Pop-rock bands with punk tendencies are a dime a dozen these days, and Lola Ray is no exception. I can’t see past the fact that these tracks don’t journey outside of the pop/punk template the CD follows. That this album was released on Good Charlotte’s label might be an indication of the cookie cutter syndrome that plagues Lola Ray. It’s true that the album occasionally rocks, but only occasionally. The track “Plague (We Need No Victims)” pounds into your skull for the duration of the 3:09. “Automatic Girl” lets you know how easy it can be to rock with insensible lyrics. Perfect for radio. I Don’t Know You is a standard pop punk junk album—nothing of substance no matter how hard you try and listen. Granted, these cats may be the dope live, but they are a one trick pony in an oversaturated genre. [www.lolaray.com]

The debut album from Ohio-based Lovedrug is nothing less than excellent. The entire album is chock full of exploratory, full-fledged, distinctive soundscapes. Pretend You’re Alive combines the distinctive high-pitched vocals of lead singer Michael Shepard with well-constructed big sound. The bio on the band’s website sums up my feelings on this album: “A unique crossbreed of art and accessibility, powerful melodies are driven by smartly crafted lyrics of truth, intrigue, love, death, and damn near everything in between.” “Blackout” is an emotionally laced song about heartbreak and the yearning to let go. Shepard reaches an apex by crooning the catchy chorus, “She’ll save her life for something good . . . Oh yeah, for something good.” “RockNRoll” is a classic pop gem that covers all of the pop sensibilities one might suspect, while title track, “Pretend You’re Alive,” is an honest, intense piano ballad. Lovedrug has a unique sound that will take with anyone who appreciates the effort and intensity explored throughout this album. [www.lovedrugmusic.com]

Willie Nelson once said: “If you build a house of quality in the woods, the world will beat a path to your doorstep.” The Lost Trailers founder Stokes Nielson took these words to heart, considering they were spoken directly to him while he was writing for a college publication. Welcome to the Woods is The Lost Trailers attempt to live up to this important advice. It’s important to note that this is The Lost Trailers third full-length album, which leads one to believe that this album title was held on reserve until a deserving album was finally crafted. When newbie alt-country fans are starting to discover the magazine No Depression because of Wilco’s popularity and the Jayhawks are selling more albums because The Thorns covered one of their songs, you’re sure to find Uncle Tupelo wannabes playing your local roadhouse. The Lost Trailers are not quite Uncle Tupelo, but they do possess shades of Son Volt, Jupiter Coyote and The Boss. They fit nicely into the void Uncle Tupelo left behind. The Lost Trailers' secret sauce isn’t anything radical, just high-energy, gritty rock n’ roll coupled with strong storytelling. Unfortunately, that recipe isn’t on the market too much anymore. As for the tracks: “Averly Jane” is reminiscent of Jupiter Coyote’s “Crazy Women.” “Love and War (In a Small Town)” is a rugged ballad about isolation and despair in rural America. “Longfall” could be an outtake from Son Volt’s Trace sessions. “Walking Blind,” perhaps the best track on the album, is a soulful tale of fading dreams and misdirection. “Sitting On Top of the World” is a beautiful composition punctuated with a four piece string section. The album intensely concludes with “Fire on the Pontchartrain,” an explosive track about a man who kills his wife and her lover. The Lost Trailers write songs about blue-collar America, a world unfamiliar to most of us reading this website. The themes are the same: love, murder, war, dreams and passion, but the characters are different. Welcome to the Woods resurrects characters often forgotten, especially in election years. But something tells me these characters have bigger problems to worry about. If you like The Lost Trailers, please check out Cast Iron Filter. A review of their album Live from the Highway can be found in the Silent Uproar archives. [www.thelosttrailers.com]

