High Bias aural fixations
February 23, 2003

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Thought We Could
(Plethorazine)
"If you're stuck in Middle America/Faith is gonna let you down," sings Mike McCoy, spokesperson for the American People. No, not the continental masses, but the band, which splits its membership between Austin, Texas and Kansas City, Missouri. Though We Could is the group's second album of sardonic, Farfisa-driven power pop, and it's a good one. Songs like "Make Me" and the explicitly political "Crisis" mix hooks that glom onto your eardrums immediately with social commentary that walks a fine line between incisive and silly. "Dear God/Please make me rich/Dear God/So I can quit this stupid job," McCoy sings in "Working Man's Prayer," in a moment both poignant and sarcastic. "Why does God hate the gypsies?/Why does God hate us all?" he cries mournfully over guest mandolin picker Pete Stiles (from the Meat Purveyors) in the modern folk tune "The Gypsy Problem," and it's hard to know whether or not to take him seriously. The group even manages to take the piss out of the hackneyed sexual euphemism "Horizontal Boom-Boom" while still making it a singalong sentiment. It's that balance, Onion-style-humor coupled with catchy popcraft, that makes the American People a mob worth attention. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: the Rezillos, the Dictators, Rubber City Rebels

COASTAL
Coastal
(Words On Music)
Utah quartet Coastal finds solace in slow, soft sounds on its self-titled debut album. Heavily delayed guitars drift past nearly somnambulant rhythms, while a lonely voice softly intones plainspoken lyrics. It's all very soothing and pretty, with pristine production and a leisurely, inviting pace. "Paris Radio" and "Northern" are sure to please anyone coming down from an all-night blast. Alas, they may not appeal to anyone else. Though many folks will find this sublimely diverting, even transcendent, an equal number will be bored to tears, unable to find any beauty in a wan singer dragging his navel lint into the harsh twilight. After all, one person's moody ambiance is another's humid torpor. If you're the type whose heart beats ever so slightly faster at the sight of the terms "slo-core" and "shoegazer," you should make every effort to track this record down. If you're not in that select group, however, you should probably pass on Coastal. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Low, Red House Painters, American Analog Set

SONNY LANDRETH
The Road We're On
(Sugar Hill)
Louisiana's Sonny Landreth has over the course of his solo career created a spicy gumbo of blues, zydeco, folk and loud rock & roll, putting his appealing tenor and innovative slide technique to the service of a remarkably distinctive hybrid of American roots rock styles. But he started out as a blues musician, and his latest album The Road We're On is a re-exploration of those roots. Fronting a power trio, Landreth fills Road with simple, blues-based tunes that feature plenty of room for his slippery guitar fills and incendiary solos. "All About You" burns with the fire of love's disappointments, both in its rushing forward momentum and bomb-bursting guitar licks. The simmering "A World Away" supports its heartbreak sentiment with a boiling slide solo. "Gone Pecan" finds some solace in its rollicking rhythm and celebrations of the simple things, like "a Gibson Firebird/And a dumble too/A coricidin bottle/To carry the blues." Landreth gives his bottleneck resonators a workout too, featuring them on the rumbling "Natural World," "Juke Box Mama" and the 12-bar "True Blue," with his patented National-to-Strat transitions. Landreth's songwriting isn't as ambitious as usual here, with only "Natural World" really reaching beyond the standard bar-band subjects of lovin,' livin' and leavin,' but that's fine; considering Landreth's usual philosophical musings, it's almost a breath of fresh air to know he gets as horny and lonely as the rest of us. The Road We're On isn't the best Sonny Landreth album, but it's still more than capable of breathing life in the hoary cadaver of blues rock. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Tinsley Ellis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Guy Forsyth

LUCAS SHINE
No Cure For Life
(Lucas Shine)
Once upon a time there were a couple of bands, Subduing Mara and Miracle Legion. The latter gained a tiny bit of notoriety for its warm, eccentric folk rock; the former seemed known only to a handful of perceptive critics, despite a couple of albums' worth of high-quality rootsy guitar rock. After those bands gave up their respective ghosts, Mara singer/songwriter Peter Hutchison and Legion guitarist Mr. Ray Neal got together to form Lucas Shine, issuing a beautiful record called Lucas Shine and His Exquisite Corpse not long afterward. (Amazingly, what sounded like a fully realized record was, in fact, a set of demos.) Then…silence. Or so it seemed—in reality the band had retreated from the world of the micro-indie label that released its first album to the brave new frontier of self-releasing; thus, the second Lucas Shine record No Cure For Life. As with Exquisite Corpse, No Cure For Life is full of moving, melodic songs given intimate, emotional performances. Sonically the group presents sedate, guitar-powered arrangements that take various roots/Americana sources and make them sound like introspective pop music; the tracks are styleless in the best way. Unfailingly memorable, the gentle-but-firm melodies hold hands with heart-on-sleeve performances. The centerpiece of the record is frontman Hutchison's soulful singing; it's hard to imagine his songs performed by anyone else as well. Remakes of Exquisite Corpse highlights "Don't Know What I'm Doing Here Tonight," "Wrong Again" and "It's Yours" grab the attention immediately, but newer tunes like "Sweet" and "Wear It So Well" are easily the equal of those mini-masterpieces. The centerpiece of the record is frontman Hutchison's soulful singing; he holds back nothing in his performances, but never goes anywhere near the top, let alone over it. It's hard to imagine his songs performed by anyone else as well. It's astonishing that Lucas Shine can be so consistently good and yet be so underappreciated; consider this a wake-up call to give the straightforward songcraft of No Cure For Life the chance it deserves. Michael Toland

