/Geffen/Interscope

Teenage prodigy Keyshia Cole finally has her second full length released, and it is just as good as everyone was praying it would be. Incredibly abrasive beats back an unbelievable R&B voice that resonates outside of contemporary mainstream hip-hop and is applicable to so many times and places.
The production is most certainly part of the new wave of hip: beats similar to Kanye West's, but generally less interesting and not quite as original. Cameo's on here inclue Missy Elliot, Lil' Kim, Too $hort, and many others.

Mac Arnold & Plate Full O' Blues - Backbone & Gristle

Self-Released

Arnold is a relic, and I mean this in the best way possible. He was a part of the blues scene during the Muddy Waters/Howlin' Wolf drama, performed in high school with James Brown, and uses an approach to blues that, while may not be dead, has yet to be impressive since said greats have kicked the can, so to speak.
Playing homemade guitars constructed from gasoline cans and elbow grease, Backbone & Gristle isn't anything new or mindblowing, but rather just another great blues record from 60's that just didn't get recorded until just recently. Soulful blues, with a little grit and loads of charm.

Esperanza Spalding - Esperanza

Heads Up/Concord

Redefining the art of modern jazz, Esperanza Spalding is something of a genius. At the age of 23, she already is a professor at Berklee School of Music, releasing her first solo CD, and has been called the new sound of jazz.
She sings, she orchestrates, and she plays double bass beautifully. Esperanza is certainly in a different ballpark than the majority of modern jazz players: combining more Spanish and Cuban jazz to the mix, singing in a plethora of languages, and fully redefining standards. Her voice is unwavering, and her playing never ceases to amaze.

Various Artists - Our Side Of Town: A Red House Records 25th Year Collection

Red House

Red House Records have been good to us over the years: consistently sending us some of the best folk out there right now and never letting us down.
This, as the album so subtly suggests, is their 25th anniversary collection. It includes all of their best (including, but not limited to: Eliza Gilkyson, Jorma Kaukonen, Greg Brown, Lucy Kaplansky, Guy Davis, and everyone else), and it all sounds like exactly what you would expect: country and blues laced folk that drives home the heritage of the genre we all love so much.

Various Artists - Warped Tour 2005 Compilation DOUBLE CD

SideOneDummy

Oh another one! Warped Tour 2005, the real beginning of the metalcore explosion into mainstream. Bands on here, like Zao, From First to Last, Hopesfall, Atreyu, Bleeding Through....I could go on and on.
This genre became the highlight of the entire event rather than a segregated sideshow. Unfortunately. A good majority of this is unlistenable, including Underminded (whom I grew up around, saw a thousand times when I was in middle school when they were playing as a mediocre pop punk band and then became an even worse metalcore band), but there are a few exceptions: take for instance the Hot Water Music song, the goth-punk classic Tsunami Bomb, and Strike Anywhere's "To The World". I mean, those are actually the ONLY good songs.
************LATE BUT GREAT***********

Rosey - You Haven't Been Where I've Been

Quango/Fontana/Universal

Rosey is taking a jump to the otherside of the proverbial pop fence with Luckiest Girl. Where her debut only dabbled in jazz but was most certainly a pop record, Luckiest Girl is certainly a jazz album, which incorporates a good deal of pop.
Consisting of all originals, the large cast of styles is a game of cat and mouse: toying with themes and styles of jazz and moving onto the next game just as quickly as the first came. Her voice is gorgeous, dare I say seductive, which mirrors the backing, dynamic musical performances. Ella Fitzgerald for the twenty-first century, perhaps.

Johnny Mathis - A Night To Remember

Columbia/Sony BMG

Romantic serenader Johnny Mathis is at it again, but this time with a covers album. "Just The Two Of Us,", "Hey Girl," "Always And Forever," are just a few of the smooth r&b pop hits Mathis takes on for his own on A Night To Remember.
His signature voice shines through, and features cameos from some of the best (Kenny G, Yolanda Adams, Mone't, Dave Koz, and Gladys Knight).