Since Sabbath arguably gave birth to metal in 1970, it has managed to buck the odds and remain a consistent part of mainstream music, often by clinging to and infiltrating other styles. With its thrash-heavy grooves, Pantera played a key role in keeping metal alive in the 90’s, garnering mass appeal and critical praise. When they fell apart in 2002, brothers Dimebag Darrell (guitar) and Vinnie Paul (drums) continued working together, eventually forming Damageplan, rounded out by singer Pat Lachman and bassist Bob Kakaha. This is where I would love to say Vinnie and Dimebag built upon their previous experiences, and, for a second time, breathed new life into a mostly stale and unfulfilling metal scene. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Truth is, Damageplan’s debut, New Found Power, does little to distinguish itself from the current metal scene. The post-grunge riffing and Lachman’s aggro-growl are nothing you haven’t heard before. This only underscores the importance of what the charisma of a Phil Anselmo can mean to a metal band. But Dimebag and Vinnie both flash the gifts that brought them to prominence in the first place. The charging “Wake Up” carries a busy guitar groove that pushes the track to a multitude of dark corners. Vinnie’s manic drumming carries the title track, which rattles and rolls through three and a half minutes of metal hell (and I mean that in a good way). Highlights such as these are unfortunately scarce, rendering the album rather laborious as a single listen. The closing track, “Soul Bleed,” which owes more to Jar of Flies than it does Kill ‘Em All, is a much needed change of pace that comes way too late. New Found Power fits too well into a metal climate that sorely needs a kick in the rear end. The pedigree of the band’s core members serves as both a blessing and a curse: It is a big reason Damageplan will be noticed but also innately raises the bar of expectation to unfair heights. Heights up to which it just doesn’t measure. Though by any measuring stick it is still a solid debut, New Found Power will probably disappoint. [www.damageplan.com]

Johnny Greenwood's soundtrack to Bodysong is very very good, as long as you can approach the album without any hopes of hearing something close to Radiohead. I never saw Bodysong, so I'm not entirely sure how the music matches up to the movie. However, on it's own, this soundtrack is extremely interesting. Listening to this release, I can now see how a large portion of Kid A & Amnesiac was Jonny Greenwood's doing (or at least I'm assuming). I can hear elements of "Pyramid Song," "Tree Fingers," "Dollars and Cents," "Hunting Bears," and "Sail To The Moon" throughout the soundtrack. It was easy for me to space out while I was doing emails and computer work with this playing in the background. . Maybe seeing the film along with it would make the music more enjoyable (To be honest, I don't even know what the film is about.), but this soundtrack stands up quite well on its own, especially considering it's all instrumental. This is a dark, moody, beautiful release that's worth checking out if you're a fan of the experimental side of Radiohead but not if you're expecting "Karma Police". [www.radiohead.com]

The Michael Yonkers Band lore is something you must know before you decide that Jack and Meg White totally ripped off this band: This album was originally recorded in 1968 (so there’s where the crap production blame falls), but Sire records never released it, and suddenly someone at Sub Pop heard one of the Destijil limited vinyl pressings and snatched it up. Yonkers is known as a Minneapolis man who liked to make his instruments into mutants, giving them a bizarre and signature sound, which is now known as lo-fi, and people like Sonic Youth have made a name for themselves by honing it into their own particular abstract wall of sound. But, if the story of Michael Yonkers is true, then Sonic Youth, the White Stripes, and various other noise rockers like the Pixies and Sleater-Kinney owe Mr. Yonkers a thank you. So that’s the sound, the loose dropped tunings, the charging, clugging rythyms, the fuzzed-out pedal effects, the trash-can drums, the major-sixth-seventh-sixth jangle, and the acid-trip echoes (really - dude, listen to the bomb drop at the end of “Boy in the Sandbox”). There’s a certain creepiness to Yonkers’ stuff that isn’t necessarily present in today’s version of garage-spawned rock. The Twilight Zone “Returning” is plain macabre, and “Puppeting” is plain effing eerie, with the following lyrics interrupted by a gaping wallop of feedback maw: “Who loves a greedy man? Who loves a needy man? Who loves a colored man? Who loves the other man?/… Sitting in your chair, breathing poisoned air/… Your eyes are closed with masking tape/ Your ears are filled with water/…Your mouth’s a tape recorder.” There are some happier times to be had with songs like “My House” and “The Clock is Running,” but love songs? Not so much. I had to remember the political climate, so the majority of these songs are angry, anti-war, and riddled with seething undertones. Even in “Hush Hush,” which is, by all appearances, a love song, one moment Yonkers trails “Oh Love, oh love you’re sitting by yourself/ Wondering if I’m out with someone else?/ You’re right! You’re right! You’re right!” Lurking, jangly, and shadowy, but so simple it’s complex. This album is a true discovery for those who enjoy being paranoid whilst rocking out politically and artistically. [www.subpop.com]