For fans of: the Reivers, Joseph Arthur, House of Freaks

BRADY SEALS
Thompson Street
(Image)
Brady Seals used to be the keyboardist in Nashville hair country band Little Texas, for whom he wrote many hits; he's also related to the Seals family (England Dan Seals, Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts, Nashville tunesmith Troy Seals). On his third solo album Thompson Street, Seals leaves country behind but continues in the same slick, commercial-minded vein of his ex-band's work. The title track sports serviceable hooks, a vaguely appealing melody and lyrics celebrating the singer's lust for his girlfriend, sung in an appealing but non-distinctive voice, slightly naughty but still PG. It's not dirty enough to be interesting (or original either—there should be a ban on songwriters using the phrase "so fine" in descriptions of the objects of their desire) nor catchy enough to be a classic; it's just there, sounding pleasant and inoffensive. That's true of most of the album's tracks as well—see the nice but bland ballad "Let Me Be Your Man" or the bluesy but blah "Free Love." Rodney Crowell's work as a co-writer helps "Things Have Gotta Change" and the ballad "Soon" rise above the sea of mediocrity, and Seals' funky synth work enlivens the otherwise generic rocker "Breakin' Down," but otherwise interest in this record comes down to two tracks. "That's How It Goes" and "Our Last Goodbye" boast the surprising songwriting participation of Andy Sturmer, the pop genius from the much-beloved Jellyfish. Both tunes work due to their above-average melodies; it would be unfair to Seals to give credit solely to Sturmer for this, but it couldn't have hurt. "Our Last Goodbye" even boasts Seals' best vocal, soulful, heartfelt and unlike the rest of his competent but uninspired performances. Perhaps Seals should enlist Sturmer as a permanent partner and elevate his music from blandly appealing to consistently good. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Bourgeois Tagg, Hall & Oates, Dan Fogelberg

TUMMLER
Early Man
(Small Stone)
The Champaign-Urbana, Illinois music scene is known mainly for two things: REO Speedwagon and great pop music, a la Sugarbuzz and the Parasol Records crowd. Which means that Tummler sticks out like the sorest of thumbs. With its downtuned power chords, hoarse vocals and lumbering, brontosaurus-on-a-binge rhythms, Tummler has much more in common with the Sabbath strain of underground metal than arena rock or Beatles homages. On its second album Early Man, guitarists Ryan Jerzak and Brad Buldak (as if he could play any other kind of music with that name) lay down the heaviness with thick, molten slabs of riffage, while bassist Ginchy and drummer J Vance keep the rhythm knob set at "rumble." Buldak gnaws the lyrics like a bulldog barking with its mouth full, which is entirely appropriate. It's unclear what "Planet Moai," "Lost Sense of the Cosmic" and "Arlo" may be "about," but hell, as long as the libretto's married to such boneshaking sludge, does it really matter? The faster tunes such as "Freightliner," "Shooting Blanks" and a raunchy instrumental called "Here's to Your Destruction" tend to stick to the ribs a bit more than the tracks extracted from the tar pits, but there's nothing here that won't satisfy a hunger for huge 'n' heavy. The band also includes two unlisted bonus tracks that are easily as good as anything else on the record, which makes one wonder why they were hidden. Regardless, Early Man is just chock full of sludge rock goodness. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Abdullah, the first MC5 album, Sons of Otis

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Rock-N-Roll Au Go-Go Vol. 7
(Devil Doll)
The latest volume of Devil Doll's Rock-N-Roll Au Go-Go series gives us some tasty r&r snacks to munch. Compiler/liner notesmith Sal Canzonieri (AKA the driving force behind punk rock & roll standard-bearers Electric Frankenstein) gives us eight songs by four bands in 27 minutes, with more attitude and volume per square inch than a trash-compacted cube of professional wrestlers. First up is Carolina veterans Antiseen, with a roaring, straightahead rawk sound that crushes all who lie in its path. "I'm a Babyface Killer" and "Backlash" impress themselves on your forehead with Godzilla guitars, tyrannosaurus vocals and a Terminator rhythm section. Oklahoma City's Pulpit Red follows; its jagged rhythms sound like the band fractured its metacarpals before it tried to play Heartbreakers songs; "Cocked and Ready" and the catchy "Tunnel of Time" have a skittery sound that sets them apart from the rest of the nuevo rock & roll universe. Nova Express, meanwhile, seems to have been feeding from the same bloody trough as Antiseen. The NYC combo isn't as Nuged as the 'seen on "Walk Away" and "Give Me Some More" (which in this singer's throat comes out "gimmesumMO!"), but it sports the same turbocharged take on garage punk and the same nail-in-the-skull hooks. Finally, from Orlando, Florida, comes Nutrajet, which rolls power pop, punk, glam and hard rock into a deliriously catchy and defiantly snotty pair of tunes, "Up With the Lovely" and "Vicious Intent." All this and alluring cheesecake photos taken by starlet Julie Strain in the bargain. Nutrajet is the standout, but Rock-N-Roll Au Go-Go Vol. 7 is a consistently impressive platter of treats. Michael Toland

For fans of: Motörhead, Iggy & the Stooges, the Jesus Lizard

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