Soilent Green - Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction

Metal Blade

While I will always prefer guitarist Brian Patton's other band EYEHATEGOD, Soilent Green was a big stepping stone in my life, having listened to Sewn Mouth Secrets probably about a thousand times.
Inevitable Collapse In The Presence Of Conviction, the longest and cheesiest album name to date, is definitely a new direction for the band. They ditched most of their doom/sludge influence (unfortunately), take the "free-form metal" idea an extra few steps, and are much less dark than previous releases.
I'm not saying that Soilent Green is not still raging; Inevitable Collapse is a sophisticated assault on the terror of everyday life and mediocre metal everywhere. They use so many time/progression changes it's mind blowing.
But they have definitely lost a bit over the years, lowering their brutality a hair and upping their stop and starts more than I feel needed. A few cheesy acoustic intros here and there, and lyrical themes on the inevitability of tragedy, Inevitable may not be Soilent Green's best album, but it still resides miles above most everything else.

Rick Fowler - Back On My Good Foot

Jammates

Back On My Good Foot is as straightforward of a blues record as humanly possible. Super distorted everything, way too much reverb on the vocals (my only complaint), and actual soul makes this an incredibly solid blues record.
Fowler, as anyone who listens to this can hear, is about music, not popularity, and plays his music that way. With quite a bit of delta influence and musicianship to boot, this album is for anyone stoked on good, old fashion porch blues.

Bobby Broom - The Way I Play: Live in Chicago

Origin

It took me surprisingly long to realize this was a live album. It took clapping, a "Thank you very much", and a conversation in the background for me to realize this wasn't a studio recording. This says a lot for The Way I Play both stylistically and musically.
It's stripped down, with obviously no production, and incredibly straightforward 3 piece jazz. Masturbatory guitar playing covers some phenomenal drumming, with bass taking a far back corner in the music. This is something that would probably be better live than recorded, but if you are into faster swinging jazz, this is for you.

Ani DiFranco - So Much Shouting/So Much Laughter DOUBLE CD

Righteous Babe

I mean, there really isn't anything to say here: more live Ani DiFranco, playing her best songs. She has a style that is uncompromising, unrepeatable, and fully unique. Her voice fluctuates between an odd speak-shout to a full blown serenading holler, but never sounds like anyone else but herself.
She is an incredible songwriter: extensive use of polyrhythms and full instrumentation including horns and keyboards along with the typical bass and drums. Super high energy, and super charismatic, this is Ani DiFranco at her best.

Saving Abel - Self-Titled

Virgin/EMI

Saving Abel plays incredible yawn-inducing alternative hard rock. Lots of distortion, and vaguely stoney riffs off and on, but that's about all the positive I got. Annoying vocals and melodies, uninteresting progressions, and really cheesy writing. Alternative rock bands need to go back to sounding like Foo Fighters and Everclear.

The High Kings - Self-Titled

Manattan/Blue Note/Backporch/EMI

The High Kings are continually called an Irish folk and ballad band. And I guess that may be true, but just because they use Irish instruments and using Irish harmonies doesn't mean they play Irish folk.
The band just play pop songs with a few influences and inflections here and there. They are doing something original in this, certainly, but it still is not something all that interesting. Lots of vocal harmonies, some awesome instrumental works with traditional Irish instruments, but beyond that, I got nothing.

Roger Davidson - Bom Dia

Soundbrush/Allegro

Davidson, a renowned bossa nova musician for the last 30 or so years, has come forward with Bom Dia, an album that starts to branch outside of the latin-jazz region just enough to give new sounds, but still rooting the backbone where his heart is.
Phenomenal piano playing, which is certainly the forefront of the recording, ties everything together, with bass and percussion taking a very "behind the leader" approach. Beautiful.

Elf Power - In A Cave

Rykodisc

I have been a big Elephant 6 Collective fan for about 7 years now, seeing Of Montreal probably a million times, along with doing what I can to get my hands on anything they touch. Elf Power hasn't disappointed me up to this point, and continue to bring only the most genius of pop songs to the table.
In A Cave, a reverbed-to-hell pop album, is so catchy it should be illegal. Extensive use of synthesizer for atmosphere, percussion that adds accents in all the right places, and just all around genius songwriting. My personal favorite on the album is cut four, entitled "Paralyzed": a dreamy upbeat song that is really the epitome of what I love about Elephant 6 bands.

