October 10, 2007

An Angle The Truth Is That You Are Alive [3.5/5] Perhaps the third time is a charm for Sacramento’s An Angle-essentially the solo effort of singer/songwriter Kris Anaya under a band moniker. On this, his third full-length and follow-up to 2005’s mildly schizophrenic We Can Breathe Under Alcohol, Anaya has crafted a surprisingly cohesive...

Strung Out Blackhawks Over Los Angeles [3.5/4] Strung Out learned their lesson years ago on what makes them such a sought-after melodic/metallic punk phenom: Sing-along choruses plus synchronized, staccato guitar riffs multiplied by cranked tempos typically equals total audience pleasure. And there’s certainly no lack of applying the aforementioned formula to their seventh full-length,...

Patton Oswalt Werewolves And Lollipops [4/5] Patton Oswalt might be the world’s busiest guy. In addition to his tenure on The King Of Queens, in the past few years Oswalt has spearheaded the Comedians Of Comedy Tour; made appearances on Reno 911! and Late Night With Conan O’Brien; and provided the voices for animated...

Interpol Our Love To Admire [4.5/5] In spite of its lengthy percolation period and the major label ascent that accompanies it, Interpol’s Our Love To Admire eschews every association one might expect of a lesser band’s third album (difficult, redundant, Icarusian), instead almost perfecting Interpol’s already-pristine aesthetics while expanding their sound ever-so-slightly. As with...

Darkest Hour Deliver Us [4.5/5] When Victory Records released Darkest Hour’s last full-length Undoing Ruin in 2005, they hyperbolically touted the disc as the “best album of the decade” and compared it to Metallica’s Ride The Lightning and At The Gates’ Slaughter Of The Soul. It wasn’t, but the ironic part is that Deliver...

Boys Night Out Boys Night Out [3.5/5] In their transition from screamo-pop wunderkinds to adept screenplay writers, Boys Night Out established themselves as explorers of the sick and twisted’s psyche with their first two EPs and full-lengths. However, on their latest transformation into a bustling, quirky emo-rock quartet-sans keyboardist Kara Dupuy and drummer...

Ben Weasel And His Iron String Quartet These Ones Are Bitter [4/5] Ben Weasel’s first foray into solo-record territory came in 2002 with the highly introspective, philosophical and hope-filled Fidatevi. It may have been a different direction lyrically for Weasel from the oft-sarcastic numbers drenching his former band Screeching Weasel’s lyrics, but overall, he and...

Against Me! New Wave Really, we all should've seen it coming. With their spot-on cover of the Replacements anthem “Bastards Of Young” on 2006's We'll Inherit The Earth tribute compilation, Florida quartet Against Me! started the shift from scene-leading punk band to culture-creating rock band. With New Wave, their major label debut for the recently...

Stars Do You Trust Your Friends? [1.5/5] Can you name a remix in the history of music that was better than the original? Didn’t think so. Outside of dance music-which is basically a scam anyway-remix albums are like watching yourself jerk off in the mirror: Interesting in theory, but keep the end product to...