Album Reviews

NECK
Here's Mud in Yer Eye!
(Hibernian)
Like his fellow travelers in Flogging Molly, Leeson O'Keeffe and his merry band take Pogues-style Celtic folk rock, add a few power chords and flog the shit out of it. At least for the most part—"McAlpine's Fusileers" and "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" certainly thrash the jig like pissed-up dervishes. But sweeter fair like "Suzie McGroovie" and the title track fold in the stereotypical Irish sentimental streak without dampening the band's scruffy spirit. "The Fields of Athenry" and "Topless Mary Poppins" combine Celtic lyricism with raging hard rock in a bid for what Thin Lizzy would have sounded like had it ever really exploited its roots. Very cool stuff. Michael Toland [buy it]

CLIVE PALMER
All Roads Lead to Land
(Communion)
Though a founding member of the Incredible String Band, Clive Palmer isn't nearly as well known as Mike Heron and Robin Williamson. (That's what happens when you quit after one record.) His participation in the recent ISB reunion jump-started his solo career, though, and All Roads Lead to Land is the result. Recorded mostly solo (though he's joined by his Famous Jug Bandmates on "O For Summer"), the disk has a living room feel, as if Palmer sat down in front of you with his banjo and pipes and started running through his repertoire. You get instrumentals ("Broken Dreams"), Middle Eastern drones ("Breizh"), a Gershwin cover ("Embraceable You") and a passel of laidback, soulful originals ("Paris," "Sands of Time," "Big City Blues"). All Roads Lead to Land is a reminder that sometimes all you need to get across is an instrument, a weathered voice and a set of timeless songs. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE PAYBACKS
Harder and Harder
(Get Hip)
I've always like the idea of Joan Jett more than the reality. Sure, she's cut some great sides, but is she really a great artist? Well… If it's the quintessential "tough rock chick" (and yes, I'm aware of the inherent sexism in the very concept) you're looking for, the Paybacks' Wendy Case is your (wo)man. Sure, she's an excellent rock & roll songsmith, an imaginative arranger (dig the pedal steel in the rippin' "Jumpy"), a savvy song picker (T. Rex covers always turn me on) and a leather-lunged singer. But on Harder and Harder she's also a great bandleader, knowing when to coax her Detroit-based combo into (relative) subtlety ("Can You Drive") or whip it into a frenzy ("Superider"). To put it more simply, they got good songs and they rock. Case embodies the "tough rock chick" ideal while transcending it completely—now that's art. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE PLATFORMS
Kicked Off
(Ankle Injury)
It's hard to pump new life into the twitching corpse of garage punk, but the lovely ladies in the Platforms do it easily. Credit this Austin-based foursome with a freewheeling glam sensibility, unbridled enthusiasm for its chosen idiom and, of course, tunes. The latter is what it's all about anyway, and with sweet chunks of libidinous hooks like "Walk of Shame," "Scorn" and, of course, "Bang Me," the Platforms make themselves inpossible to resist. "Sue's Blue Shoes," an insanely catchy ode to a friend's footware, is a bonus. Michael Toland

THE PRIESTS
Tall Tales
(Get Hip)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Nuggets-parroting garage rock thing has been done to slow, lingering death. Yet it endures, and why? Because of bands like the Priests. Not that the quartet is doing anything particularly unique in the idiom, though the frequent substitution of organ for bass at least gives them a distinctive rhythm feel. The Priests write strong tunes like the sleazy "Baby Doll," the limber "Wayward Waltz" and the crunching "More" and perform like they're wrestling the songs to the ground in order to give them sloppy hickeys. Then there's the epic monster "Take What You Bring," which stretches to ten minutes of burning intensity without becoming a soulless wankfest. Rock & roll, baby. Michael Toland [buy it]

THE SHINE
Pure Dynamite
(The Shine)
The Shine hails from Australia and kick out the sleazy glam rock jams like it was 1986 or 1974 or both. On its fourth EP Pure Dynamite, the band has more in common with groups like the Toilet Boys than, say, the Darkness, which tells me that there's some punk rock in these pretty boys' backgrounds. Which means they like leather better than, or at least as much as, eye shadow. Regardless, the quartet's melodies court pop accessibility while remaining lean and mean, and the songs never descend to the level of parody, unintentional or not. Now we know for sure that good-time butt-rockin' is back. Michael Toland

THE TRANSMISSIONARY SIX
Get Down
(FILMguerrero)
The name is symbolic, apparently, since the Transmissionary Six actually consists of only two people: Walkabouts drummer Terri Moeller and Willard Grant Conspiracy multi-instrumentalist Paul Austin. Moeller's soulful voice and the duo's warm, country-inflected arrangements lend the project a Southwestern vibe, which is pretty impressive a group from Seattle. Get Down ebbs and flows, leisurely moving its characters along a desert highway in search of a sunrise that won't illuminate the pain. "Happy Landings" and "Down For the Count" don't wallow in despair, exactly, but they do seem intent on finding the dark lining in a silver cloud. That Get Down is often luminously, almost painfully beautiful speaks to the bottomless pit of inspiration melancholia can be in the hands of folks as talented as the Transmissionary Six. Michael Toland [buy it]

STEVE TURNER AND HIS BAD IDEAS
Steve Turner and His Bad Ideas
(Roslyn)
In which Mudhoney guitarist and grunge pioneer Steve Turner reinvents himself as a 60s-style folk rocker with a Gram Parsons jones. And I do mean "reinvent"—the smirk that mars so much of his day job's work is absent here. Even when he's being deliberately funny, as in the lines "Let's talk about your ex-girlfriends/Why in the world are there so many of them?" from the Holly Golightly duet "A Beautiful Winter," it's out of wit rather than a secret contempt for the music. Straightforward tunes like "Dimebag Blues" and "Zero On the Scale" work quite well on their own merits, and Turner sings them like a world-weary troubadour. Even his version of "Greenback Dollar" is performed irony-free. It could all still be a put-on, of course, but I doubt Turner will cry if no one takes it that way. Michael Toland [buy it]

VICTORY AT SEA
Memories Fade
(Gern Blandsten)
Victory at Sea manages to be both beautiful and foreboding on its latest album Memories Fade. In the spirit of Nick Cave, Mona Elliott adds just enough grit and inner fury to keep the proceedings from sounding maudlin. Tunes like "Something Grand," "Games" and "Animals and the Weather" are mellifluous, minor-key mixtures of dreamy indie rock and haunted cabaret music, driven by darkly memorable melodies and the empathic interplay between Elliott's full-throated croon and Tato Hatanaka's mournful violin. Memories may fade, but this album will definitely linger gracefully in the synapses. Michael Toland [buy it]

YEAR FUTURE
"The Hidden Hand"
(Gold Standard Laboratories)
Year Future obviously reveres Killing Joke, as this three-song CD single revels in pounding tribal rhythms, grunge guitars and a shouting, hypercritical lead vocalist. That's not to say it's as good as KJ—if for no other reason than nobody can match Joke teller Jaz Coleman's venomous delivery—but it's nice to know there are noisemeisters out there who shout out to their roots. Michael Toland [buy it]