7 Rivers is a band from New Hampshire whose members are very proud; proud of having lived as long and as much as they have, and proud of the lessons they have learned along the way. They've made this album as a way to tell you about these lessons, but they're not condescending. Mostly existential things here about the fragility of life, looking forward to the future by reviewing the actions of the past, etc.

Musically, the most standout thing about the disk are the haunting vocals of Ted Handrich. They have this kind of lean-back California Dreamin' reverbed quality that is very settling and works well. The rest of the music is a little less inspiring. The guitars and drums are always very safe and rarely stretched into anything that made me think "wow." Maybe there were a few parts (like the breakdown at the end of song 4) that would probably kick ass live, but had just a little too much of that studio sterility to drive it home properly. While I'm crabbing on it, the songs have a tendency to be a little long, and, someone got a little heavy handed with the protools or other editing program. That's where the mixes probably suffered the most.

So it wasn't great, but it could have been great. That's the thing that gets me. All of the ingredients were there and somewhere along the line the good intentions of a decent band got boiled down into a milky pasty goo. I know that nobody really wants a stupid-reviewer-who-doesn't-understand-a-damned-thing's suggestion, but here it is anyway: if they kept the laid back vocals and placed them in with the guitars being played ripping loud (the guitarist is a decent player and could do it if he tried), and then got the drummer off the drum machine and allowed him to really pound and drive the beat, they'd have a winning combination, maybe even with the same songs. As it is, it's decent rock, but the shortcomings are hard to overlook. (FosterW)

Back in the early 90’s, my friends and I began worshiping swirly-throated divas from bands like the Sundays, Spinanes, Mazzy Star, and the Innocence Mission. Texas duo, Annabella, hearkens back to those glory days without sounding retro. This is sooooo mellow and beautifully melodic. The layers of Terri Dittmar’s sweet songbird vocals are gorgeous and lull you into relaxation. Husband Tim Dittmar’s musical accompaniment consists of very simple acoustic guitars laying down divinely basic melodies, while Terri and a few other guest musicians add a variety of subtle flutes, piano, and additional guitars parts, painting pretty hooks between verses. All of which are beautifully performed and mixed well, despite some low-fi production. These songs are so great, and despite the similarity to the above-mentioned bands, Annabella prove themselves to be astute contemporary songwriters. Deeelish! (Archie Rex)

Audiodrip has an experimental sound, seemingly taking its cues from rock, hip hop, house, ambient, jazz, spoken word, you name it. Bands that try this are often left with an unrecognizable mess, but Audiodrip doesn’t color so far outside the lines that they sound monster weird, just different. They seem to have sufficient pop sensibilities that I never felt alienated by any of this, rather engaged in a “gee, what’s going to happen next” sort of way. Unless you are a long time reader of my stuff, and check out all the bands that I review (hah!), it’s hard to say they sound like anyone you may have heard of, but they have tangential resemblance to Soul Coughing and at times Henry Rollins. Did I like this? Yes. It’s different. Not goofy different, and it can be a little unfocused at times, but I was never bored, and dammit, that counts for a lot.
(Conrad Teves)

I am most apprehensive when it comes to listening to music from the Folk/Americana genre. It seems there are so many people around to produce this kind of music, and few of them do it well. I can’t even go into my favorite coffee shop now past seven o’clock in the evening for fear of the live music set, some loser (male or female) in desperate need of a shower climbs onstage to strum a guitar and whine. They make me want to pull a John Belushi circa Animal House: casually walk up to the stage, take the guitar from their hands, smash it to pieces against the wall, hand them back the neck with the tangle of strings, say, “Sorry,” and return to my seat. If I ever open a coffee shop (which I won’t), I will call it the No Live Music Café. This isn’t to say that I don’t like folk music, but I liken the coffee house folk music circuit to people joining a gym: a lot of people try it out, but few work hard enough to produce any results. Ms. Blakeslee, however, is one of those rare finds: someone I wouldn’t mind listening to at my coffee shop. The music on this CD is striking in its non-intrusiveness; it is complex but not showy. The songs are subtle, intelligent, and observant narratives that bring issues, personal dramas, and character studies to form a tapestry of mood woven by Blakeslee’s mature, downright seductive voice. It is encouraging to see talent like this, particularly with uncertain times ahead for the country. Observers, recorders, and commentators on real American life are needed, and Blakeslee, at least on this CD, shows plenty of potential to become an important contributor. (Mike Mitchelson)

