START THE YEAR WITH LOCAL TUNES: THE ACACIA, GUNS OF NAVARONE, HEY NOW MORRIS FADER AND JON SHORT

What can I tell ya’ about 2008? Let’s see. My predictions were correct (which I’m not happy about). Namely my prediction about less CDs being released by local (and New England) bands came true. From the peak year of 2004 when I reviewed 32 local CDs and eight by out-of-towners, the number has been subtly dropping three of four CDs every year to where I only reviewed 15 local CDs and another three from out of town this year. On the positive side they were, for the most part, very good. In 2008, band didn’t speak unless they had something to say. These four CDs were good examples. All four bands gave me CDs that I was psyched to hear, a great way to start the year I tell ya’. – Phil McNamara

THE ACACIA STRAIN – CONTINENT- PROSTHETIC RECORDS (Produced by Zeuss and The Acacia Strain; Engineered and Mixed by Zeuss at Planet Z Hadley, MA; Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, New Winsdor, NY)

As Second City TV’s Count Floyd used to say, “Scary stuff kids.” The Acacia Strain’s music and artwork portray anger, hatred, negativity, and nihilism. Checking out Paul Romano’s artwork, you’ll notice the cover painting of a child standing over a burning village where an airplane has crashed. Within the carnage one can make out a skeletal looking dinosaur vomiting in a river of flames. It’s grim stuff all right. Their music? It fits with the art just right. “Skynet busts open the album with a crushing groove and searing guitars as singer Vincent Bennett growls, “If you think like a whore then you’re a fucking whore.” No beating around the bush for Vincent.

Every song has this shock value as Bennett sticks to themes of disingenuousness, torture, and the hatred of all mankind. In “The Seaward” Bennett fantasizes about dragging an abusive father into an isolated dessert and having is way with him over spiraling guitars and double pedal blast beats. “Dr. Doom” is a brutally heavy tune about the grueling grind of touring the country crammed into a small van. In it, Bennett sings, “I’m not dressed to impress. I hope your ears bleed. I hope your skin crawls.”

In “Forget Me Now” Bennett rails against groupies who however around him for the name recognition. This part of the album gets a little disingenuous. I mean really, I suppose that they’re doing all right for a mid-level metal core band, but how many girls outside of their hometown even know the bands name? I mean hardcore and metal are pretty guy centric if you know what I mean. Perhaps that accounts for the blatant misogyny that’s so commonly accepted in this genera. “Cthulhu” changes the pace with a slower speed to match the same pointlessly misogynistic lyrics. Instead of being unique in its shock value, it gets old and clichéd pretty quickly. “Baby Buster” is one of the better tunes on the CD, crystallizing The Acacia Strain’s sound and outlook with nihilistic, fatalistic, humanity hating lyrics. Basically, Vincent Bennet hates people. If they didn’t exist, life would be easier. So, what are the grimmest lyrics in the song? Take your pick. Perhaps the opening lines, “I don’t sing fucking love songs because there’s nothing in this world for me to love,” or further up in the song when he adds, “I want the world to have my rape baby so that I can strangle it to death.”

By “Balboa Towers” we get the point that Vincent Bennett really hates women. At this point it’s just beating a dead horse, which incidentally if you’ve ever watched a dead horse get beaten goes from shocking to boring pretty quickly. By “JFC” (Jesus Christ with a made up middle name), the blast of noise, rage, and anger goes from invigorating to dumber than an extra-censored South Park episode. Leave it to the Acacia Strain to contemplate the annihilation of the whole human race while playing video games and getting a blow job. The terrorizing repetition of “The Combine” and slowing rushing melodic “The Bohemouth” are both worth hearing, but come a little too late to save the album. By the time the tunes show up it’s too late. I already hate this album. I’d explain why, but I feel I’ve already given this CD way too much space already.

(For more information visit http://www.prostheticrecords.com)

GUNS OF NAVARONE – THE EXCITING RHYTHMS OF … - SELF RELEASED (Produced by Guns of Navarone and Craig Welsch; Engineered and Mixed by Craig Welsch at Hillside Sound Brighton, MA; Mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering Cambridge, MA)

Get your dancing shoes on. The Guns have sent us another eight ska covers that you won’t be able to get out of your head. Pure ska fans will appreciate that The Guns of Navarone are not skacore, ska punk, or ska funk. Its old school full horn section early 60s sounding ska that brings to mind The Skatalites and Prince Buster. The opener tens to work as their live show opening theme song, a cover of The Skatalites, “Guns of Navarone.” The song brings out the full orchestration of the band. You can clearly hear all three horns, grooving keyboard, rolling bass, strummed guitars, and of course that one drop beat. It’s a great introduction to ska for anyone unfamiliar with it. The smooth flow and lush orchestration creates images of a large ballroom with formally clad folks waltzing. It’s a great mix of jazz orchestration and island calypso music. That’s what ska is, not sped up reggae as I mistakenly believed back when I was a kid. Things fly into high gear as a flanged out guitar introduces Toots and the Maytalls, “Monkey Man.” You can feel the room start to move and things speeding up to double time as a chorus of “Ay, yay, yahs kicks in and lead singer Bob Beaumont gets the party started. Go ahead and dance along with it at home. It’s quite a workout. Things slow down to close up, slow dance, waltz speed for “Zombie Jamboree” (a song credited to Lord Invader or Harry Belafonte depending on which encyclopedia you’re reading). It’s got the best sing along part of the disc with the chorus, “Back to back, belly to belly, I don’t give a damn. I done dead already”

“Love to You” follows with a dose of trippy psychedelic rub-a-dub reggae. The psychedelia mixes with regal sounding horns for a soothing effect. A faithful interpretation of Bob Marley’s “Simmer Down” follows. A blast of horns opens this spiritual cautionary trail. The Guns finish of the disc with The Specials “A Message to Rudy.” