May 30, 2006

Venom Metal Black [1/5] Leaving aside the fact that they coined the term “black metal” and inadvertently spurned the legacies of countless poker-faced, corpse-painted church-burners, Venom aren’t literally evil at all–though with a 25-year-long biography that reads like extended notes from This Is Spinal Tap, they are a total riot. Originally titled Maleficarvm until they...

The Sainte Catherines Dancing For Decadence [3/5] Just when you thought shopping malls and concept-album posturing might’ve defanged punk rock forever, the Sainte Catherines come storming out of Quebec to reclaim the increasingly watered-down genre for the shirtless, double-fisted drinker set. Oozing crusty ethos, this metal-edged drunk-punk sextet sound like a horde of tattooed pirates...

Protest The Hero Kezia [5/5]It’s pronounced “Keh-zai-yah,” and, no, it isn’t Canadian for “wildly imaginative.” But you’d be forgiven for assuming as much about Protest The Hero’s ambitious debut album. Thought it was some whack chedda when Burning Star met Good Apollo (or whatever)? Well, imagine what Thrice’s The Illusion Of Safety might have sounded...

Ministry Rio Grande Blood [4/5] Though he’s been at it for 25 years and admittedly had a few dry spells, somehow Ministry czar Al Jourgensen manages to keep coming up with new ways to molest guitars and tape loops, and Rio Grande Blood finds Jourgensen & Co. sounding even more creatively amped and full of...

FacedownInShit Nothing Positive, Only Negative [3/5] “Long live country music” is how the members of Facedowninshit sign off in the liner notes to their third full-length, Nothing Positive, Only Negative. These North Carolina scum tyrants ain’t talking about Johnny Cash, either: Much as New Orleans gave birth to the many-fanged, drug-addicted offspring of Black Sabbath...

Dysrhythmia Barriers And Passages [4/5] While it’s still a metal label at heart, Relapse Records has taken some major blind-faith leaps into the avant-garde with its current roster–which includes horror-soundtrack oddballs Zombi and perennial math-rock titans Don Caballero–with Dysrhythmia being perhaps the hardest to pigeonhole of them all. Commercially doomed by their very aesthetic–prodigious, harmonically...

Dead To Fall The Phoenix Throne [4/5] Like Himsa–their fellow At The Gates-worshiping scenemates from Seattle–Chicago’s Dead To Fall have been quite literally chugging along since the late ’90s (1999, to be exact); and, like that band, DTF have gone through so many lineup changes and stylistic enhancements that, really, they ought to be playing...

Imaad Wasif Imaad Wasif [3/5] Imaad Wasif’s name may not ring a bell, but most of the bands he’s been associated with should: Lowercase, alaska!, the New Folk Implosion, and now, Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Here, Wasif has stepped out on his own and made a stripped-down ode to disappointment, deception and most everything else that...

Starlight Mints Drowaton [3/5] There are at least three separate albums contained within Drowaton, and it’s a testament to Starlight Mints’ kitchen-sink approach that each listen yields varied results. On the surface, mild-mannered guitars and drums suggest simple, pretty song skeletons. But there’s a skewed sensibility weaving through the eclectic instrumentation of the Oklahoma band’s...