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Distillers Coral Fang (Sire)
If Nirvana had been led by a chick singer, Bleach might have sounded like the Distillers' Coral Fang. On its third album, the Los Angeles quartet, rips through a series of punk songs that balance throat-shredding, brain-rattling intensity with an undercurrent of sadness and vulnerability. These brief punk ditties are catchy but not cookie-cutter; "The Hunger" swings and sways on the back of an acoustic guitar part before the calm is disrupted by singer Brody Armstrong shrieking "Don't go!" On the breakneck "Die on a Rope," the boys in the band chant "way-oh, way-oh" in unison alongside Armstrong and end up sounding like Nineties indie outfit Rocket From the Crypt.
Seven of the eleven songs on Coral Fang mention blood, seven mention death, and reference to things like biting, ripping and beheading abound. But in light of Armstrong's separation from her husband, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, it's hard not to hear Coral Fang as a breakup album. Behind the cryptic goriness and the veneer of rage on the opening track, "Drain the Blood," there is a bruised and bandaged heart. "I'm living on shattered faith/The kind that likes to restrict your breath," Armstrong sings at the outset, and then spends forty-five minutes proving she really means it. (JENNY ELISCU)
Cracker Countrysides (Imusic)
Cracker road-tested the eight twangy covers on Countrysides, with a 2002 series of honky-tonk shows under the name Ironic Mullet. Thankfully, the only ironic thing about the album is its unblinking lack of irony. The band sounds relaxed and swinging on reverent country waltz takes of boozin' and tokin' songs by Merle Haggard ("The Bottle Let Me Down"), Ray Wylie Hubbard ("Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother"), Hank Williams Jr. ("Family Tradition") and Bruce Springsteen (the meth cookers' lament "Sinaloa Cowboys"). The broad song selection rises above novelty, even if the album isn't much beyond a kitschy keepsake for hardcore fans. The lone original, "Ain't Gonna Suck Itself," has leader David Lowery venting at the former Virgin Records bosses who dumped him. In case you miss his bitter point, a Lowery directed mini-movie about the making of the album hammers it home unnecessarily. Say what you will about him, but at least Lowery picks an interesting soundtrack for a session of crying in his beer. (GIL KAUFMAN)
Various Artists Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton (Sugar Hill)
No one knows better than Dolly Parton how being built like a hoochie mama can upend one's artistic credibility. Fellow songwriting sisters from Shania Twain to Meshell Ndegeocello here rally 'round to give the wiggy one compositional props. While Melissa Etheridge emphasizes the heart-broken eternity of "I Will Always Love You," Alison Krauss slows down "9 to 5" into a weary bluegrass shuffle. (BARRY WALTERS)
Vida Blue The Illustrated Band (Sanctuary)
The Illustrated Band is a surprisingly satisfying and super-charged chunk of mo' ritmo funk from the moonlight collective of Phish's Page McConnell. Here conjoined to Afro-Cuban progressives the Spam Allstars, Vida Blue groove and roll through four ultra-loose "movements" (the longest breaking twenty minutes), each a living breathing fusion of astral jazz and Latin beats, none remotely bound to structure. Whereas so much music this elastic sinks by the weight of ambition, The Illustrated Band succeeds on undeniable musicality (drummer Russell Batiste of the Funky Meters has swing for "Days") and an obvious deep knowledge of what's being stretched. Close your eyes in the liveliest passages of the title track or the sample-laden "Charmpit," and breathe the perfume of a cigar smoke-clouded club in Little Havana. There is plenty here on offer for purist and jam-fiend alike. (GREG HELLER)
Ima Robot Ima Robot (Virgin)
Ima Robot's decadent self-titled debut moonwalks out of Los Angeles' stylish underworld with speedy electro-punk, hyperactive dance-rock, and drops of Bowie in every song. Unabashed glam coupled with an irreverent animalism binds together these eleven songs about sex, girls and sex. Frontman and lyricist Alex Ebert (mullet and all) annunciates with a seasoned nonchalance, like a freed stud, brimming with a knowing coolness. "I want to fuck, fuck, fuck," Ebert sings on "Dirty Life," promoting a sexual carpe diem made all the more urgent by "12=3"'s realization that, "We're all gonna die in the end." Bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen and drummer Joey Waronker -- Beck's longtime sidemen -- provide the set's slick rhythm, funking and programming these songs into a members-only backroom. With this forceful declaration of arrival, Ima Robot have tapped a keg foaming over with hooks, keys, ego and swank -- ferociously tickling the rock world's id. (BENJAMIN FRIEDLAND)
