ALBUMS

Rip It Up, Issue 240, 1 August 1997, Page 27

ALBUMS

BIC RUNGA Drive (Columbia) With a string of highly-lauded singles, a mantle-piece groaning under the weight of numerous awards, acres of columncentimetre coverage by both the music and general press, and a prestigious recording deal with Sony Music, Bic Runga could already be described as an overachiever. And in a country that virtually invented the tall poppy syndrome, that sort of high profile can be a dangerous thing. But, when all is said and done,

it’s the music that has to stand up and be counted, and on Drive, Runga displays a real and ferocious talent, showing herself to be more than just an A&R department’s wet dream. While an Antipodean Celine Dion might be a more saleable mass-market proposition, Runga has wrestled control of her future direction, self-producing Drive anti imbuing it with her own view of what Bic Runga should sound like. At times that’s a fairly idiosyncratic view, Runga and band dishing up

huge power chords one moment, then tempering matters with gentle acoustic figures the next. Occasional string flourishes, and a percussive sound that borrows heavily from Crowded House, add further to the mix. And then there’s the voice. Sumptuous, expressive, honest, and laden with passion, Runga’s voice is the musical glue that holds these sometimes disparate elements together. Drive is a focused and remarkably assured debut that belies the album’s troubled

gestation. If it falls just a shade short of sheer brilliance, it’s not by much, and at just 20 years old, Bic Runga’s star seems destined to continue its meteoric rise. > MARTIN BELL SPIRITUALIZED Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Dedicated) When the music comes packaged in medicinal shrink wrap with stylised pharmaceutical type set prescribing

dosage, warnings of mixing with other non prescribed drugs and side effects, you must surely be holding a disc of. hallucinatory pretensions at the very least. Together with Sonic Boom, Bassman, and several drummers, Jason Spaceman created such classics as Losing Touch . With My Mind, Playing With Fire, Performance, and numerous posthumous albums of which Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To is deserved of particular attention. Earlier on in Spacemen 3’s life span the focus was on layering (mostly) guitar noise in a Stooge/Velvets/Suicide kinda way, later on mellowing the sound, along with a serious heroin- habit, to the point of atmospheric guitar numbness. Things got-jaded and the band split to do their own things including Spiritualized. While not a spot on the first opening salvo of spiritual enlightenment, Lazer Guided Melodies, ... Floating In Space retains all the best and slightly shabby bits of the earlier works. Shabby in that things fall into indulgence on occasion. ‘Come Together’ .and ‘All Of My Thoughts’, for examples though, prove rehab is not yet required. MAC HODGE WEEN ' \ The MolluskXElektra) That a sea-themed album should have its progress hampered by a flood seems about as ironic as having the masters of a country and western-themed album buried in horse shit, but the former is exactly what’s taken The Mollusk

from September 1995 until now to be recorded and released. Messy business, but Ween are messy guys, and by the sounds of the insecure environment in which they began recording this album, it sounds inevitable that some disaster or other should have befallen it. Perhaps letting us know about the flood is their way of excusing the work, for I can’t imagine anyone being less off should the initial masters for this album have been stored lower to the ground.

Aside from a kick-off which brings to mind no entertainers so much as the Muppets, a kind of folky-cum-prog-rock deal is the order of the day, making one feel tike a kid left in the care of a terminally-teenaged brother/sister, who only really shows how naff they are when faced with such a captive audience. You thought your siblings were crazy then, and I think Ween are crazy now. This album just ain’t good listening. I guess we should just be

thankful the tides of fate made it impossible for Ween to carry through on their original intentions of releasing this nautical collection back-to-back with their country and westernthemed, 12 Country Greats. A double chunk of tongue-in-cheek any quicker than it’s come would probably have choked us. BRONWYN TRUDGEON STRAWPEOPLE 100 Street Transistors (Sony) The writing is usually on the wall when the greatest hits package hits the shops. But hopefully New Zealand’s most consistent, cafe-friendly dance outfit hasn’t run out of steam yet.

Re-mixes and hits then. It starts buy reclaiming the Headless Chickens’ ‘Juice’, and christening it ‘Dreamchild’. ‘Crying’, mixed by David Harrow (aka James Hardaway) is average. ‘Taller Than God’ puts its dancing trousers on and goes hooj house. Yahda Yar-dar. The one new track on the album, ‘A

Mile Over Melbourne’, a soaring string-assisted drum ‘n’ bass mothership, is the exceptional stand out. A step in the right direction, really, fingers crossed. Then ‘Vicarious’ is beaten up beyond the original’s dreams. Unitone HiFi dub up and deconstruct ‘Porcelain’, and the Breaks Co-op turn .‘lnject Me’ into a sinister textured drum ‘n’ bass . Sapphire And Steel visitation. . . . Ultimately, 100 Street . Transistors is a much needed , breath of life into a group that ... was sounding a bit formulaic. JOHN TAITE PAUL KELLY .. Greatest Hits / Songs From The South (White) First of. all, what ain't here — there’d no ‘Know Your Friends’, ‘Randwick Bells’, ‘Don’t Stand So Close To The Window’, ‘(You Can Put) Your Shoes Under My Bed', . no ‘Elly’, ‘Other People’s Houses’, ‘Brighter’, no ‘Adelaide’ or ‘Reckless’ or ‘Little Decisions’. All of which suggests the richness

and scope of Kelly’s songs, and, if nothing else, the arrival of this obligatory ‘greatest hits’ package reminds us that this unassuming, greying Aussie can foot it songwise with anyone.