I've had an unhealthy obsession lately with "library music", namely instrumental songs created to be used as aural stock footage and/or background music. Most of the stuff I've been listening to in that vein is crazy '60s and '70s go-go funk stuff with hyperactive Hammonds and out-of-control Moogs and the occasional wah-wah, but it seems to have become sort of a lost art as of late. And while most musicians nowadays seem to strive towards "I am a *real pop artist damn it*" sentiments and seem too restless to view film and TV scores as a career option, there are fortunate exceptions. Simon Wilkinson is one of them. His music sounds well-versed in a wide variety of genres, from the retro-Moog Logan's Run ambience of "Fires On the Moon" to the caper-flick-ready jazz-funk of "Undercovered" and the kung fu b-boy sidewalk-strutting disco bombast of "How Can We Be Wrong". Some of the songs sound a bit tinny and low-budget due to the equipment they're played on, but in this case the compositions are what's important, and they're all professionally constructed enough to hint at sounding quite grandiose in the hands of session musicians or an orchestra (though as they are, they do have a definite basement-tinkerer's charm). If you're a filmmaker who can't shell out the cash for David Holmes, this guy's your best bet. Thumbs up. (Nate Patrin)

When I first spun this joint, I kept thinking to myself, why doesn’t he fill these songs out with more drums. Not that there isn’t plenty of great percussion work here, but it seemed as if the songs would sound more full with heavier beats. I checked the info, and it turns out Marlon does ALL the instruments, and he intended it to be a bit more ambient and cerebral than his “Indo-rock fusion” group, Church of Betty. So I gave it a few more listens, and it sure grew on me. Nice and relaxed, nothing too urgent, chill-out stuff for a hectic day. (Dylan Ritalyn)

Creeker is a large sized group (8 members) out of Austin, TX. In listening to their tunes I get the notion that their recorded material doesn't quite catch the feeling of a live performance. In the recordings it seems as if the various instruments are competing rather than meshing at times. Not a bad sound, just sometimes too much sound in a finite area. Again, I'm thinking that isn't a problem when one catches Creeker in person. Their sound is a kitchen sink mix incorporating ingredients of psychedelia, fun rock, some funk and an occasional dark moodiness. It all comes together pretty well, held together by Creeker's basic, bread and butter foundation in rock. Standout songs would include the funkadelic "Common Sense," the fast-paced psychy "Rainsong" and the well written, well performed "Edin."

The excellent vocals of Jessica Dreesen alone make Creeker worth a good listen. There's a haunting sense that you've heard the voice before, but it's hard to pin down just where. There seems to be converging influences -- I thought I heard Heart, a non-froggy Stevie Nicks, a bit of Kasey Chamber country, an in-tune Grace Slick, the 60s Sweetwater and some others. Dreesen merges them all with fine results. She could easily front most any band or make a mark as a solo performer.

If someone is in the Austin area and looking for upfront and inventive rock, I'm betting that Creeker would be a band to catch. Creeker is the third group from Austin that I've reviewed since the start of my tenure at Demorama, it is also the best and merits more than a passing grade.
(Luis Fiske)

 

Diesel T.V. is two, overly schooled Canucks and a bassist with a phony name (Robes London? Come on). The Loyalists in this band boast in their press kit about all the famous musicians they have studied with. Let me tell you guys: no one cares, not when you are obviously trying to be as MTV ready, gap add friendly, Seattle scenester grunge-pop as possible. It sounds as if they sold out long before they ever picked up an instrument.

The key grips and assistants to the production manager's hair stylist did a great job on this CD, as for the musicians and writers? Less than adequate. Regardless of how many more yes men they put on the payroll, I don't think Diesel T.V. will ever make any real impact on the music world...although they might muster a short lived hit on some corporate rock station. This band is a good candidate to be sued under a class action copyright lawsuit where the plaintiff is every grunge musician, both living and dead. This CD is an evil black lie and if Lucifer doesn't come to collect the Canadian souls that were promised him in exchange for all the fancy degrees and experience gloated about on their monstrously pretentious press-kit, then they might just land a gig opening for Limp Bizkit. (Jacob Caravan)

Fine Red Brown sounds like The Monkeys on crystal methamphetamine. This is the usual happy-core pop punk stuff, and it isn't done well. Although it's barely worth writing about, my huge Demorama salary compels me to pen this review. If the choice were between seeing Fine Red Brown live and picking dog poop off my shoe bottom, I would pick the latter.

