May 31, 2006

The Coup Pick A Bigger Weapon [4/5] As soapboxing left-wing rappers go, few are as engaging as the Coup’s Ray “Boots” Riley. On his first album since 2001’s infamous Party Music–you know, the one with the ill-timed, exploding World Trade Center cover–the Bay Area MC showcases all his best attributes. His low-riding G-Funk has morphed...

Eagles Of Death Metal Death By Sexy [4/5] That’s the nice thing about high-school girls, man: As Eagles Of Death Metal frontman Jesse “The Devil” Hughes gets older, they stay the same age. Which is why, presumably, the impressively ’stached singer/guitarist sends a shout-out to barely legal honeys everywhere on the torrid falsetto-grind of Death...

Pretty Girls Make Graves [5/5] When Nathan Thelen left Pretty Girls Make Graves in 2004, it left Jay Clark as the Girls’ lone guitarist. Fortunately, new multi-instrumentalist Leona Marrs (Hint Hint) proves a savvy addition, lending a natural variation and dexterity to PGMG that’s appropriate since, musically, Élan Vital is easily the band’s most adventurous...

Sick Of It All Death To Tyrants [3/5] After 20 years, you’d think Sick Of It All’s engines would have cooled a bit, but Death To Tyrants is as fist-pounding and vein-popping as anything the band did in their ’80s salad days. SOIA have, for better or worse, stood by their guns, producing the same...

Rye Coalition Curses [4/5] Thanks to time wasted on a major label during a messy restructuring, Rye Coalition’s latest album has been sitting on the shelf for over two years. But that’s okay: Curses sounds like it’s been ripening since 1974 anyway. With the New Jersey band now fully summoning the powers of AC/DC and...

None More Black This Is Satire [5/5] Bursting with huge guitars, catchy-as-hell choruses and songwriting that thumbs its nose at practically all of punk’s stylistic orthodoxy, None More Black’s sophomore full-length shreds the punk rulebook by going where most albums of its genre never dare to venture. Which is to say, This Is Satire finds...