High Bias aural fixations
April 27, 2003

BIG MIDNIGHT
Everything For the First Time
(Alive)
Rising from the ashes of proto-punk revivalists the Richmond Sluts, Big Midnight is perfectly in line with the current wave of rock & roll faith-keepers that are sweeping the critics' polls, if not the charts. With garage rock aggression, glam rock attitude, rock/pop melodies, rootsy instrumentation and a classic snotty-but-soulful frontman in Shea Roberts, the young men of Big Midnight have a yummy recipe in place on Everything For the First Time—all they need are some good songs. Oh, wait, they've got those, too. Goodtime rockers like "Doin' All Right," "Take the Blow" and "Gotta Get Down" (with backup singer Lydia Walker doing a Merry Clayton to Roberts' Mick Jagger) shimmy next to psychedelic soul ballads like "All the Dreams" and "Spent Too Much," while catchy blues rockers like "Little Miss Mercy," "When Shadows Come Alive" and "Make It" are the glue that holds it all together. There's not a bad cut here; if there is any justice at all Everything For the First Time will be popular enough that Big Midnight will find itself mentioned in the same breath as lesser lights like the Strokes and the Mooney Suzuki. We can only hope. Michael Toland

For fans of: the Rolling Stones, recent Makers, the Brian Jonestown Massacre

CAITLIN CARY
I'm Staying Out
(Yep Roc)
When Whiskeytown broke up a few years ago, everyone's eyes were on bandleader Ryan Adams. Perhaps the absence of scrutiny is what allowed violinist Caitlin Cary to develop so well. Her first album, the appropriately titled While You Weren't Looking, was a soulful tapestry of folk, rock and pop, with expertly-written songs and beautiful performances. It's the kind of record that's a major challenge to follow up; happily, I'm Staying Out is every bit its equal. Cary and producer Chris Stamey have streamlined her sound; instead of shifting from style to style, the pair folds elements of American roots music and adult pop into a creamy blend of soul and craft. As with Looking, Out features a number of special guests, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Mitch Easter, cellist Jane Scarpantoni, singer/songwriter Thad Cockrell and Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed, but you'd never know it from the arrangements, which always highlight the songs themselves and Cary's rich alto. "Sleepin' In On Sunday" (written by guitarist Mike Daly), "Lorraine Today" and "You Don't Have to Hide" are textbook examples of how to do roots pop right, while "In a While" and the title track have the ballad thing more than down. The honky-tonker "Please Break My Heart" will please folks who miss Patsy Cline, while "Cello Girl" pumps the latter half of the folk-rock equation. There's just enough diversity to make the record interesting without so much that it sounds like it's genre-jumping. As marvelous an example of a sophomore album as you could ask for, I'm Staying Out beautifully balances craft and heart. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Lucinda Williams, Linda Thompson, Marti Jones

KEITH CHRISTMAS
Acoustica
(Woronzow)
British musician Keith Christmas is best known in the U.K. as a singer/songwriter and leader of the blues band the Weathermen. (He also played on David Bowie's Space Oddity album.) Acoustica is only his eighth solo album since 1969, and his first instrumental record. A nimble, lyrical fingerpicker, Christmas fills this CD with acoustic guitar pieces that have strong melodic backbones and busy arrangements. Christmas eschews the solo purist approach, overdubbing his six-strings into intricate webs of sound. Multi-layered cuts like "Floating," "Dancing" and "Easy" blend virtuosity and accessibility in a way few instrumental albums do these days; the rhythmic "Inside Out" and the slide-driven "Sliding" are even better. Christmas may not be concentrating on his singer/songwriter side much anymore, but Acoustica indicates that he's got a bright future as an instrumentalist. Michael Toland

For fans of: Leo Kottke, Adrian Legg, Richard Leo Johnson

DARLING VIOLETTA
Parlour
(Opaline)
Darling Violetta is beloved by a certain class of fan for its haunting theme for the TV show Angel. Amazingly, the trio hasn't parlayed its notoriety into a major label contract, but has instead stayed resolutely independent. Parlour is its third release on its own label, and is the band's most accomplished outing yet. The band garnishes its emotional pop with touches of Goth, electronics and dream pop, but doesn't reference any specific practitioners of any style. Dreamy, melodic tunes like "Over You," "Say You Love Me" and "Pauline" set the pace for the most part, but the hard-edged dynamics-shifter "A Smaller God," drum-and-bass tinged "Beautiful," glam epic "Candy Jones" and psychedelic pop showpiece "Star Shoes (Love is Everything)" stand out the most. Occasionally siren Cami Eden veers into schmaltz that wouldn't sound out of place on Angel's network-mate Dawson's Creek—see "Beautiful"—but for the most part DV balances taste and heart quite well. The Violettas still don't have the one killer track that would make its rep beyond Joss Whedon's productions, but with Parlour they show that they're not far away from a milestone. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Concrete Blonde, Rasputina, the Sundays