A nice bonus are fine liner notes from Kelly himself, and Rolling Stone critic David Fricke, a fellow who at times seemed the only American really interested in the songwriter from down under. To these ears Kelly's best work remains the realist, Springsteenlike character sketch. ‘To Her Door’ still resonates a decade on, and the album ends with another beauty, ‘How To Make Gravy’, as sung by a jailbird as he approaches Christmas in the . Big House. These, and the more personal confessional, are where Kelly shines brightest. But at times he flounders; the weak, later work like ‘Give' in To My Love’ (‘My love’s as big as a Cadillac' boasts Kelly rather unconvincingly), the PC theatrics of ‘Sweet Guy’, or the naive sloganeering of ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’; And despite the capabilities of the Messengers, and the various, outfits since them, South makes plain that Kelly has never found his Band,’ which in part explains his lack of real success in America. South . represents an introduction to a severely underrated talent, but too much great stuff just isn’t here. My advice? Buy Post and take it from there — taste the real gravy. GREG FLEMING WU TANG CLAN Wu Tang Forever (Loud) Back in 1993, the hip-hop underground was being laid siege by an entirely .new breed of MC and crew — the Gravediggaz; the Flatlinerz; and the Wu-Tang Clan. While the former two introduced the dark underwork of demons and horror to the hip hop genre and remained, for the most part,

underground, the Wu-Tang incorporated esoteric knowledge into their razor-edged rhymes, and under the production guidance of the RZA, Return to the 36 Chambers created a raw, thrilling, new sound that blew holes in the fabric of hip-hop, and in the process, built a business empire. The nine-strong Staten Island crew all have separate solo deals with several different labels, and a clothing line, but the acid test is if the second collective album can reach the high expectations. It doesn’t — it surpasses them. The 29 tracks on Wu-Tang forever contain some of the finest and most diverse MCing in rap today, and with the tight, multi-layered sounds behind them, this material is currently without peer in innovation, depth, and substance. All the members are in the finest of form — from OT Dirty’s dipsomaniac ramblings, to Raekwon and Deck’s diamondhard rhyming, and Meth cutting through a blunted cloud. While the Rza’s production, along with that of protege 4th Disciple and True Master, has without a doubt moved on to open a new chapter, and set a new standard for hip hop. If you do nothing else this year, hear this. The king has returned to reclaim the throne, and Wu-Tang Forever proves the Clan still ain’t nothing to fuck wit’. TROY FERGUSON PAUL WELLER Heavy Soul (Island) MONACO Music For Pleasure (Polydor) Two old farts still clutching at a shred of pop’s tinsel introduces Paul Weller and Peter Hook’s Monaco. Weller, of course, is now the mature guru of real, meaningful rock ‘n’ roll and patron saint of kindred spirits like Ocean Colour Scene, but this maturity is showing distinct signs of age on the laborious Heavy Soul.

His previous album, Stanley Road, was an interesting return to city roots, but the orthodox and uninspired introspections that make up most of Heavy Soul only capture a once-articulate angry young man, struggling to be relevant in a scene that reveres him for his early achievements. Only rarely, as in the simmering menace of ‘Brushed’, does the album rise above the stale musical conservatism that Weller has wrongly chosen as a vehicle to express his personal burdens. Sincere, but painfully dull.

Now that New Order are currently in limbo . between termination and rumination, bassist Peter Hook has taken the opportunity to team up . with a singer who sounds virtually identical to Barney Sumner, in the shape of the unknown David Potts. So, at their .best Monaco are indistinguishable from prime time New Order, and that’s a virtue that they exploit on the exhilarating, criminally catchy ‘What Do You Want From Me?’, and on the big, poignant Morricone - influenced instrumental, ‘Sedona’. The rest of the album may suffer by comparison but there’s hardly a bad song here. And if there ever was an album worth buying for one song, in this case the utterly infectious 'What Do You Want From Me?’, then Music For Pleasure is it. ' GEORGE KAY PRIMUS Brown Album (Interscope) The stylistic space occupied by Les Claypool and Primus, falls somewhere between Frank Zappa and the Mothers, and the spieling carny barkers from the sideshows of yesteryear. Primus is not a band that affords instant accessibility or gratification, and the Brown Album isn’t any easier than previous albums. Some very hooky pop tunes are submerged just beneath the weird exterior of the spiky, bass-driven rhythms and angular guitar off-tuning, with Claypool’s nasal narrative spinning the songs off in quite different directions, than the fusion-feel tone sometimes implies. Recorded by Claypool at his Rancho Relaxo studio, the Brown Album’s raw, primitive sound nicely backdrops .the skeletal framework over which the songs come to life. There’s ballads a-plenty, populated by such characters as the kid named Renegade (a vandal and arsonist), the frontier era bareknuckle boxers who meet their end in ‘Fisticuffs’, and the unlikely denizens of ‘Coddingtown’ and