Seeing how nothing more can be reasonably said about this ugly sounding rip-off of Blink 182 and/or a million other high-schoolesque bands, I would like to use this opportunity to coin the phrase, "diaper-punk." Diaper-punk refers to amateur, 3-chord punk coupled with Weezer style vocals that is becoming increasingly more common these days. Yes, diaper-punk is something you'd find at an all ages coffee shop venue crowded with high school girls sipping alternative colas and wearing cat glasses and teddy bear backpacks. Diaper-punk is young, energetic, cute boys bouncing on stage while haphazardly banging out power chords on their ill-tuned Les Paul knock-offs and Marshall stacks that daddy bought. As a very good example of diaper-punk, Fine Red Brown sounds like any reasonable punk rock band minus the anger and the masculinity. (Jacob Caravan)

Gidgets Ga Ga vibrant, jangly sound jabbed me in the chops like a rock-pop uppercut as if they had been the secret understudies of Soul Asylum for the last 15 years, just waiting to step out of the shadow and send me reeling into a shouting chorus of "I need a face!" from their original "9 Ways."

However, unlike Soul Asylum, Gidgets Ga Ga (aside from their name) appears at first glance to be a bit less chessy than their 80's influencers. Bands hate to be hog-tied as a product or influence of earlier masters, but in this case, it's Soul Asylum Jr. without a doubt. Similarly to their "Run Away Train" predecessors, hopefully Gidgets will continue to put out relevant material as they develop their sound. Songs like "Belmont" and "Lullaby," as live tracks, prove the band is competent out of the studio. But live or taped, it's the raw lead vocals that drive the energy of these rock-n-roll new comers.

So here it is - I like the way this guy sings. I like the way the songs flow. I even like their cute, fancy band name. I like them so much that I tried to find a picture to see what they look like but unfortunately, there are only two photos available to the hungry public...a fuzzy one on their home page and a REALLY f&%$ing fuzzy one on MP3.com. Some advice to the band: Guys...sex sells. If your looks match your sound, get your hot little asses plastered on your site so college kids can start using your face (or asses) as a screen saver. Christ. Don't you know anything about marketing? Probably not, but don't worry about that, give that job to some insensitive bastard and you guys keep focusing on your sound. Hopefully we'll get to see what you look like soon enough. (Eric Thiegs)

The guitar and simple lyrics of Bryan Masters makes me think of bright Sunday afternoons, when cleaning the house doesn’t seem like a burdensome chore. His songs are mostly optimistic and some are religious in an almost offhand manner. This style of music, with its clear sing/talk vocals, can slip into the realm of sappiness pretty easily, but Bryan’s subtle wordplay and knack for telling a story helps him avoid that. Most of his pieces deal with past lovers who have hit the road. My favorite one, “You Again,” is the last one listed on his webpage. His long-ago lover calls up, and he laments over why he didn’t change his number, but in a few days, she is back in his bed, and he’s in love again. There was a fun sound of panic in his voice, which I thought added just the right touch of passion to the scenario. This song is still in my head, even though my music program crashed a little while ago, and I guess I’m still thinking about it because it was a really memorable song. While some of Bryan’s songs appeared to have been written with the thought of possible mainstream, top-40 airplay in its future – what with catchy hooks and some senseless lyrics as in “All Torn Down” – I feel “You Again” stands on its own merits. Not to be imprisoned in the potential folk/pop-hit pigeon hole, Bryan explores other genres, such as bluegrass with his “Two Flattop Guitars.” Banjos and a harmonica round out the sound of strong finger-picking on this one. Again, the lyrics are jovial, and sound as if they very well could have been penned on someone’s back porch with a bucket of fried chicken nearby. [Vanessa Moore]

 

Robin Mink might be a little "more" than I can handle. I find her concepts jarring and mildly disturbing. Her almost greasy description of her marital coitus forms an unsettling example: "I'm a little chubby in my bubby but my hubby say he like it real good"? In fact, there is an assumption that the listener will observe from the cover photo (in which she appears wrapped in a cloak with only her cleavage exposed) that she is a heavy gal. Honey, from what we can see there's no reason to describe yourself as a wide-load. Besides, Sir Mix-a-lot already said it with his rap classic, "Baby Got Back," and he made it sound a lot more appealing.