KING CRIMSON
The Power to Believe
(Sanctuary)
Though it's difficult to believe and painful to admit, the truth must be stated: King Crimson is not the innovative force it used to be. Once a band that pushed rock further past its known edges with every album, one of the few groups that could claim to be playing truly progressive rock, the Crims seem to have halted their forward momentum since their groundbreaking mid-90s album Thrak. Its previous opus The ConstruKCtion of Light, the first by the current edition of guitarist/mainstay Robert Fripp, guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew, touch guitarist Trey Gunn and drummer Pat Mastelotto, played like a consolidation of its strengths, touching on every facet of its career but not pointing in any new directions. The Power to Believe, KC's latest record, follows suit. The dense textures of Thrak, heavy metal thunder of Red and skittering New Wave melodics of Discipline are the main touchstones here, with the group revisiting those sounds time and again. Only the soundtrack styling of "Dangerous Curves" sits outside the band's usual borders, and it's not interesting enough to be a strong departure. The heavy rock of "Level Five" and "Facts of Life" contrasts nicely with the herky-jerky "Elektrik," to which Mastelotto adds jungle beats to no discernible effect, and the shimmering "The Power to Believe II." The gnarled, abrasive "Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With" adds scratch effects, but they're too overwhelmed by the punishing riffs and Belew's angry vocals to matter. That's not to say the quartet is coasting, mind you, just sticking to what it does better than anyone else. The Power to Believe is simply Crimson doing what Crimson does, and that may be a disappointment to some; then again, no one else can do what Crimson does, so the band remains progressive by default. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Tool, Gordian Knot, Rhythm of Black Lines

GARY NUMAN
Hybrid
(Jagged Halo/Universal)
Gary Numan is remembered in the US mainly as essentially a novelty act; one of the first New Wave musicians to use synthesizers as the driving force of his songs, he was the auteur behind the chilly hit "Cars." Underground music fans in America might also know "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Down in the Park" (performed so magnificently in the long-lost film Urgh! A Music War, which deserves a DVD reissue—end of digression). But Numan was a superstar in his homeland of Great Britain, at least for a few years, and his influence has been felt on synth-based musicians from Duran Duran to Nine Inch Nails. The double-disk Hybrid is an opportunity for many of his children (well, many of his nieces and nephews) to pay tribute to their inspiration. Developed with Numan's full participation, most of the disk consists of old Numan tracks, mostly taken from the late 70s when he was at the peak of his popularity. Remixed and "reworked" by contemporary electronicists and producers like Alan Moulder, Flood, Sulpher, Andy Gray and Curve, the results are, no pun intended, mixed. The strength of Numan's music has always been that, despite the presence of synthetic instruments, he writes actual songs—they may be full of atmosphere and gimmicks, even be fairly silly at times, but they have real melodies and structure. But melody and structure are not primary concerns for today's electroremixers, and thus the folks involved with this project often jettison Numan's original tunes for the kind of throbbing rhythms and spacey synth washes found in pretty much any generic electro act. Numan's vocals appear as samples, sometimes so fragmented they're just another texture in the tracks. Many of the cuts end up sounding more like the artist in charge than Numan; "Bleed," with its power chords and threatening rhythm throbs, is more like NIN than anything Numan might have recorded. Even the handful of new songs betray the influence of modern electronica more than the vision of Numan himself. Only the two versions of "Down in the Park," probably the greatest thing he ever wrote, sound much like the artist who originally created them. It would be grossly unfair, of course, to ask Numan to calcify himself in the late 70s/early 80s and remain ignorant of current trends, especially in a genre that depends on constant forward motion. But Hybrid overcompensates in the other direction, treating its raison d'etre as an afterthought. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, industrial darkwave

PUNY HUMAN
It's Not the Heat, It's the Humanity
(Small Stone)
Puny Human has no bio, and thus no hometown, no specific location on which to pin its no doubt-unholy genesis. Which is probably fine with the band, as it likely considers its home the open road, as long as the shoulder is dotted with houses of the road and ill repute kind. On It's Not the Heat, It's the Humanity, PH's big, loud rawk is the kind made for a Miller Lite sign and a beer-covered stage, preferably one surrounded by hot chicks in halter tops. And these boys give 'em what they got, what they're begging for, with Jim Starace's forceful vox, Iann Robinson's all-over-the-kit rhythms and monstrously fat riffs courtesy the Diamond brothers, guitarist Josh and bassist Jason. "Witches Chasing Cars," "The Ox" and "Greasin' the Wheel" cut a mighty swath, showing little weakness and less mercy, while Starace tries to convince the assembled lovelies that "Even Now We Are Preparing to Love You." (Note to Starace: if you're trying to line the groupies up by the dressing room door, declaring you'd like to "Kill You in the Face" doesn't count as a come-on.) Celebrating the joy of "Bare Knuckle Love" and the heartache of "B.I.B.L.E." (AKA "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth"), Puny Human crushes its enemies and rocks its friends. "Devil's Riff," indeed. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Adam West, Atomic Bitchwax, Sixty Watt Shaman

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