Chicha Libre - Sonido Amazonico

Barbes

Wow. Just...wow. Chica Libre are rejuvenating the genre of Chicha (Latin), which is a combination of American psychedelic rock and Latin folk and somba. All have pros and cons, but together it is one of the best mixes imaginable.
They blend perfectly, using the ideas from the Latin south, but with intense amounts of reverb and other effects to put everything into an odd, high energy music that has been dead for almost 40 years now. An album of all covers, this is the perfect thing for people interested in new sounds, new ideas, and good music.
***So Nice, Gotta Do It Up Twice (Created by the Original NYC DJ, Jocko, 1955)***

Jann Klose - Reverie

3 Frames

Jann Klose's Reverie shows a dynamic approach to what pop music could be. Instead of diving into a world of appropriated hip-hop beats or painfully contrived acoustic singer/songwriter approaches, Klose prefers a fully orchestrated construct of intense hooks (indeed, the vocals are mixed almost painfully high), full instrumentation (guitars, basses, drums, strings, accordion, horns, etc.), and lyrics that sound surprisingly genuine. Very personal, but not that emotional. To top off, Klose's voice is unbelievably solid, akin perhaps to Chris Cornell.

Tiffany Evans - Tiffany Evans

Columbia/Sony BMG

Hu. This is an interesting one. Tiffany Evans encompasses a style of r&b that blew up closer to the beginning of this century. The album, for whatever reason, also reeks to me of j-pop, which is neither good nor bad, just odd.
Evans' voice is incredible, using ranges similar to the late Aaliyah, and following a similar stylistic approach. But the big hitter is that Evans is only 15 years old! Her voices is scarily solid for her age, and her performance is impeccable. First single "Promise Ring" features Ciara, and drives those j-pop elements I mentioned earlier into the ground. Catchy as hell, and as soulless as mainstream pop music gets, this is great for any MTV music-goer.

Dale Watson - The Little Darlin' Sessions

Koch

When country music is bad, it might be the worst thing imaginable. When it's good though, when it's good it is in a whole new ball park. As you could guess, Dale Watson falls into the later category.
Completely revivalist country, lying perfectly in the straight country genre (not arena, not alternative, not western), The Little Darlin' Sessions is exactly what country should be: pure and soulful. Simple music recorded live (in the fashion of old recordings with no real post-production editing whatsoever), the album uses traditional styled instruments (upright piano, fiddle, etc.) and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel.
Possibly the highlight of the whole album is Watson's voice, which is deep, low, and obviously from a person who grew up listening to this impeccable genre, leaving his songwriting completely untainted. This is actually perfect. center>

***If You Like Music, You're Gonna' Love This!***

It ’s the media
causing mass hysteria in all areas
They’re all carriers of false information
All barriers to true emancipation
and its scarier when you’re aware
how they’re connected to corporation

Who’s the real terrorist
wanna pose some evidence
facts that are relevant
incase you missed history cus of television
here to perform an exorcist
after seeing satan’s horns
peeking through the wreckage mist
I hope you can handle this
especially if you’re sitting home
with the candles lit
zoning out to channel shit
for its an obsession
which controls you perceptions
molds your conceptions
holds your mind hostage for your soul
for they know it’s a kind of weapon
that could be lethal
heal the blind
and free the people
if you knew the truth
you could teach the youth
expose them to all the evils
so we could see through
to raise the feeble
to realize they’re regal
understand what it means
to be able to walk through the eyes of needles
eradicate riddles
come to terms with God
then collide with these devils
never play the middle
cus then it’ll be at a level
where things will never get settled
so my foots on the pedal
I’m gripping the metal
dipping on severalwhose mental’s are rentals
no matter how much we show you
what we went through
you choose to neglect essentials
make moves but with only respect to presidentials
We Projected the Blues
to take you to the door of consciousness
but you never stepped through
What kept you?
Thoughts are still unreal
and too sensual
for you refuse to deal with the
fundamentals
So this is streets news
with complete views we resent you
we’ll repeat tools to increase the pool
of our people potential
we’ll organize coups
decolonize schools
and baptize the hypnotized
so they realize they have eyes for their own views
so fuck the news and bring it on
cus Viacom don’t want to stop the war
stop the bombs
my people uninformed
is the worst way to be unarmed
shit – they don’t want us to remain calm
they want paranoia to set in
so they could lock us down
to the point that we’re kept in
Don’t you see the
conservative backlash
we find ourselves in?
People wave flags
subconsciously forgiving anyone
who made it bad for us in the past
now that shit is sad
people have gone mad
beyond crazy
Cus now they love Guliani
Can’t get enough of Pataki
they hug politician
and snug with their lackeys
What the fuck can someone smack me!
Shit can’t be
It seems many have forgotten
about police brutality
And the fight to end racial profiling
is a thing of history
And the plight for
Vieques Island is missing
and considered a mystery
Why can’t they see
that shit like that
will only bring them more misery?
But they won’t listen to me
They won’t listen to me