I have always wished someone would make a record that made me feel like, even as I put up my dirty laundry, I was the protagonist in a video game. I just kind of wished they’d made my video game soundtrack a little less… Repetitive. Mute Records of the United Kingdom apparently think that the underground rave scene is still big, so they put this album of pure predictability out, hoping that some pacifier-mouthed kid would pick it up due to the funky album title and immediately reach for their lightsticks with newfound exuberance. It’s SO danceable, if only because we have the exact same beat on every song. All of them. A friend of mine once used to chant “Untz-untz-untz” to all techno songs, underscoring their predictability. As I listened to this, I thought, "Yep, here’s the sample of some obscure track ('Gotta Be Loose in Your Mind'), and ah, yes, we need the atmospheric cloud formation sound (hitting the chord button in 'Take it Home'), the up-down bouncy-ball-heart effect that gradually gets louder and is over-scored by sharply defined Japanese-type keyboarding ('Electronics'). And, lest we forget, some light cymbal-beating accompanied by the climbing beat that eventually with converge into one giant sound wave, accompanied by the thought-provoking drum-less moment ('Harpie'). This album is mostly outdated, unoriginal, unremarkable, and uninventive to any degree. If anything, it’s more of a nod to the mid-90’s UK house than the late 90’s surge of techno, and that alone is commendable in a clinging-to-the-idea way. This album would make a great sonic beer coaster, and it got on my nerves to such a great extent that I don’t feel bad saying that. [www.masterdisk.com]

In the modern world of music, where there are seemingly a dozen of every type of artist, how is it that some separate themselves from the crowd while others just sort of hover at a certain level? Simply put, it is the songs that make the difference. Let’s not pull any punches on this people; there are a lot of bands that sound alike and a lot of artists with the same basic approach. Girls with guitars are no exception. No matter how different Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, and Liz Phair may be, they still get clumped together in the same group. Katy Rose steps into that same group as just another face in the crowd. She is part rock, part pop, part introspective poet, part every guitar-slinging teenage girl you can think of. But like I said, it isn’t necessarily the approach that matters; plenty of people have been in the same group. Forget all the bios and the angles. In the end, it just comes down to the songs, and unfortunately this album doesn’t do too much to separate itself from its peers. Because I Can, the debut album from this sixteen-year-old singer/songwriter, opens with a catchy enough tune, “Overdrive,” which you may have seen and heard on a cell phone commercial. “I Like” is almost a rap rock tune that is a change of pace but doesn’t jump off the headphones at you. “Watching The Rain” is really the first truly forgettable track on the album and forewarns that maybe a storm is brewing. “Enchanted” rights the ship with a decent little diddy before the album shifts again in into “Catch My Fall,” an off pace rocker. “Snowflake” sounds like a Fiona Apple b-side, which is a good and a bad thing. As you may have noticed, the disc jumps around a lot from rock to soul, from acoustic to electric, from rapping lyrics to showing off a voice. This is not always good. The second half of the album continues the genre and style jumping. “Teachin’ Myself To Dream” has the potential for a radio spin or two but not a hit. This leads into an Alanis-type angry track “Vacation.” Shifting to soulful acoustic rock, “Original Skin” is a nice moment on the disc conveying a girl turning into a woman. Arguably the strongest cut on the disc is a solemn song called “Lemon” that feels more like what Katy should be focusing on rather than jumping around. Ending in the same stride, “Because I Can” leaves you with a decent taste in your mouth. The ultimate downfall of this album is the songs that comprise it. They are good but just not up to a level that will get recognition. Varying and jumping from one style to another between tracks leaves a disjointed whole, and while showing some strength and potential on the softer, insightful tracks, the cliché chic rock moments leave you with an over-riding feeling of sameness. I would call this album a fair effort, but in the end it just seems to add onto a pile already overcrowded instead of trying to be unique and filling a void. [www.katyrose.net]