‘Kalamazoo’. But there’s no middle ground — as the old promo said, ‘if you don’t like Primus, you won’t like this album’. Listen to the current single, ‘Shake Hands With Beef’, and you’ll know where you stand. TROY FERGUSON LUNA Pup Tent (Elektra) Yeah, so the old influences (Velvets, Television) haven’t disappeared entirely, but on their fourth album, Pup Tent, Luna sound as if they’re trying to break the mould. Compared to the frothy guitar jangle of early Luna, the nooks and crannies of Pup Tent are bathed in light of an altogether darker hue. The otherworldly guitar textures and sonics, courtesy of Sean Eden, flesh out the signature guitar/bass/drum sound which has been Luna’s stock and trade since their 1992 debut, Lunapark. And Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees) has tagged along from Luna bassist Justin Harwood’s extracurricular side-project, Tuatara, to add some, er, Tuataraish flourishes on marimba and

vibes. All of which helps to make Pup Tent a dense, but involving listen — even if sometimes it is a little short-changed in the tunes department. So, Luna are a little bit older and a little bit weirder. Overall, the unsettling, yet strangely compelling qualities of Pup Tent make for a most intriguing trip to the darkside of the Luna. MARTIN BELL

MELVINS Honky (Amphetamine Reptile) Never try to second guess this band. Just as everybody was expecting a compilation of the Melvin’s 1996 monthly Amßep single releases (each limited to 800 copies), a brand new album arrives instead, recorded over five consecutive days, and containing all the uncompromised incoherency of the Melvins at their best. There’s less in the way of conventional song structure here than was evident on last year’s Stag, but in a twisted way this makes as much sense. The sparse arrangements of Honky present the flipside to the majestic clutter of Stag, and the essence of the band is laid bare. The opener, ‘They All Must Be Slaughtered’, is an eerie and unnerving duet between Buzz and Kat Bjelland. And between the squalls and distorted screech of ‘Lovely Butterfly’, the lyrics cut especially deep. Record companies are indicted on ‘Laughing With Lucifer At Satan's Sideshow’; things speed up with the agit-grind of ‘Mombius Hi.bachi’; weird out with ‘Grin’;

and the album closes with some frenetic analogue rock courtesy of ‘ln The Freaktose The Bugs Are Dying’, a 30 minute track, of which the last 25 are silence. Popular culture may indeed have murdered art, but there are outsiders like the Melvins who still mean something, and they encroach on an area close enough to ‘art’ to indicate that the future of rock music may not necessarily

be limited to vapid, forgettable, planned-obsolescence made for short attention spans. TROY FERGUSON CAN Sacrilege (Liberation/Mute) A recontextualisation of one of rock’s most influential and wonderfully beguiling bands. Teutonic funksters, masters of the minimalist hypno-rhythm, Can remain responsible for some of music’s most obsessive and eerily beautiful moments. Theirs is a sound and approach that can be traced in much of today’s electronica — the same way that it could be traced in the punk rock of the Buzzcocks, the drone rock of Stereolab and Snapper, and the post-rock of the current Thrill Jockey core and their structureless friends. Truly a band for all ages, Can may be back, but really, they’ve never been away. Sacrilege is a series of remixes that put Can in shiny new surrounds. Tellingly, the bulk of the tracks come from the ‘dance’ end of the spectrum, with most of the rock mob citing overreverence and the sheer pointlessness of trying to top the originals as reasons for shying away.

True, nothing here threatens the initial blueprints and indeed, some fall laughably short. Many of the track's are just tenuously related to the source and one wonders too, amidst all the drum and bass flurries, about how wise it is to .fuck with one of the world’s greatest rhythm sections. But the album’s 1 ’ intent, captured in the title, cuts you off at the pass. If nothing else, Sacrilege succeeds in evoking the spirit of Can, whereby a series of moments are ridden wherever they happen to take you. ■.■ Can the- band may be only physically represented in parts, but their ambience hangs all over this record much like the spooky strands of vocal floating ghostlike in the mix. It is an approach that represents the Can philosophy far more heartily than a power, pop tribute featuring Veruca Salt ever could. • ' • ; BUFFY O'REILLY BRAD " Interiors (Epic) Seattle supergroup (Jeremy Toback, Regan Hagar, Shawn Smith, Stone Gossard) Brad’s second album arrives as sales of most ‘alternative/grunge’ bands nose-dive. Strange then that Interiors is so good, and that singer Shawn Smith is still a cult figure. It’s his strangely affecting, unearthy voice, married with

songs as strong as ‘Upon My Shoulder’ or ‘The Day Brings’, that accounts for much of Interiors' power. There’s a nice 60s psychedelic groove to the album (recorded over three weeks in their hometown), and an array of influences from deep soul to Pink Floyd to the punky opener, ‘Secret Girl’. Tellingly, the first single, ‘The Day Brings’, boasts a piano riff lifted straight off Stevie Wonder’s Innervisionsl An esoteric and often intriguing record with none of the usual supergroup indulgences in evidence. Those interested should check out Smith’s work with Satchel (reviewed in these pages earlier this year). As for Brad though, he’s gonna grow up just fine. GREG FLEMING