Jason Darling Night Like My Head (Yep-Roc)
This upstate New Yorker (and former music director for Leona Naess) must keep a boom box in the barn with Beck, the Beastie Boys and another Jason (Mraz) all in heavy rotation. Jason Darling's white-boy-folkie-lackadaisical-rapper proclivity isn't terribly original, and his rhymes are unsophisticated. But Darling's debut, while rough around the edges, shows promise. His singing voice has a pleasing, gentle quality, his melodies are lilting, and his beats bounce along through his frugal musical compositions. Slide guitar and electronic squiggles nestle into the sparse groove of "Lost Desert Motel"; "Dinner Song" is served with a fuzz-guitar chorus and a cinematic, Latin-flavored middle eight; and "Wasting Time" has a nice sway-along rhythm, as do many of Darling's tunes. A hidden track of goofy farm-rap will either annoy or entertain, or possibly both. (MEREDITH OCHS)
Mates of State Team Boo (Polyvinyl)
After touring in support of their sophomore gem, Our Constant Concern, Mates of State's Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel left their lovely San Francisco residence for Gardner's home state of Connecticut. There, the indie-pop duo resumed writing and recording with engineer John Croslin (Crooked Jades, Beulah) and Spoon drummer Jim Eno for the band's third album, Team Boo. The dozen-track set is sharp, shiny pop rock and unlike the biting wit of Quasi and the slickness of the White Stripes, Mates of State craft a pleasant design. Their organ/drum combo is rich in layered harmonies and quirky rhythms, particularly on "I Got This Feelin'" and "Fluke." Gardner's girlish vocals snugly wrap around her husband's boyish charm, letting on to Mates of State's genuine love for music as well as for one another. If "Gotta Get a Problem" doesn't make their special love obvious, you're either too bitter or too cool. (MACKENZIE WILSON)
Clearlake Cedars (Domino)
You've heard of New Wave, New Romanticism and New Traditionalists? Now prepare for the New Eclecticism, where bands eschew blending styles for complete stylistic shifts. Ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde casts a consistent dark-as-a-dungeon pallor over this Hove, England quartet's second album of moody tunes. However, singer-guitarist Jason Pegg writes up a multitude of scenarios for his songs of murky loss. Things kick for the 1979-styled android New Wave of the album's opener, "Almost the Same," while the chorus-mantra of "Can't Feel a Thing" subtly sets the groundwork for the hypnotic opiate haze of "I'd Like to Hurt You" and "Come into the Darkness." The group's three-part harmonies twist in Alice in Chains-like madness; the music chugs along in a dreamscape. "Keep Smiling" recalls the poetic solemnity of Simon and Garfunkel, whereas the album closes on creepy atmospheric shifts that recount the torpid aftermath of Joy Division or Bauhaus. It's like reading an impressive primer of British post-punk with the chapters completely jumbled. (ROB O'CONNOR)
The Dishes 3 (File 13)
Suzi Quatro -- in and out of her "Leather Tuscadero" character -- aside, garage rock has never had much of a tough-chick presence. This Windy City combo has spent the better part of a half-decade remedying that situation, doling out fuzzed guitars and sneered vocals with just the right blend of threat and ennui. On this, their third album, the Dishes have ramped things up another notch, as evidenced by the opening spazz-out "Got Something to Tell You," a tune that burns the psychic equivalent of crop circles into the grey matter with nine minutes of wildly spinning riffage, courtesy of lead guitarist Kiki Yablon. With that out of their system, the quartet gets back to sonic sprints, with singer Sarah Staskaukas squalling sensually-yet-snottily through lust bombs like "Blow Me Up (But Don't Blow My Cool)" and an appropriately feral cover of the Litter's Sixties classic "Action Woman." It's gloriously obvious that the Dishes never got the message about using sex -- with a side order of brass-knuckled ferocity -- as a weapon. (DAVID SPRAGUE)
(October 13, 2003)