The rock’n’roll growl. When you are a teenager exploring the musical landscape and first discover it, it is a thing of astonishing beauty. How can a singer make such a primal noise come out of his vocal chords? As time goes by you realize that a lot of the time it isn’t talent but rather lack of talent that leads singers to the growl region of their throat. When done properly, however, it is still a thing of beauty. Hell, I still get a little misty and excited when I think of Todd Lewis’ growl the fist time I heard “Motivational” live. With so many imitators in the recent trend of rock I was a little set back when I popped in this disc and the first thing I heard was a blood curdling growl…but first impressions don’t always tell the story. Before all was said and done, I stood in surprise at what a nice little album I had just witnessed. On their debut disc, The Weak’s End, Emery manages to succeed where so many fail, making rock that straddles the line between growling guitar rock, pop melodic rock, and dreamscape atmosphere rock. Doing a song by song breakdown would be informative but really wouldn’t fit the album, whose songs blend together in the nicest of ways. Sure there are some standouts like the ebbing and flowing “The Pony Parades” and the catchy riffed and beautifully titled “The Note From Which A Chord Is Built,” but missing the forest for the trees would be a big mistake. Each song has its own character but sticks to the feel of the whole, creating a very well-crafted album. Vocally, the sometimes dueling leads provide a ying-yang of growling and very soothing singing, with a touch of Robert Smith floating around in the pool. Musically, there are moments where riffs could fit easily into the latest punk darling's single or a Story Of The Year-type buzzworthy MTV2 clip, but this is mixed astonishingly well with an operatic building of feeling, melody, and mood reminiscent of Dredg. Rather than opening the disc and then proceeding to fall on growling as a crutch, Emery uses it as a device and instrument and as just part of the equation of the music. Like any good mathematician knows, the secret to handling an equation is balance, and this is ultimately what makes the album a success. Combining different tempos, styles, and moods, Emery has constructed one of the most pleasant surprises I have come across. A band I had never heard of and knew nothing about that jumped up and grabbed me by the ears like a Catholic nun. A very good debut worthy of praise. Take a little journey and give this one a listen; you won’t be disappointed. [www.emerymusic.com]

Motörhead have been in the game for a looooooong time. If it aint broke, don’t fix it, and Motörhead ain't fixing shit. Their alloy of punk and metal, minted back in the late 70’s, has outlasted almost all who have popped up along the way waving either flag. This may sound rather colorless on paper, but never having to look back at ska-revival or “DJ-Demon on the wheels of steel” phases speaks volumes about their winning formula. This formula is back at work on Inferno. One listen to Inferno instantly shines an unflattering light on what is passing as both metal and punk these days. The blazing “Terminal Show” sets a reckless standard early on and pace pieces like “Suicide” and “Keys to the Kingdom” never feel forced. The album closes strong with the punk horror show “Smiling Like a Killer” and the greasy, acoustic 12-bar blues of “Whorehouse Blues.” Throughout, Lemmy’s voice remains gruff and brute, with worn-in qualities that are enhanced with each shot, beer, smoke (repeat), and throat shredding performance. This is not the sound of a veteran band pulling it back together long enough to puke out an album and a reunion tour. That would imply that they actually went away. This is a band who belies age as much as they do change, and Inferno is proof positive that these stubborn old devils are still around and still volatile. So when you’re ironically sporting a Motörhead t-shirt at a Used concert, the real irony is that the print on that shirt is the most punk thing going on in the whole room. [www.imotorhead.com]

After reviewing Charlotte Martin’s CD, and finding it remotely notable, I was assaulted by a barrage of ads for the upcoming Liz Phair tour, touting Charlotte as an opener. When things like this happen (and this isn’t the first time), I wonder if I even have any musical taste at all, at least in a commercial way. But then there’s Marina V’s touching, delicate, triumphant, and wholly absorbing debut Something of My Own. Not only is her story (Russian immigrant at an early age - which makes her “On This Christmas Night” all the more sweet - who made her own name, named her publishing company after the first “bright” thing she owned, no cigarettes but still hair dye, smart parents, Beatles fan) interesting and refreshing, but so is her music. The lyrics aren’t overly dramatic or complex, but they need not be with Marina’s air-tight use of both the bass and treble of her piano. Many piano arteests (spelling intentional) either go to one extreme or the other, ie: “Here’s my nasty song, all minor keys, grr!” But Marina V spreads her breathy, honeydew voice over great harmonies and great pacing. Instead of using her voice as the primary focus of her songs, she uses it as another instrument, and her songs become mercurial (the best examples of this being “Killing My Dream” and the romantic and emotive “Ocean”). While the lyrics often stick close to nature and paint landscapes (“The coming storm enslaves me/ And closes in on my only sunray/ The ancient forest whispers/ Hypnotic prose that lingers” from “Holy One”), in her treatment of songs, she tends to try to branch out and feel her way around their meanings. This effectively adds to their liquid effect (fitting the container of your mind, people- Follow the metaphor!). Drawbacks? Marina needs a back up band, not a synthesizer, to pull out a bigger, more hearty sound. The only song this works well with is “Falling,” but it reminded me too much of Fiona Apple’s “First Taste” to make me soft to it. Her Russian-sung songs left me longing for more, but then again, I’m a sucker for the foreign tongue. Basically, someone needs to cut this girl a check for some big money because she needs a more bossy back up sound. This talent to burn is much more defiant, sympathetic, and pure than anything I’ve heard in awhile. [www.marinav.com]