GUIDED BY VOICES Mag Earwig (Matador) BARBARA MANNING 1212 (Matador) Yeah, a new Guided by Voices album, they just keep coming. This one’s not too similar to previous efforts such as Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes etc, save Robert Pollard’s voice. Gone are (most) of the chopped edits, the side ways pop lurches and (gasp!) Tobin Sprout. There’s still a huge number of tracks crammed into the disc but now there’s a definite emphasis on production and piecing parts into wholes (as ‘I Am Produced’ demonstrates ironically). There’s also a lot more muscle in the instrumentation as Cobre Verde have a tendency to rock and were let loose with over dubs in the studio. So far the songs seem to be holding their own, and

although the press release has it classified next to Urge Overkill, things haven’t got that desperate. < Barbara Manning starts her new album off with a mini rock opera called 'The Arsonist Story’. For those not in the know, Barbara has been about (in musical terms), playing, in various San Fran combos including World Of Pooh. Sounding like Exene Cervenka doing Flying Nun, she was a popular (at the shows), but almost unnoticed visitor to these shores last March. 1212 has more breadth than earlier combo outings like WOP’s The Land Of Thirst, if only in terms of instrumentation, but also in the range of ideas and textures. It’s a mature album that would be as much at home on the Flying Nun label, as on NYC’s Matador, and that would suit her reverence to

the Nun’s old guard. Manning still cuts a swarthy pop song and that should be the reason you check Blood Of Feeling, if only for reference sake. MAC HODGE CAST Mother Nature Calls (Polydor) ' Oasis’ Noel Gallagher has described the Cast vibe as a “religious experience”, but on the evidence here, I’d be more inclined to gag on my love beads. For the most part, Cast’s second album* is no . more than a pleasantly derivative concoction of 60s musical influences, married to a wide-eyed lyrical naivete. Trading in a sort of codChristian/earth mother/hippy imagery, Cast’s cosmic lyrics try to shoot for the stars, but the end results rarely get off the launch pad. Cast supremo John Powers was once the bassist with Britpop precursors the La’s, whose shining moment was ‘There She Goes’. On Mother Nature Calls, Powers has continued his refocus of the La’s mission statement, blending classic pop melodicism with monster grooves — often with mixed results. Typifying the best of this approach is opening track ‘Free Me’, which chugs along on a big, dirty guitar riff and metronomic back-beat. ‘On The Run’, meanwhile, borrows so heavily from the Hollies’ ‘On A Carousel’, Powers may as well re-direct his royalty cheques to Birmingham. It’s when Cast deliver another 60s tinged guitar gem in ‘Guiding Star’, that they really begin to make sense. It’s at once the album’s best track, yet with its obvious references to ‘There She Goes’, a clear indication of the musical straitjacket in which Powers finds himself bound. ‘ MARTIN BELL

JOHN CALE Kiss/Eat: Music for the Films of Andy Warhol (Rykodisc) Taken from a revisitation of early Warhol film soundtracks, this music was first performed by Cale and former Velvet Underground members, Mo Tucker and the late Sterling Morrison, at the Andy Warhol .museum in Pittsberg, and later performed live in France with a classical ensemble. I would like to say ‘For true fans only’, but I’m a true fan and I could hardly stand to listen to it. In time, what sounds more dated: ‘European Son’ or ‘Sunday Morning’; ‘I Heard Her Call My Name’ or ‘What Goes On’. Yeah, the pop songs are better, and Lou’s vision is what drove the band. Now, all we are left with is Cale’s neo-classical avant garde wank. Extended drones of charmless noise that may work very well in the format of the soundtrack for which they were originally intended, but without pictures are a form of torture. Listen carefully between the detuned strings and the choir (who appear to enjoy the effects of gin and Valium) and you can -hear the quiet and constant sound of John Cale flogging his favourite dead horse. JESSE GARON INCHWORM You Are Only Here (Dedear) Inchworm have been doing their thing out of Hamilton since 1993, but their sound and production could come from anywhere, most un-bovine. You Are Only Here's opening track ‘Groll #l’ comes close to the rolling pop sounds of Garageland, and elsewhere in the 11 tracks, the pop thrills continue. Inchworm’s most logical affinity rests fairly squarely in the guitar

orientated portion of Creation Records catalogue, with a healthy dose of Dunedin influences highlighted in the well arranged tunes. Although not instantly obvious, repeated listens have so far revealed more sound and textures to enjoy, and any album that can with-stand repeated listens and retain a freshness, is achieving more than most these days. Check it out. MAC HODGE BLINK 182 Dude Ranch (Cargo) A couple of years back, Blink 182’s debut, Chesire Cat, hinted at what the band was capable of, but suffered from a rushed and unpolished recording. This time round the San Diego three-piece have come up with a record that is far more satisfying. The persistently catchy pop hooks that run through the West Coast punk rock of Dude Ranch suggests their crossover potential is huge, without having to resort to dilution of the content, and the sparklingly clear production from Mark Trombino (Drive Like Jehu) ensures that nothing gets lost along the way. Sure, the lyrics may be lightweight and the humour verging on puerile, but the momentum of the songs is carried by the high quality of the playing and the tunes themselves — it doesn’t really matter that •they’re singing paens to Princess Leia (‘A New Hope’) or nonsense about masturbating in trees while peeking in girl’s windows .(‘Voyeur’).While it may not Jast the distance, or take up residence in your CD player for years to come, Dude Ranch is a real breath of fresh air in a genre overrun by try-hards and also-rans. TROY FERGUSON