Chorus

Turn off your TVs
Don’t believe their news
Don’t read their views
They’ll keep you confused
Forget how to tie shoes
Talk about pulling yourself by your used bootstraps
Now who’s strapped
food strapped
somehow accused and trapped?
People in Vieques abused
cause they’re brown and black
Just like down in Afghanistan
and in Iraq
It’s a part of their plan
of world domination
Control the land, its resources
and set up corporations
So if there wasn’t oil
in the Middle East
Would there be a reason for war
a reason to declare peace?
Would the Israelis be able
to occupy the Bethlehem streets
if they weren’t backed from the beginning
by the u.s. hell-fire heat?
Yo -can we speak?
Did you peep
how America boguard Mecca
making the call for a Jihad complete?
Lets get deep
ad make leaps
into parts of history that they don’t want to leak
What Is-real?
Which is fake?
Take a peak
Would this country come to the aid
a fellow corrupt state like Kuwait
if they only grew wheat?
Yo don’t sleep
cus what you’ll reap
would be what someone else sowed
so no matter what grows
you’ll have that to keep
And did you see
how this country talked meek
and court sweet
for a confrontation
with Pakistan they don’t seek?
For these sheiks
hold heat
could shake with a nuclear
hand when they do greet
and how an Islamic fleet
could bring Babylon
to its eventual defeat
making prophecy complete
at the same time
smashing the riddle of the beast
as the answer lies
in why they chopped off
the black features to the sphinx
the same reason they want you think
Africa and Middle East aren’t linked
stealing the Pyramids Gyza
right from
under your feat in a blink
as Elizabeth Taylor winks
for she knows that the stolen legacies are closer
to complete
she know
she knows
but the drum beat
that runs deep
on these streets
have been intercepted by hums of guns from rising slums in the east
for we’re all connected
yet a bit demented
ever since when these Jinns came with their aggression
the Nile never flowed down
But somehow our geography has been infested
with pornography
making history more easy to be molested
Plans were perfected
instead of Communism
we have another ideology
to be detested
That’s how they keep your
interest invested
Air-waves projected
views that people
accepted
I aint lying
we need to free Palestine and bless it
What you’re blind
You lost your mind
Can’t you see denying
self-determination is a deadly crime?
And don’t forget Puerto Rico cus it’s mine
As the sun was born shine
heavily on my soul
away from the cold
something you stole
like the black gold
for which you bombed Iraq
People armed with just the Quoran and Islam intact
You said your war was
for Saddam but in fact
you blew up hospitals,
schools, sewage treatment centers and water supplies
adding sanctions
making it possible every month
for 5 thousand children to die
So let it echo
as we will continue
to deliver the street news directly to the ghetto
As satan perches
right there on the church’s steeple
the media, they’re filming
but they won’t show the people
for their plans are to keep you
and your mind in a fetal stage
and leave you in a daze
engaged in a maze
as you find your mind stays forever afraid
forever afraid

