Review: Various Artists – Protect: A Benefit for the National Association to Protect Children

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

NoFX’s “Leaving Jesusland” sets the tone for this 26-song comp: a bitter anthem slamming self-righteous supporters of the ruling elite who battle same-sex marriage but whose sense of social responsibility may not extend to helpless children lost within the nation’s family services programs.

But the disc is far from heavy-handed, overflowing instead with an energetic mix of southern California punk, guitar-driven alt-and pop-rock, and post-hardcore explosions, much of it unreleased elsewhere.

The Lovekill, Anti-Flag, Darkest Hour, The Ergs and Smoke Or Fire burn among the brightest, though Jawbreaker fans will devour a live take on “Want” and someone should probably toss Joan Jett a copy of The Soviettes’ “Middle of the Night.” Joey Cape and Matt Skiba pop in here or there with their acoustic guitars and who could resist hearing Coalesce erupt as they offer a take on The Jesus Lizard’s “Mouth Breather?” Not me

Review: Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death – Helpless

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

Spencer Moody (Murder City Devils) and Corey Brewer (Bright Shiny Objects) toss out the verse-chorus-verse formulas and craft a lo-fi disc of mumbled musical moments in the image of early Bill Callahan and, to a lesser degree, Pavement. Refrains wobble along, somber pianos give way to sluggish samples and hooks occasionally surface among a sea of four-track half-ballads and meandering noise-dirges. In the midst of it all, the duo offers an inebriated and melancholy take on Neil Young’s “Helpless.” Yeah, you heard that right.

Review: STNNNG – Dignified Sissy

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

The aptly named frontman Chris Besinger unfurls the D.C.-punk narrative bark that serves as the backbone of Dignified Sissy but each member of the tightly wound Twin Cities quintet seems more than willing to contribute to their debut full-length’s venomous bite.

Over the course of14 too-short songs, the group doesn’t perform a two-guitar, 100-proof brand of angular punk as much as it unleashes it. Distorted but carefully mapped guitar lines slash and stab at listeners’ ears, weaving around each other before they crash into a pummeling wall of percussion or Besinger roars into the spotlight.

“How To Avoid An Assassination” may prove these guys own well-worn copies of In On The Kill Taker while standout tracks like “My Golden Oldie,” which begins and ends with the same rusted-razor-on-chalkboard guitar squalor, feel downright violent. And, in one of the group’s more pointed and political moments, who’s not going to scream along when Besinger greets a mounting crescendo by screaming, “We’ve got a new national anthem! Aren’t you glad to be in America?! We’re all fucking crazy!”

Review: The New Thrill Parade – S/T

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

The cover art to the latest from this Santa Cruz six-piece may scream Raymond Pettibon, but the five songs therein likely will remind you more of Big Boys and early Scratch Acid. It takes a few verses to get used to Amitai’s trebly, bizarre yelp of a delivery but the forebears he sometimes channels – Randy “Biscuit” Turner, David Yow, Gary Floyd – provide a fair introduction. The EP only gets moving as the eclectic band backing him really churns away. But when they do, like on the sometimes-furious “Moat,” it’s worth tuning in.

Review: Lichens – The Psychic Nature of Being

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

A three-song set of haunted acoustic skeletons and dreamy, mid-fi synth-drones from Robert Lowe of 90 Day Men and Touch and Go critical darlings TV On The Radio. Lowe’s spare guitar patterns can feel Faheyesque but the record’s most captivating and engrossing moments belong to its pulsing Minimalist landscapes and vaguely menacing collection of found sounds. In the closing moments of “You Are Excrement, You Can Turn Yourself Into Gold,” as the world fades to a fuzzy background, even the cling and clatter of a hollow bell disarms you.

Review: Hiker/Biker – Politics and Fucking

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

This lo-fi collision of acoustic musings and vague political treatises unfolds in true home-recorded fashion: songs ebb and flow through genres and source qualities while sentiment is the glue. “100 Million” and “La Paz,” which posits peace is impossible without equality, transcend some of the limitations of the Tascam recorder. The noisy instrumental “Respect No Authority” doesn’t fare as well. “Inevitability” almost pays homage to early Neutral Milk Hotel but lacks that group’s dreamy sense of scope and possibility. Elsewhere, the protest and political urgency feels flat, even if the heart is in the right place.

Review: The Hat Party – Agents and Thieves

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

Here’s the headline, boss: Madison, WI band cuts debut, mimics Archers of Loaf. Well, that’s at least part of the story. Much of this quartet’s 10-song freshman outing feels like lost Archer outtakes circa All The Nations Airports and even the exceptions to that rule sound familiar: the angular Rodan-isms of “Paramedic,” the way “Overexposure” or “Icicles” sound vaguely like Zykos. The record’s pretty good and the songwriting’s far from uninventive but you may feel like you’ve heard some of it before.

Review: Devillock – These Graves

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

Musique concrete? Perhaps, but the program hardly reveals an underbelly of intentions. Ominous static, electronic moans and distant whirring flirt with guitar feedback on two 14-minute found-soundscapes while the record’s two remaining tracks present spare, almost elegiac organ pulsing and half-interrupted silences. Like Jim O’Rourke’s epic “Cede,” but without the vision or initiation.

Review: Broken Spindles – Inside/Absent

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

Haunted-house piano lines pulse through much of Joel Peterson’s third Broken Spindles disc, but it’s the electro-assisted pseudo-balladry that this short, 10-song outing tries to staple to your memory. Sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes it doesn’t. “Birthday,” with all its looped dance floor insinuations, can be engaging, while the clunky synths of “Please Don’t Remember This” encourage you to do just that. Elsewhere, the consciousness of 80’s synth-pop Peterson brings to the table works better, as on “The Distance Is Nearsighted” or the psycho-killer lurking of “Painted Boy Face.”

Review: Boduf Songs – S/T

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

The English singer-songwriter Mat Sweet uses an enigmatic pseudonym to craft enigmatic acoustic gems on this nine-song outing, whose deceptively spare arrangements fall somewhere between Dean Roberts and The Doctor Came At Dawn. Sweet spends much of the record singing in a breathy whisper about pitch-black rainbows, sunsets and the feeling of skin on skin but it would be a mistake to write this off simply as an exercise in melancholy singer-songwriter balladry. Some of the finest moments are the details Sweet stitches below the surface: the violin bows and industrial exhales of “Grains” and “Claimant Reclaimed,” the twinkling cymbals and computer-whirled flourishes of “Our Canon of Transposition,” the washes of sound that saturate the album-closing “Vapour Steals The Glow.”

But what really sticks with you is the unbearable tenderness of his fragile acoustic guitar melodies and the way his whisper suggests truths that run deeper than lyrics suggest. What better way to describe a record that can feel devastating with words as seemingly simple as “Rain came down to drive us in/ as bones unfold … rejoice with trembling?”