GENEVA i Further (Nude) BIS The New Transistor Heroes (Wiija). Postcard Records used to boast as its slogan ‘The Sound of Young Scotland’, and that sound takes on new meaning in the 90s with the emergence of idiosyncratic young Scottish bands like Geneva and Bis. Geneva hail from Aberdeen, and at first sight they could pass for another anonymous hopeful guitar band. Appearances have seldom been more deceptive. Led by the heavenly tones of vocalist Andrew Montgomery, a veritable celestial Tim Buckley, the band whip up a melodic maelstrom of an intensity scarcely heard since the first 800 Radley’s album.. Dual guitars surge underneath the beauty of ‘Temporary Wings’, ‘Worry Beads’, and'the climactic brilliance of ‘ln The Years Remaining'. There’s no doubt that at times Montgomery’s high -tenor, choir boy leanings are a bit too rich and precious, but that’s a minor flaw, effortlessly offset by the white heat of this band and the radiance of the songs. Get ready to be dazzled. - And dazzling in their own cute subversive way are Bis, a Glasgow trio delighting in the trash aesthetics of. pop. The Japanese comic book caricatures of our heroes on the cover, the garish red plastic CD holder, and the band’s Sci-Fi, Disco, Manda Rin pseudonyms, speak volumes for this band’s humorous but serious insights on teenage life. Dressed in bright, punky, occasionally hiphoppy ska undertones, their songs try to tell you why the

kids aren’t alright. So, ‘Monstarr’ hits out at the Barbie doll stereotype of the perfect female, and hey, ‘Tell It To The Kids’ is a reassurance that Bis are here to protect the kids from fascists, homophobes and businessmen. Don’t underestimate the intelligence of these cartoon heroes. GEORGE KAY THE MAGICK HEADS Woody (Flying Nun) . What happens when full time goes part time and part time goes full time? The Bats disappear and the Magick Heads produce a long player. And it definitely is a long player, with 14 tracks that are well over the 45 minute mark, Woody is no budget length album. There’s an abundance of space in the production,' allowing plenty of room for the instruments to bathe in their own delicate acoustics. Don’t expect (as if you would) a melee of guitar noise and pulsing beats, even with David Mitchell present things hardly press beyond earnest introspection, particularly vocal wise. For want of a better comparison, Woody could be a new Mekons album, revelling in its own conservatively economic, spacious popness, with an occasionalcountry twang in its elocution. I’m particularly fond of ‘Take It Down’ and the LBGP-ish ‘Walk On The Wall’, being the first two songs to jump readily to recollection. To say Woody has an understated flavour would be fair, and perhaps repeated caresses over my jaded aural palate will be rewarded. MAC HODGE

MOTLEY CRUE Generation Swine (Elektra) Vince Neil rejoined the Crue earlier this year, but going by the new album you’d hardly know it. The album had already been written and recorded with his replacement, John Corabi,

and Vince’s vocals have simply been overdubbed. In a dismal attempt to woo a new audience, the Crue have roped in producer Scott Humphrey, who’s given them a Garbage/Ministry-like sampled sound, with lots of keyboards. This suits Crue about as much as the corporate menswear they are sporting on the cover. It’s a bit sad when the best they can offer is a re-make of ‘Shout At The Devil’ and even that shouldn’t be on here. The last song, ‘Brandon’ must surely be intended to induce vomiting as it’s an orchestral ballad in which Lee sings to his. son (‘Your mother gave birth to you with love inside, Brandon I love you, I love her,, she is your Mom...’). - Crue should just stick to what they do best — rocking out, looking mean and tattooed, while pouting and kicking large amounts of bottom. A live ‘Best Of’ would have made for a much better comeback. . GEOFF DUNN VARIOUS ARTISTS Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (Flying Nun) , Flying Nun — the soundtrack to a generation? Probably not, but if you were putting together a soundtrack for a film about a bunch of Ponsonby twentysomethings, Flying Nun’s back catalogue would be a pretty good place .to start. Harry Sinclair did just that for Topless Women. The result is a veritable feast of Nun hits; ‘North By North’, ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’, ‘Anything Could Happen’, ‘Not Given Likely’, ‘Buddy’ — yeah you’ve heard ’em a million times but so what? There might even be some people who don’t know the chorus to ‘.She Speeds’ off by heart (although I’ve never met them). Good fun. DOMINIC WAGHORN

BIOHAZARD No Holds Barred (Roadrunner) HI-FI AND THE ROADBURNERS Live In Fear City (Victory) Two live albums from a couple of very different bands, though both originate from the wrong side of the tracks and each play tough-guy, nononsense music, from their respective environments. . No Holds Barred, recorded on last year’s European tour (soon after Rob Echeverria defected from Helmet), . attempts to capture the raw ferocity of Biohazard’s live show. 'lt succeeds, but) these live renditions of 24 songs from their four album . career, also highlights the limited nature of the band’s material. What is in evidence is an honest document of what the band’s about —

Brooklyn-style metal hardcore, flavoured with hip-hop twin vocal textures, and a bad-ass attitude. Rough and dirty with no additional production, this is Biohazard as they wish to be heard, warts and all. Rougher still, are Chicago’s Hi-Fi and the Roadburners, who play 50s-tinged, blue-collar rock ‘n’ roll, but manage to wring the neck of tradition by mangling it up with horns, and leaning towards wild country and rockabilly. They sound like they’re used to playing roadhouses behind chickenwire, to a bunch of very bad mothers, and there is some attempt made to recreate that sort of liquor-and-metham-phetamine atmosphere on disc. Unfortunately, the mixed-in audience noise is distracting, and ultimately annoying. A shame, because however unfashionable this sort of greaser rock is, it has a primal and enduring appeal that shouldn’t need a gimmick to succeed. TROY FERGUSON