In the same vein as Brendan Benson in terms of cheeriness, the delightfully cheeky Dr. Tom’s Leather were a welcome surprise to my CD player. The guys sound young, eager, and happy to be making music, and their music is pretty good… Oh, and bonus points to lead singer Zac DeCamp for sounding like Stephen Malkmus. In that same tangent, Dr. Tom’s Leather sounds like a less disjointed Pavement, like early Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain era. Everything We Make is a youthful record, and its musicianship is wonderfully groovy. But don’t let the Pavement reference tell you too much, because these guys aren’t quite as brainy as Pavement. But that’s not a bad thing. Dr. Tom’s Leather has majorly gentle songs (“Well Worth the Wait,” “Don’t Despair,” and especially the heart-tearing “Best/Worst”) usually coupled with more sweetly zany songs (“Stuck,” “Blonde Girls,” and “Reefer”). I found that I had more of a favorable bias towards the funnier songs (“This is the globular cerebral bipolar fanatic/ Marginal propensity is average and unit elastic” from “Beyond Illogical”), like the blithely twerpy “Reefer,” where “And I know that I prefer the reefer all the time/ But that’s alright yeah, well that’s just fine” seems simultaneously honest and sad. One of my favorite tracks on the album, the sentimental and Ben Folds-esque dirge “Journey to Oz,” which glimmers with stuttered drum rolls, thoughtful piano, and melodious lyrics, like the coming of age verse “Never seen the sunrise in Ontario/ Never felt this lonely before/ There are some things I life I just don’t want to know/ But sometimes, yes sometimes/ You just have to open the door.” The self-realization aspects of this record, along with the homey, ukelele-sprinkled sound, make it sound fresh and young but also meaningful and charming. It’s an excellent album for those of us 20-somethings who need some light and meaningful mixed together. I can’t personally find anything wrong with this record, but I will tell you that it started to run together after a few listens, as the songs sound similar. And that made me dislike Everything We Make for multiple listens, which accounts for the mark-off on the manstyle points. [www.drtomsleather.net]

I would like to personally thank SilentUproar.com for exposing me to Jack Johnson via The September Sessions soundtrack, which has become one of my favorite albums of all time, and I also have developed a love for Johnson’s solo work (you should own the magnificent On and On by now). I must say that Thicker than Water is another superb and excellent offering to the music community via Mr. Johnson. Like September Sessions, Thicker than Water is a soundtrack (this time to “a collection of images and memories” of an 18-month surfing trip) and musically includes G. Love & Special Sauce and some solo Johnson (“Holes to Heaven” was on On and On). There’s a particularly good Hawaiian blues beauty duet, “Rainbow,” between G. Love and Johnson. And we are introduced to some new players, just as September Sessions included the not-oft-heard Ozomati and Princes of Babylon. This time we get the seductively spacey “Dark Water & Stars” by Natural Calamity and some Motown funk with The Meters’ “Liver Splash.” There’s even some blippy-sexy Spanish-sung funk in Smoke City’s “Underwater Love,” water atmosphere in Todd Hannigan’s “Thicker than Water,” and the 70’s summer chant (remniscient of quieter DJ Shadow) of Harpers Bizarre’s “Witchi Tai To.” There are a few audio luminaries hidden in some of the tracks, like Mario Caldato, Jr. (“Rainbow”), The Dust Brothers (“Dark Water & Stars”), and Dan the Automator ( the sitar and mo’ “My Guru”), that make the album seem more trustworthy. But I promise, if Jack Johnson’s name is on a compilation, soundtrack, or even a phonebook, you’re guaranteed a super, melodic, and beautiful mix. [www.brushfirerecords.com]