"Service to the Universe," her go for it song, has the opposite than intended effect, making the shaky claim that no matter what you're doing or whether anyone notices or not, it can still be considered a gift to all creation.

But despite the problems in her lyrics, this slick, well-recorded jazz finds its way into my memory and her songs keep popping into my head when I am not otherwise occupied. Definitely there's a catchyness to even her most creepy crawly song.

All told, Robin Mink's aesthetic might not be for everyone, but the sounds are pleasant enough and the 2nd track, "Awaken," could even be imagined on an easy-listening station. If not entirely original, "More To Love" is not that bad. (Serena Vale)

It's metal. Austrian metal. Indecipherable, repetitive, overlong Austrial metal. I must give them props for the vaguely Eddie Hazel-ish evil psych funk guitar they inject into many of their songs, but most of this stuff is gurgling and growling and thudding and churning and it all sounds so familiar, even to someone as marginally familiar with metal as me. Fortunately, with textbook typicality comes the tendency to avoid being laughably bad, so they've got that working for them. If I liked Slayer I might dig these guys a bit. Another case of "not bad, just not my thing." Maybe I should expand my horizons once in a while... (Nate Patrin)

Mohi, in his submission to Demorama, tells us that he's been writing music for "about a year now," and that he's finally put together an album. For this album, he would like some feedback -- so remember -- he asked for it.

I've seen musicians put together some incredible shit with a guitar and a computer, but Mohi's efforts are lame. I listened to every song available at the mp3.com site, so you don't have to. They're all the same. A fuzzy guitar, endless repetitive loops, and, occasionally, an off-pitch guy repeating something along the lines of "you don't love me anymore." Those are the high points.

These are the days when anyone with a few hundred bucks can write, produce, and distribute an album. That doesn't mean everyone should, and Mohi needs a few more years at the drawing board before his stuff is ready for prime time. Or even before his stuff is ready for late night cable, between infomercials for Ron Popeil's AssMaster 2000 and Sally Struther's plea to save the children. (Melanie)

 

Many people gauge their lives by where they were during specific events: JFK, the Challenger, 9/11, etc. I know where these guys were during the last 1/3 of 1986: sitting in the rec room devouring "Slippery When Wet". Jon Bon and crew are all over this in spirit. From the epiglottal vocals to the singalong choruses to the acoustic finale, Mr. Hand makes like "Teen Spirit" never smelled. And I have no problem with that. This sounds good (without those annoying Jovi keyboards!) and is pretty damn hooky. If you wait all year for Ratt and Poison to show up at the exurban bowlarama, this is right up your alley. And this comeback won't be led by dudes in Aqua Net and spandex, but by dudes in t-shirts and cargo shorts. Anachronistic, sure, but everybody grab a piece and make sure it's a good one. (SCIsadore)

Despite very notable flaws, I have taken a bit of a shine to this Portland based four-piece. They’re high school young (and it shows) but there is an element of fun about them that is appealing to me. On the downside, their lyrics are, to be blunt, fluffy. The emotional content is just a notch above “you make feel like when I climb the rope in gym class.” 'N Sync has deeper material. Seriously. I imagine the only people who are really going to identify with this are other kids their age. Then again, so what? They have a reasonable semblance of pop-smarts, even if they wander over toward cheesiness now and again. More importantly, the whole thing feels like an honest attempt, rather than a contrived emulation of their influences. God knows some artistic development is required, but I can only offer them encouragement in this. From way back here, they seem to have the right attitude, and that's a great place to start.
(Conrad Teves)

The music: Nothing revolutionary, but simple pop-punk guitars, shouting choruses, sing-song half-talking verses. The rhythms are catchy enough. And the lyrics kinda remind me of Cake in their irony. Hell, if they were playing live in town, I’d give ‘em a look.