ASH | Live At The Wireless | (Death Star) | Opinion was divided last year \| as to the respective merits of the d Ash/Garbage double bill tour of down under. Apparently, in Wellington Ash were a hard act to follow, and this live in the studio album would certainly verify that. Recorded in Sydney last October for the Triple J programme, it captures the Irish three piece in full flight. Rawer, and almost as precise as their studio craft, here’s the great pop melodramas of ‘Oh Yeah’ and ‘Goldfinger’, off-set by the punky ‘Kung Fu’ and ‘Girl From Mars’, .and . Ween’s. off-beat ‘What Deaner Was Talking About’. It’s unlikely that there will be a better live album this year, and all this for just over 20 bucks. GEORGE KAY JOE SATRIANI/ERIC JOHNSON/ STEVE VAI G 3 Live in Concert (Epic) Just a few months prior to his concert here, Steve Vai teamed up with his old friend/tutor Joe Satriani, plus guitarist Eric Johnson for a brief tour of the States. What we get here is highlights from their sets (three instrumentals each) and then a trio of songs featuring Satch, Johnson and Vai, jamming together. These tracks alone I make G 3 worth buying as there | is plenty of gat duelling and ft fretboard freakouts. Best is the I Frank Zappa song ‘My Guitar J Wants To Kill Your Mama’, sung ' j by Mike Keneally. It’s a joy to I hear these guys cutting loose in j their own individual styles, and I obviously having a real good B time in the process. An extended | run' through Hendrix’s ‘Red | House’ gives ample freedom for | each guitarist to make their I strings sing. Batch’s spot p includes a brilliant take on | ‘Flying In A Blue Dream’, and | ‘Summer Song’ is far superior to 8 the studio version. Eric Johnson | is a subtle player, who fuses jazz . | and blues rock very nicely, and | he is in his element here. It’s | Steve Vai however, who really g tears down the house, with his | phenomenal fingering . and | whammy bending on his | contributions, ‘Secrets’, ‘For The I Love of God’, and ‘The Attitude || Song’. G 3 Live. In Concert is a | must-have guitar-fest feast. . . | GEOFF DUNN j MONKEY PUZZLE/BRUBECK | Split CD (Onefoot) | SUMMERCAMP ■ I Pure Juice (Maverick) I Two album’s from the ‘punk’ I part of the musical spectrum, g One serious corporate ‘puke’ and I one indie ‘pork’. Summercamp | are the corporate puke, another tj bunch of sincere strummings, | swallowed up by company exec’s H (Madonna included), and foisted | onto an undeserving public. Just | say No! to mundane guitar |I sludge. ' j Monkey Puzzle and Brubeck | (both from the Wellington region) . | represent the indie pork version | of punk, the crowd that know. | what they like, and then h regurgitate it endlessly in the vain g hope that someone will think it’s | theirs in the first place. The only 3 difference between this and the B puke (other than the budgets), is | the extreme belief in being true to | the cause. Any deviation from the | formulae may result in getting \ turfed out of the club. To be fair, | Brubeck use some cello at the: | start of their eight tracks, but

aside from 'that, neither band delivers anything more to the cause/genre/pile than land fill. MAC HODGE MADDER ROSE Tragic Magic (Warners) When Madder Rose principals Mary Lorson and Billy Cote first began recording together in 1991, they were backed only by hip-hop style beats and loops. Fast forward to 1997 to find Lorson and Cote, stuck in a creative cul-de-sac with the Madder Rose sound. In an effort to broaden their horizons for ‘the difficult third album’ Madder Rose looked to their own past for inspiration. By re-employing the beats and loops which have since become de rigour in modern music making, Lorson and Cote sought to recapture their music’s original essence, as well as update their sound for the post-Beck generation. That approach crystallises perfectly on ‘Hung Up In You’, where the multi-textured production meets a winning melody, and Lorson’s girlishly intoxicating vocals. And there’s plenty more to hold the interest on Tragic Magic. From ‘Scenes From Starbright’, which recalls Throwing Muses, to a hidden bonus track straight out of a Butlins Holiday Camp revue, the album is a thoroughly enticing brew. All the typical Madder Rose virtues remain intact, but in Tragic Magic’s fresh and sonically rich setting, Madder Rose gain a new edge and a new lease of life. MARTIN BELL PAGE Page (But Wait!) Who says you need years of ‘industry’ experience to learn the tricks of the music trade? Not Christchurch three-piece Page that’s for sure. The cheeky young trio with an average age of 16 and a bit years, show on their debut self-titled album that songwriting is just as much something you’re born with as something you learn. That’s not to say Page haven’t got a lot to learn — many of the songs seem a little unfinished,

and rely too much on one idea. Also, some of the songs do sounding a little derivative — ‘Beams From Andromeda’ and ‘Phased’ both have the sort of overly-controlled distortion you’d

hear on a rank Smashing Pumpkins track. But mostly Page manage to find their own style and show that they’ve got a real head-start on most budding musicians their age. The lyric writing of singer Tom Page shows real imagination — a mix of personal thoughts and tales of bizarre characters like Boney Maloney. Page aren’t quite there but they're definitely on track. DOMINIC WAGHORN

OBITUARY Back From The Dead (Roadrunner) Along with Death and Morbid Angel, Obituary were pioneers of death metal in the mid-80s.