This is my first introduction to the world of Naked Music, a cache of “sexy modern soul that grooves with an enticing bump.” (Can we get any more innuendo up in here?) Basically, its techno’d up soul singing and wah-pedals, but it’s cool, smooth, and very much like Isaac Hayes’ voice...just with a four-four beat behind it. This “sophisticated vibe” (these quotes are coming out of the little promo catalogue that comes with the CD) has those flute-tweets and head-nodding elements and has been lingering around since 1998. Basically, it’s the bongos-with-soul-voices that you’d hear at groove night at London’s Tiger Tiger while slugging back pints of Stella. You can dance to it, you could probably even bang to it, but I wouldn’t want to know if you did because it’d probably be this synchronized thing with Madonna-like costumes involved (not that there’s anything wrong with that, just do it to something more inventive, like the Stray Cats or something). It’s Jamiroquai with more danciness. To me, all of the tracks sounded the same (Blue Six’s “All I Need” and Lisa Shaw’s “Let is Ride” had the most sultry vocals), and it didn’t make me feel like doing anything remotely sexy. It did make me feel like wearing shiny clothes and dancing, but even that would take some controlled substance ingestion. If you like techno, and if you like Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II but need something a little less interesting and a little more mojo-influencing, then you might like this. I personally found it kind of boring, yet very chill (ah, the label doth not lie). It’s atmospheric and sexy like clubs can be… I guess. [www.naked-music.com]

A grizzled guy with tattoos, a black leather coat, some ripped jeans, a pair of biker boots, spiky hair, sunglasses, and a Gibson slung over one shoulder. He’s gotta rock, right? Certainly, and how. Earl Slick is one of those cool guitar people who play guitar but don’t sing (one of the mistakes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, even though I like him), and get cool people like David Bowie, Royston Langdon (Spacehog), and Robert Smith to sing on his album. Fun, right? Talent + talent = talent. Well, kind of. “Believe,” the Robert Smith song, sounds like The Cure without the shirred guitars and twinkling keyboards. “Isn’t It Evening,” the David Bowie song, sounds like, er… Cowboy Bowie. And he suddenly sounds quite old, but that’s not really that related. The title track, with Royston Langdon on it, is a wonderful guitar-slide into coolness, a swagger in black pants coolness. “Pike St.,” a non-vocal song, is pretty fun, but then “Crunched” comes on, with vocalist Summer Rose, who sounds kind of like a dusty, newly divorced woman with Melissa Ethridge damage (Sample lyric: “If you see me falling/ Reaching out my hand/ Catch me if you can/… I’m hung over with a buzz”). Then we blaze into “St. Mark’s Place,” which sounds a lot like late 80s guitar-pop, then into “Psycho Twang,” which is like Bon Jovi, but sung by Joe Elliott. Tell you what, if you like guitar driven pop that’s semi-badass and easy on the ears, this is a good album for you, but it just reminded me of songs like “Life is a Highway” and that ilk. Unoriginal but well produced and very well played by Mr. Slick… Just very done. [www.earlslick.com]

I'll make this short and sweet. I am a music aficionado for the sake of my sanity. So, when I first got the self-titled disc from a band named Strata, I was hesitant that it would leave me stranded in a field of bad dreams. It turns out that Strata is a new band that feeds my sanity while appealing to that side of me that begs to be set lose like a mad woman in the streets of Insanity. That’s a good thing, considering how much worse I was expecting it to be. Their new self-titled release is able to vocally and musically flow from a whispered fury to a full-fledged assault. There are 12 tracks of this, kids, which should give you a reason to smile. “Piece By Piece” introduces the album on a favorably fine note, tempting my wicked side and teasing the angel in me with grinding guitars and thick guitars that trickle down in milky notes…it does a body good. Other credible tracks like “I Will Breathe Fire,” "The Panic," "When It’s All Burning,” “Never There,” and "Waiting" also give you a good working-out. Bass and guitars provided by the crafty Hrag Chanchanian and Ryan Hernandez play dodge ball through the headphones with your ears, and singer Eric Victorino sings with a voice that’ll lure you like a fish to bait. Hardcore? Very, and it’s not just because Victorino can deliver a skin-crawling scream at the drop of a hat and make it sexy; it’s just because they are so damn good! Also adding to the mishmash is drummer Adrian Robinson, providing the backbone and pounding rhythm that rounds out the band’s overall sound. Robinson was recruited by the guys after Robinson's former band and the other members practiced at the same space. Strata caught me off guard, in a hey-mikey-she-likes-it sort of way...pure surprise. Strata seem as though, if they stay on their current track, they will be around for the future. I like their sound, and I like the drive that emanates from their music. They are self-made, self-produced, and know exactly what they are doing and what they want. I think that this could be the beginning of a wonderful thing. [www.stratadirect.com]