Political Article: The West's Weapon of Self-Delusion: There are gun battles in Beirut -- and America thinks things are going fine By:Robert Fisk Back To Top So they are it again, the great and the good of American democracy, grovelling and fawning to the Israeli lobbyists of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), repeatedly allying themselves to the cause of another country and one that is continuing to steal Arab land. Will this ever end? Even Barack Obama - or "Mr Baracka" as an Irish friend of mine innocently and wonderfully described him - found time to tell his Jewish audience that Jerusalem is the one undivided capital of Israel, which is not the view of the rest of the world which continues to regard the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal. The security of Israel. Say it again a thousand times: the security of Israel - and threaten Iran, for good measure. Yes, Israelis deserve security. But so do Palestinians. So do Iraqis and Lebanese and the people of the wider Muslim world. Now even Condoleezza Rice admits - and she was also talking to Aipac, of course - that there won't be a Palestinian state by the end of the year. That promise of George Bush - which no-one believed anyway - has gone. In Rice's pathetic words, "The goal itself will endure beyond the current US leadership." Of course it will. And the siege of Gaza will endure beyond the current US leadership. And the Israeli wall. And the illegal Israeli settlement building. And deaths in Iraq will endure beyond "the current US leadership" - though "leadership" is pushing the definition of the word a bit when the gutless Bush is involved - and deaths in Afghanistan and, I fear, deaths in Lebanon too. It's amazing how far self-delusion travels. The Bush boys and girls still think they're supporting the "American-backed government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. But Siniora can't even form a caretaker government to implement a new set of rules which allows Hizbollah and other opposition groups to hold veto powers over cabinet decisions. Thus there will be no disarming of Hizbollah and thus - again, I fear this - there will be another Hizbollah-Israeli proxy war to take up the slack of America's long-standing hatred of Iran. No wonder President Bashar Assad of Syria is now threatening a triumphal trip to Lebanon. He's won. And wasn't there supposed to be a UN tribunal to try those responsible for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005? This must be the longest police enquiry in the history of the world. And I suspect it's never going to achieve its goal (or at least not under the "current US leadership"). There are gun battles in Beirut at night; there are dark-uniformed Lebanese interior ministry troops in equally dark armoured vehicles patrolling the night-time Corniche outside my home. At least Lebanon has a new president, former army commander Michel Sleiman, an intelligent man who initially appeared on posters, eyes turned to his left, staring at Lebanon with a creditor's concern. Now he has wisely ordered all these posters to be torn down in an attempt to get the sectarian groups to take down their own pictures of martyrs and warlords. And America thinks things are going fine in Lebanon. And Bush and his cohorts go on saying that they will never speak to "terrorists". And what has happened meanwhile? Why, their Israeli friends - Mr Baracka's Israeli friends - -are doing just that. They are talking to Hamas via Egypt and are negotiating with Syria via Turkey and have just finished negotiating with Hizbollah via Germany and have just handed back one of Hizbollah's top spies in Israel in return for body parts of Israelis killed in the 2006 war. And Bush isn't going to talk to "terrorists", eh? I bet he didn't bring that up with the equally hapless Ehud Olmert in Washington this week. And so our dementia continues. In front of us this week was Blair with his increasingly maniacal eyes, poncing on about faith and God and religion, and I couldn't help reflecting on an excellent article by a colleague a few weeks ago who pointed out that God never seemed to give Blair advice. Like before April of 2003, couldn't He have just said, er, Tony, this Iraq invasion might not be a good idea. Indeed, Blair's relationship with God is itself very odd. And I rather suspect I know what happens. I think Blair tells God what he absolutely and completely knows to be right - and God approves his words. Because Blair, like a lot of devious politicians, plays God himself. For there are two Gods out there. The Blair God and the infinite being which blesses his every word, so obliging that He doesn't even tell Him to go to Gaza. I despair. The Tate has just sent me its magnificent book of orientalist paintings to coincide with its latest exhibition (The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting) and I am struck by the awesome beauty of this work. In the 19th century, our great painters wondered at the glories of the Orient. No more painters today. Instead, we send our photographers and they return with pictures of car bombs and body parts and blood and destroyed homes and Palestinians pleading for food and fuel and hooded gunmen on the streets of Beirut, yes, and dead Israelis too. The orientalists looked at the majesty of this place and today we look at the wasteland which we have helped to create. But fear not. Israel's security comes first and Mr Baracka wants Israel to keep all of Jerusalem - so much for the Palestinian state - and Condee says the "goal will endure beyond the current American leadership". And I have a bird that sits in the palm tree outside my home in Beirut and blasts away, going "cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep" for about an hour every morning - which is why my landlord used to throw stones at it. But I have a dear friend who believes that once there was an orchestra of birds outside my home and that one day, almost all of them - the ones which sounded like violins and trumpets - got tired of the war and flew away (to Cyprus, if they were wise, but perhaps on to Ireland), leaving only the sparrows with their discordant flutes to remind me of the stagnant world of the Middle East and our cowardly, mendacious politicians. "Cheep-cheep-cheep," they were saying again yesterday morning. "Cheap-cheap-cheap." And I rather think they are right.

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