Obituary were extreme, nasty, and pretty fucking scary, so it’s hardly surprising they have remained popular, even as death metal has virtually vanished. Back From the Dead is described as “a flashback to their earlier days", and whether that’s a good thing is debatable — what’s the point of looking backwards? Even so, Obituary’s sound is as aggressive and full as ever, with John Tardy’s death growl reigned back

in slightly, in favour of more recognisable vocals. The guitars sound great; fat and face ripping, without meandering off into stupid squealy solos every . minute, and the rhythm section are the solid, precise spine this type of music requires. Although their taste in covers is incredibly lame, Obituary have again created an album of unremitting heaviness. Death’s not dead! . GAVIN BERTRAM DEAN SAVAGE It Hurts (Umo) Of hangovers and broken hearts... . , Urban country melancholy and punishable offensives of love. Dean Savage mixes them together in an emotional cocktail to satisfy the senses. The opener, ‘Lonely, Hungry and Drunk’ is a royal rumble of a song with a Jerry Lee Lewis sneer and a rough ride of pedal steel , ‘courtesy of Glen Campbell's guest appearance (one of several dotted throughout the album). But rather than keeping up the driven angst, Dean Savage lets itself wallow in fashionable pity as in ‘I Been Bad’, where the protagonist lists his kicks to the solar plexus with apparent booze doomed moments of clarity. At first Mark Beesley’s vocals might seem a touch bland up front, against the fabulous wailin’ sax and the rattle of Martin Denny-inspired percussion, but the voice grows on you, and after a few listens fits in perfectly with the low beat, suave of the songs. Drenched in indigo tone previously associated with a David Lynch road shot, Dean Savage has created a record for people with hearts, although a thousand times broken, still beat with a memory of yesterday’s kiss. JESSE GARON GARY MOORE Dark Days In Paradise (Virgin) Thankfully Gazza hasn’t got the blues anymore (well, maybe just a little). He’d really done it to death over, four albums, and it was getting a little yawn-

inducing. While he > hasn’t returned to the powerful guitar rock of his glory days, this is a step in the right direction. But, precisely what direction is not very clear. There’s straight pop for ‘One Good Reason’, and 70s soul impressions with groovy wah wah effects on ‘I Have Found My Love In You’. He’s even got a bit of drum ‘n’ bass happening on ‘Always There For You’, while ‘Cold Wind Blows’ is a cool combination of old blues samples with guitar (along the lines of Skip McDonald’s Little Axe); What Gary Moore does best of course, is let the guitar do the talking, and on the wonderful accomplishment, ‘Like Angels’,, he does reach the heavens. The final piece, ‘Business As Usual’ is 13 minutes long, but doesn’t really amount to much. Dark Days In Paradise would be a good listen, if you didn’t know how much more Gary is capable of. GEOFF DUNN THE DRAPES The Silent War... (Onefoot) THE TIE THAT BINDS Slowly Sinking Under (Onefoot) Portland band the Drapes play the kind of speedy punk rock we’ve come to expect from the Onefoot stable. Actually, they’re better than most of the generic fodder that label has released thus far, coming, as they do, with stronger songwriting and Husker Du style vocal harmonies. In additon, there’s a Jack Nicholson/ Dennis Hopper sample from Easy Rider . for instant cred. The Silent War consists of .15 slices of the sort of music that makes angsty teens leap around in their rooms when they’re grounded.. The Tie That Binds, from Houston, are described as emocore, and are compared to Jawbreaker. The five-piece crank out cynical, socially conscious punk, with nice guitar interplay, and some. damn good lyrics. If Onefoot released more material like this they might inspire a little more respect. . GAVIN BERTRAM

RICKIE LEE JONES Ghostyhead (Reprise) After the hypnotic, Leo Kottkeassisted Traffic From Paradise, Ghostyhead is a big disappointment. Clearly it’s an attempt by Jones to push the boho-acoustic-gal envelope — here embellished with helpings of trip-hop electronica courtesy of co-writer and co-producer Rick Boston (formermember of Low Pop Suicide). Nice idea on paper. Unhappily the result' is a mess with Jones’s stoned doodlings and Boston’s annoyingly obsessive . bpms never coalescing, satisfying neither camp ; And everything. is given a •go here — • -from the Eastern/mysticism of- ‘Cloud Of Unknowing’ to the street realism of old (see ‘Howard’). At times it might work as soundtrack — but I for one don’t wanna see the film. Ghostyhead, Jones’S first album for Reprise, is what happens when hippiechicks get in front of the computer. Save your money. GREG FLEMING ACRIMONY Tumuli Shroomaroom (Peaceville) You get a good clue as to which part of the valley these Welsh boys are exploring, from the album title, artwork, kooky liner, notes, and the way the first lines of the album invoke ‘The great mushroom goddess’. This sort of frazzled-consciousness hard rock is of the same gene pool that Hawkwind and Monster Magnet crawled out from — the realm of heavy mid-tempo rhythms, and superfuzzed wahwah pedal guitars. With Tumuli Shroomaroom it’s really the vibe that counts. Acrimony have the mindspace and musical style nailed, and approach it with a non-pedantic, fresh perspective. The melodious touches they bring to their songs prevent them from drowning in a quagmire of dirgey self-indulgence, and the knowing sense of humour displayed in such tracks as ‘Motherslug (The Mother of all Slugs)’ and ‘The Bud Song’, ensure that they won’t be laughed all the way back to the 70s.