3 out of 5 doesn’t seem fair though. Kaki King is amazingly talented, amazingly. The way she can play guitar is enough to make most anyone who ever claimed to play guitar blush. Couple that with the fact that she’s only 23, and you begin to realize how truly amazing she is. That being said, this CD is hard to get into, too technical to be accessible, and too complicated be catchy. Just when you start to get into a groove, Kaki goes off on some amazing solo, but in doing so, leaves the groove behind. The way she weaves a melody is so complicated that at times it’s hard to pick it out. If there were something that would just remain constant on this record, like a drum line, a simplistic vocal, or even a tambourine, it’d be amazing. If Kaki were to join a band or to sing, even if it’s just hum along to the song (like on the hidden track), it would make a phenomenal record. But she doesn’t, and there’s no one else with her, just her and her guitar. This CD’s like going over to your friend’s (albeit very talented friend’s) house and watching her jam out for 45 minutes. It’s cool and very impressive for the first 5 minutes, but after that you just want to play some Playstation. [www.kakiking.com]

I can’t say this for sure, having never done any hard drugs myself, but if I had to venture I would say this CD was made heavily under the influence. And like what I’ve been told about being under the influence, this CD can be really cool and inventive or just really weird. Slicker’s album We all Have a Plan is different; there’s no arguing that. It’s an electronica album in the vein of Squarepusher but more urban. So like a Squarepusher album, it isn’t an easy listen, using samples of everything you could think to record and scyhitsophrenic rhythms that leave you twitching to find a beat. But unlike a Squarepusher album, Slicker uses MCs. Overall We all Have a Plan seems more like a statement than a record. In Slicker’s defense, when they comes back to us, when they decide to grace us with… music, it can be really good. Exactly half the tracks (2,3,5,6,7) are every bit as original as the others, yet are still accessible. Songs executed with what could be conceived as a plan. But for now Slicker seem more interested in messing with our minds and conceptions of music than putting together a solid record. Prententious? Yeah, but everyone seemed to like Kid A well enough. [www.weallhaveaplan.com]

On his third record Much More than Much Love, England’s Finley Quaye produces a chilled mix of songs. Ranging from slightly funky, to slightly tribal, to slightly folky, and even slightly reggae and drum n’ bass, Quaye merges genres from all over the map, but only slightly. The problem is that he never really delves into any of the genres deep enough to connect on any real level. Disappointingly, he merely scratches the surface of a lot of them. The songs each have their own flavor but rely on the same radio-ready and polished production that takes away their distinctive flavor. It’s like laying out an eclectic banquet but then insisting on adding loads and loads of ketchup to everything. Everyone likes Italian and Chinese, and everyone likes ketchup, so if we just pile ketchup sky-high on everything, we’ll have ourselves a hit record! Not exactly. But the thing is, a week after listening to this CD, I was playing pool at a bar in Brooklyn, and a song comes on with a great vibe to it. Digging on it, I went over to the DJ to ask who it was. I’ll be damned if he didn’t tell me it was a Finley Quaye song. I think this is just a disc you have to be in the right mood for, just like ketchup and chicken-fried-rice. [www.finleyquaye.com]

The artwork for this CD is cool, really cool. Well actually, it’s the disc that’s really cool. It’s one of those mini-discs surrounded with a clear plastic ring making it the size of a normal CD with a graphic of a branch or an antler (I’m not really sure which one) over top the whole deal. Awesome, I know. It’s on Deep Elm too, a really cool label! This is going to be fricken’ sweet! Then I put it in the stereo, and well, I’m sure the disc still looks cool. Maybe even cooler now that it’s all spinning around quick, and the image is blurred and stuff. It’s not really that horrible. It’s just kind of bland, screamo by-numbers rock. Not particularly horrible, not particularly good. A lot of the songs start out promising with intricate instrumentals but then quickly descend into a pattern that we’re all familiar with, heavy drumming, distorted guitar, and strained vocals of emotional hurt. Not exactly at the forefront of musical development, but then again, every band doesn’t have to be Radiohead. All in all, I guess I should have just been content with looking at it. [www.lockandkeyrock.com]