Sleater-Kinney
All Hands on the Bad One

Built to Spill
Live

Brittany Spears is still perched at the top of the charts, while the Back Street Boys and *nsync continue crooning their hearts out to drooling masses of hormone-raged teens. While on the noisy end of the popular music spectrum, varying models of Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock — along with flavor of the month rappers — continue to line up for their 15 minutes of fame. But, on the horizon there’s a rumbling, and it’s getting louder and louder.
While popular music seems to be reaching a new high (or low) with personality winning out over talent, the murky underbelly of rock music continues to swim merrily in the primordial ooze that is far away from classic rock, but nowhere near the noise belting out of current modern rock stations. These bottom-feeder bands seem content living off snot-nosed, geeky teens and adults similar to the main characters in High Fidelity who live to find music ignored by the masses. While the majority of these bands will never crack the Top 40, they continue to put out rock records-pure and simple-that are loud, proud and screaming with rage, but still delivering a peculiar sense of melody.
If ever a band has ever taken the best parts of the new wave and punk and wrapped them into a completely unique package, it would be Olympia, Washington’s Sleater-Kinney. This all-female trio will not be winning any awards for musicianship, but with an unusual two guitars and drums lineup, and ton of can-do attitude, Carrie Brownstein, Corrine Tucker, and Janet Weiss have delivered five impeccable records that continue delving into the feminine perspective of rock and life.
And while All Hands on the Bad One might not deliver the same force as 1999’s Hot Rock, it illustrates how this trio has grown as songwriters and turned a harsh adrenaline surge that powered early records into their most complete release.
Since forming in 1994 from the ashes of riot grrl bands Heavens to Betsy and Excuse, Sleater-Kinney have blossomed on vocalist Corrine Tucker’s squealing alto that cuts through walls of Sonic Youth-ish guitar like a scalpel. And while Tucker’s trademark vocals still carry Sleater-Kinney’s sound on tracks like "Ironclad" and "Youth Decay," mid-tempo songs like "Leave You Behind," "Milkshake n’ Honey" and "The Swimmer" really make All Hands on the Bad One special. This release will not be the pinnacle for Sleater-Kinney, however down the road it might well serve as a pivotal moment when this trio became an absolutely incredible band. (killrockstars.com)

If Sleater-Kinney thrives on the energy of the song, Doug Martsch, lead guitarist and vocalist for Boise, Idaho’s Built to Spill, unleashes lightning through his fingers. While the reclusive Martsch might be compared to Neil Young because of his nasal vocal delivery and distortion soaked guitar on the first listen through Live (not to mention his smoking version of "Cortez the Killer"), his true soul mate is Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis.
Like Mascis, Martsch lets loose walls of guitar that border on pure noise, yet somehow remain melodic. Across expansive songs (two tracks on Live clock in at 20 plus minutes), Martsch displays a nonchalant persona that virtually describes Built to Spill, yet during his solos (and duo solos with touring guitarist Jim Roth) Martsch becomes possessed.
Based on two fabulous independent releases, Built to Spill signed to Warner Brothers in 1996 and released Perfect from Now One and Keep It Like a Secret, two sprawling masterpieces that rely on guitar rather than choruses to make them memorable. With Live (culled from three performances and featuring a majority of material from the Warner Brothers releases), Built to Spill raises the bar just a bit higher for any musician hoping to become the future of guitar playing. Martsch is not a virtuoso, he just has a sixth sense about his playing that allows him to dance perilously close to the edge and step away at the precise moment. While this music could become monotonous in many players’ hands, Live proves that Martsch (and Built to Spill) is a truly talented band that deserves more recognition. (wbr.com)

Semiautomatic
Semiautomatic


by Suzanne DeLong

Semiautomatic’s self-titled techno/rock album is strangely beautiful, filled with haunting keyboard melodies, a seemingly endless auditory platter of spacey sound effects, and plenty of vocal and musical variety to keep the listener’s ears perked throughout all twelve tracks. All this and yet there’s more — the band claims that no sampling was used in creating this disc.

The album does open with the sound of someone flipping through the channels and sampling snippits of television fare, however — think: U2’s Zoo TV tour. Apparently, this is the "Dawn of the Glowbunnies" (track one). It should be mentioned that this track starts the recording off with a dense, static sound, which lasts until about halfway through the album. And it’s not the kind of warm, crackling pops one might expect from an old turntable — this is more like listening to the radio with the tuning knob stuck perpetually between two stations. As annoying as that probably sounds, it does give the album a certain otherworldly atmosphere, as if it were recorded on another planet and sent here via poor transmission equipment — track three is a good case in point. Aptly titled "Space Toys," it begins with a militant Terminator-esque theme before abruptly launching into a beach-blanket-hoppin’ bass line, that is punctuated by the occasional, distorted, extraterrestrial screams of the song’s title. Seriously..

Moving right along, some other tracks that stand out are "Voodoo That Bitch," which has an alarming but catchy chorus, and "Misty the Talking Cat," which introduces a pleasant, new-age sound. "Sira Ulo," track ten, is a slow-tempo mash of muted cacophonous music, concluding with what sounds like an amplified version of your computer dialing up the internet. Unless you particularly like that sound, it might be a good idea to lower the volume slightly around 4:05.

After the energizing feel of "Rock, Roll, and Whatnot," the album draws to a close with the unusually titled but very awesome "7 A.M. House @ H.A.R.D." Echoes of violins sweep over the only pop-like vocals on the album, and the return of the static-y sound actually makes for a warm, kind of nostalgic feel. This musical journey/space odyssey is one not to be soon forgotten. (5 Rue Christin)

Lois Maffeo & Brendan Canty
The Union Themes

Mary Lou Lord/Sean Na Na
Mary Lou Lord/Sean Na Na

By Ed Yashinsky

While the major labels continue to rationalize the ridiculous price of CDs by putting out too-long (60+ minutes) mediocre releases with fifteen minutes of filler instead of well-written shorter releases, independent labels continue to futz with the CD format with resounding results. Two recent Kill Rock Stars releases both clocking in around 30 minutes prove the length is hardly the only thing that matters.

While combining a singer-songwriter with the drummer from Fugazi might seem like a disaster waiter to happen, Lisa Maffeo and Brendan Canty’s The Union Themes unleashes sweet acoustic numbers with a bitter bite that delivers uplifting melodies and stellar vocals around a stripped down rock sounds reminiscent of The Sundays with a hard edge. Recorded over two years with Maffeo and Canty criss-crossing the country to work as time allowed, The Union Themes floats on acoustic stories, but the little secret that keeps the record interesting is the stellar drumming and stinging electric guitars that continually pop up throughout the record.

While The Union Themes presents a cohesive picture, the two-sided EP featuring three songs each by Mary Lord and Sean Na Na, melds Lord’s rockabilly/country sounds, with Sean Na Na’s early Eighties college radio histrionics. And while the styles are hardly similar, these six songs are screaming to be heard. Lord has played the streets of London and Boston for years, and she released a great major label debut in 1997. The three songs here show a seasoned songwriter who delivers great stories. Sean Na Na (a.k.a. Sean Tillmann) is the wise-ass kind of kid that most musicians want to kill. Just 20 years old, Tillman intertwines simple melodies around tongue-in-cheek, cynic-twinged lyrics with almost no effort at all. Based on these songs, Tillman’s soon to be released full-length debut, Troubleman Unlimited, will be a release well worth finding. (Kill Rock Stars)