Greasy, heavy, dazed and confused, acid rock it may be, but without the monotony or pretensions that usually make that genre so boring and • redundant. Set the controls for the heart of the sun with this one. TROY FERGUSON UNLEADED Rubberman (Independent) Having become increasingly cynical about young NZ bands raised on lame Rockquest culture, it’s refreshing to hear something like this. Unleaded, although they have a way to go, cut through the shit presently masquerading as fresh guitar music in this country. Sure, they sound pretty rocky in an American kinda way, but with songs this good who cares. The four tracks here are quality, so it’s not .' surprising the Mt Maunganui boys go down well with surf and skate crowds. But their' music . isn’t the usual substanceless, hardout ‘punk’ that is often assumed to be representative of this scene. Unleaded are more... clever. GAVIN BERTRAM FOAMING NOT DREAMING Foaming Not Dreaming (Cursor) An album of sophisticated trance blended with, breathy jazz guitar; an album with a welcome organic element in a genre which is becoming more dehumanised. The soundscapes created on this partly instrumental offering, offer greater variation than most, and sounds (perhaps of yesteryear?) such as the spacey synth on ‘Chill’, work fantastically

with that song's muted vocal delivery. The adjective ‘seamless’ springs to mind. ‘Taste’ is one visit back to the days of new romanticism, and as the chorus soars the feigning\straining emotion is all too unreal/real, and you just have to drag your fists down from in front of your face in mock pain (just like Simon Le Bon used to do). But apart from that single outpouring it’s all totally ice cool stuff; it’s standing by the pool at midnight rappin’ with a guy called Chico... Yeah, it’s a cool record. JESSE GARON COAL CHAMBER

Coal Chamber (Roadrunner) SUGAR RAY Floored (Lava) ■ The current breed of the young, loud and snotty just powers ahead, both on indie and major labels — and these two are a real indication as to how far that new(ish) metal thing that Korn epitomises has its hooks into hard rock consciousness. Coal Chamber, veterans of the Ozzfest tour, are perhaps the least palatable (though that should pay . dividends in the durability stakes), and their debut ventures into some slamming stuff — big, bad bottom end, aggressive riffs, and a seemingly emotionally unbalanced vocalist. It's just fine until . that Kornography sneaks in. Sugar Ray return with their second album, and take things a little further out there, with a DJ providing extra whizz, a ragga dude taking the lead on a couple of cuts, and a cover of Adam and

the. Ants’, ‘Stand And Deliver’ — spookily close to the source, and all the better for it. They’re better still when they pick up the pace and keep the songs short. Anything, but not that clipped, chugging, detuned drivel — please. TROY FERGUSON QUEENSRYCHE Hear In The Now Frontier (EMI) . This Seattle five-piece have been around for a lot longer than most bands from their area, and still have a sizeable following across America. They’ve developed from a raw Judas Priest-like metal outfit, into a polished Rush-type rock group, and their albums have improved accordingly. Hear In The Now Frontier is as good, if not better than anything else they’ve done, but would’ve been better still if they’d trimmed it down just a bit. Cliche commercial choruses like that in ‘Some People Fly’ are slightly cringe making, but this is probably a moot point. ‘Saved’, which follows, is more like it, with solid playing and singing, as heard also in ‘Sign Of The Times’. ‘Hero’ has a fine blend of acoustic', electric and slide guitar, which gives it a more laid back feel, that appeals more than the serious stuff. There’s enough quality material here to warrant their existence, but there seems to be fewer good hard rockers around these days to compete with the likes of Queensryche. It’s the old story of those who are already converted will love it, but the rest of the world couldn’t give a toss. GEOFF DUNN THE YIPS The Blue Flannel Bathrobe Butterfly (Siltbreeze) ASHTABULA River Of Many Dead Fish (Siltbreeze) The Yips, from Ohio love punk rock, and hell, punk rock just loves them right back. Falling into that GBV ethos of songs not production, noises not technical proficiency, the Yips continue to do their own thing, through punk stabs like ‘lt’s A Way Out’. The Yips aren’t afraid to stretch

themselves beyond their ability so you can feel the thrill of playing music yourself without even picking up a tennis racket to strum along. Astabula, featuring Bob Malloy of Strapping Field Hands, play in similar paddocks (the same label at least) as the Yipsters, and swap the punk part of the ethos for psych, spewing out twisted organ grinding slabs. Our own Puddle were apparently significant in Ashtabula’s inception and the comparison is more than conception, listen once and you’ll know why. Slurred comes close to describing the ‘loose’ connection, but the true link is the sense of retro deja voodoo, keeping close to the best things of psychedelia — ‘Lucifer Sam’, ‘Easter Everywhere’, ‘Da Capo’ — all the while putting a distinctive signature to it all which I can’t quantify just yet. MAC HODGE ENTOMBED To Ride, Shoot Straight, And Speak the Truth (Music For Nations) To put it simply, Entombed are the best band working within the ‘metal’ genre, by my definition. 1993’s Wolverine Blues was an awesome amalgam of raw heavy power and classic rock, with enough smirking irony to detach them from their dim contemporaries. Vocalist LG Petrov possesses a voice as ragged as Lemmy’s, and the guitars of Alex Hellid and Monster (that’s what it sez) Cedurland are as thick as a European black metalhead, and a lot more sinister and fun. Production-wise, To Ride... sounds incredibly raw, like it was done live, although it’s obviously had a lot of time spent on it. ‘Wound’, ‘Damn Deal Done’, ‘Wreckage’, and the title track,'to name a few, are what heavy music should be about but very rarely is. The bonus disc has covers of MCS, King Crimson, Venom, and Black Sabbath, and those four totally different bands are equally good reference, points for the hairy, drooling beast that is Entombed. Absolutely filthy rock ‘n’ roll.

GAVIN BERTRAM