But the website design! WAAAAAY COOL!! Best site design I have seen in a long, long time! It loads fast, it makes you like the band, it is easy to navigate, and it has everything a band site should have. If you want to see a great website design, this is a gold standard in my opinion! Big, big ups to Plasmic Studio for their terrific work!! (Dylan Ritalyn)

I won’t pretend to have any deep knowledge in the electronic “music” genre. I dabble in it because I have friends that are into it, and there my expertise ends. So why did I pick out this CD to review? I don’t know. Perhaps I felt the need to dabble again. So I followed the directions forwarded by the artist: put the CD in my stereo and listen to it all the way through. And it was amusing. After a while. The first 15 minutes of this 40-minute experiment in sound felt like half the day went by. And I got the whole thing, believe me, I did, how the tracks worked into each other and built to something, then kinda deconstructed and built into something else and all that jazz. And parts were pretty cool. I actually thought this might go better in a carousel with other CD’s, if only for the effect of causing other people in the room to say, “What the fuck is this?” Then I read in the press kit that the noise on this CD is, in fact, the stuff that “pop[s] up as the quieter moments of a Secret Agent Gel set.” So all this stuff that I was asked to listen to in one sitting would normally be broken up with other, perhaps more interesting, tracks. I am going to hang onto this CD for the what-the-fuck-is-this reaction, but for only that reason. I guess my problem with the whole effort was this: when I thought the CD had ended, I walked out of the room for about five minutes, only to hear a weird, mechanized whining noise with an exact metronomic cadence coming from the direction of my stereo. I thought, “What, a delayed bonus track?” and came jogging back toward my living room. As I passed my kitchen window, I determined that there, in fact, was where the noise was coming from. A recycling truck in my back alley with a hydraulic pump on its last legs straining to the exact rpm of the engine, laboring to push oil to the pistons to lift the arms to hoist a dumpster full of cans. It’s music, I guess. (Mike Mitchelson)

Twelve Gauge is a metal trio that doesn't quite have what it takes. Yeah, they may have predictable metal song titles like 'Religious Whores' and 'Empty-Headed Youth' but I didn't feel any aggression in their sound. One of the problems may be the production on Violent New World. The guitar grinds but the bass sticks out like a sore thumb. The best thing they could do with the bass is to turn it down. The drums, as solid as they are, sound like they were recorded from two rooms away from where they were being played. The vocals are another issue as well. To put it best, they were reminiscent of a Judas Priest tribute band. Is this a problem? Not necessarily but more of a preference. Twelve Gauge tend to find a riff and then base an entire song on it. Most of the tracks on Violent New World tend to sound the same so the album gets old very quickly. Twelve Gauge may play metal but they rock as hard as a tin can. (Neal Mayerle)

This band has the sarcastic sweetness of most college radio-ready music. The singer's voice has the non-committal nasalness of the day. The music is monotonous. The title, ?Pious Flats?, is so pretentious it hurts. For all these reasons they are much acclaimed by the gurus of indie music, but I would say that they represent just the sarcastic self-deprecating, oh-so uninterested style plaguing their native Minneapolis and the ?underground? music scene in general.

With a guitar sound like everyone else, and meandering light-hearted melodies which lie languidly in your ear like pools of tepid water, Work of Saws stands for everything I hate about the music industry--or the anti-music industry as these people would have you believe. This album rebels against emotion, passion, drive, ambition and everything else that makes one want to get up in the morning. (Serena Vale)

 

Listening to this Z Plan album reminded me of a humorous moment from The Simpsons. Marge is rummaging through a bin of old cassettes and finding all of her old favorites (i.e. Air Supply). Lisa mentions that she has never of any of these bands and asks what type of music they play. Bart pipes in saying the style is "Crap Rock". Marge doesn't agree with this description so Homer gives his suggestion of "Wuss Rock". Marge agrees that "Wuss Rock" sums it up.

Z Plan's 'Circus', is a great example of Wuss Rock at it's finest. Now let me state that there is nothing wrong with this style of music. There are millions of warm-hearted couples as well as lonely souls who spend many hard earned dollars on this type of music. This also means that there are thousands of musicians pouring every last ounce of their hearts into a 3 to 5 minute dedication to warm and fuzzy love.

Z Plan can be compared to 80's era Chicago (ahh, Peter Cetera). They have incredibly strong vocal harmonies that really make you want to fall in love. All of the songs have that really glossy production as well. They must have spent some good money on the production of this release.

In the end, if you can stomach lyrics like, "Lock me up and throw away the key. If love is the crime than I'm pleading guilty", from 'Guilty', then you are just going to love Z Plan. (Neal Mayerle)