Garrison Starr "Airstreams and Satellites" (Vanguard Records) **** Sounds like: A newer version of the Indigo Girls
Pop open your CD player and give Garrison Starr a chance to inspire you with her poetry. After three minutes, you will feel impassioned. Part rock, part country and part folk, Starr's CD has a feminist attitude and charming personality.
Singer-songwriter Starr released her mainstream debut "Eighteen Over Me" in 1997, when she was discovered and offered a spot on Lilith Fair. "Airstreams and Satellites" projects an attitude of a woman who has been through her share of good times and bad. Starr is mature and uplifting, as she sings about her experiences and her life. This prompts comparison to Melissa Etheridge, as Starr shows her independence through music.
Love songs such as "Like a Drug" and "Underneath the Wheel" are beautifully written and composed. "Wonderful Thing" sounds like a song that could soon be a radio-hit, while "Sing" prompts a cheerful mood.
While Starr remains out of the mainstream spotlight, her lyrics rank with the best. Her music is the kind that people pop into their CD players as they walk along the busy city streets. No matter where you are, Starr's voice will make you stop and think.
-JENNIFER VARADI
Elf Power "Walking With The Beggar Boys" (Orange Twin) *** Sounds like: Lo-fi pop in the vein of Neutral Milk Hotel
Elf Power's new album "Walking with the Beggar Boys" is a nice evolution in the Elf Power saga. If you are already an Elf Power fan, the new album will give you what you've come to love. If you are new to the band, you are sure to enjoy the catchy tunes and head-bobbing beats.
The new record starts off strong with the first several songs, including the title track, which is great for going on a drive. Elf Power has managed to keep its dreamy poetic lyrics while gaining a more solid and developed sound. It has dramatic songs that are typical of Elf Power as well as songs that make you daydream. Danceable songs are here too. The music video bundled onto the CD for "Never Believe" also rocks.
Using medicine-era art and cut out animation, Elf Power manages to put together some neat eye candy, a must see for any design-savvy music lovers, and provides the perfect visual stimulation for such intriguing music.
-WILL GORDON
Amen "Death Before Musick" (eatURmusic) *** Sounds like: Darby Crash fronting a metal band.
Amen's third full-length, its first in four years, plods the same paths and sounds that the band has made into its signature sound. Unfortunately, something is missing and the third time is not the charm.
Though the songs are more radio-friendly overall, with catchy choruses crooned by Casey Chaos (in a slurred yet decipherable wail), the bottom end apparently was left out of the final pressing. Instead, the guitars and Chaos' voice are the focal point of the final product. Nonetheless, it is Chaos that makes the band unique. His studio technique, which led to cracked ribs and embolisms during the recording of the bands first record, as well as its incendiary live show, have been previous selling points.
Songs like "California's Bleeding," which sound as if they surfaced somewhere between the Sex Pistols and Powerman 5000, prove that Amen is a commercially viable group with some real talent. Let's just hope that Chaos can keep his Axl Rose-esque personality under wraps this time around.
-ALEX KARGHER
Rag Men "Rag Men" (Eulogy) *** Sounds like: Madball, Agnostic Front, Warzone
Consider NYC hardcore (NYHC) officially back. Rag Men, is a super-group made up of Jorge Rosado from Merauder, Mitts from Skarhead, Ian "Bulldog" Edwards from Earth Crisis and Rigg Ross from Hatebreed.
Over the course of eight songs, Rag Men provide a blue print for all of the kids who never knew the members' former bands or are interested in the legendary NYHC scene. While "Visions of You," is lyrically on the same page as H20's "Sacred Heart," it just sounds as if Crown of Thorns had recorded it and the production is the weak link on the record. Otherwise there's a little under 30 minutes of floor punching, two-stepping and finger-pointing on this record, and the basic underpinnings of NYHC. So if you're new to the scene or if your Better Than a Thousand record has been skipping lately, pick up Rag Men. You won't be disappointed.
-A.K.
Zero7 "When It Falls" (Elektra) *** 1/2 Sounds like: A white, electronica version of K-Ci and JoJo, except they don't rap and they don't represent Jesus.
Poor Zero7, they never had a fair chance. When "Simple Things" dropped, they were merely cast off as a poor-man's version of Air. Yes, they still sound like Air. Yes, they use eerily similar production values, which lead to suspicion that Zero7 listens to Air before they enter the studio. But there's one glaring detail that sets these two groups apart. Air is a group of sleazy French dudes who make naughty electro soundtracks meant to supplement your all-night freakfest, should you be so lucky to have one. Zero7 are a group of British dudes who make electro-pop equally as scenic, but lack the naughty intentions to get into your pants.
"When It Falls" is a noteworthy step forward for this British duo. The LP is littered with beautifully lush, organic sonic landscapes that plead for you to close your eyes and join Zero7 on a tour of the cosmos.
-COSTA CALOUDAS
The Fever "Red Bedroom" (Kemado Records) *** 1/2 Sounds like: Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat fronting the Strokes.
The Fever is yet another in a long string of throwback bands that feel it is necessary to name themselves in the usual manner of "the" plus a random noun. In this case, the Fever invokes the past sounds of new wave, punk, garage rock and funk, and melds them into a spastic package of something along the lines of the Strokes mixed with Devo.
The songs off "Red Bedroom," which is the Fever's first full-length release, offer throbbing beats and raw vocals over a bouncing background of electronica. Despite the Fever's often-apparent similarity to the current gaggle of nostalgically minded bands, their sound is unique in its own right and promises more variety than any of the Strokes' CDs. There is no denying that the Fever's debut is a sincere and rhythmic beginning to a career that is sure to last - as long as listeners keep gobbling up records that are simply reinventing old sounds.
-EMILY ZEMLER
Liars "They Were Wrong So We Drowned" (Mute) ** 1/2 Sounds like: A devil's concoction, somewhere between that Halloween Mix CD they sell at CVS and the avant-punk garage band the cool kids in high school liked ... on crack.
The Liars have kind of taken a turn for the worse - "worse" meaning that they have abandoned the dark, gritty rock sound on their previous album, "They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top," and have decided to favor something a little more weird. "The Threw Us All in a Trench..." favored the straightforward and intelligent method of "guitar + drums = swaggering hips," whereas "They Were Wrong So We Drowned" favors an amalgam of lilting organ melodies and throbbing beats over off-key croons. The Liars are evading the one-part-dance-two-parts-punk formula that all of their peers are still beating to death from coast to coast and attempting this bizarre crossover into obscurity.
But does it sound good? Sort of. "Broken Witch" starts off the album with the aforementioned throbbing beats. "If Your a Wizard then Why Do You Wear Glasses?" features the usual mix of screaming and asymmetrical rhythm patterns. "We Fenced Other Gardens with the Bones of Our Own" and "They Don't Want Your Corn - They Want Your Kids" are probably the most consistently melodic tracks on the whole album. The Liars flashed the public with a glimpse of potential last year with "They Threw Us All in a Trench..." and promptly skipped the "success" part of their story and launched straight into abstract oblivion.
- JEN TURNER
Ray Vega "Squeeze, Squeeze" (Palmetto Records) *** Sounds like: Latin jazz fused with bebop.
Palmetto Records, while relatively young as far as jazz labels go, prides itself on a cutting edge mix of established and up-and-coming talent. Ray Vega resides firmly in the latter category. A perennial sideman to virtually every major Latin band from the Bronx Horns to Tito Puente, "Squeeze, Squeeze" is perhaps Vega's most singularly defining album.
In his fourth outing as a leader, Vega and alto saxophonist Bobby Porcelli grab your attention on every track with their fast-paced tandem and solo efforts. They shift in and out of sync seamlessly, making the album more appreciable on multiple listens. While this interplay is enough to warrant a recommendation, the percussion and rhythm section are very pedestrian for a Latin album. The truth is they never dramatically shift out of a steady bebop-like beat. This places attention on the brilliance of Vega and Procelli but adds nothing to their pieces.
The highlights of this album are especially present in Vega's original composition "Smile You're in Beirut" and the McCoy Tyner's classic "Contemplation." Both serve as notice to the jazz world that Ray Vega could be the biggest thing to hit Latin jazz in quite some time.
-NEAL FERSKO
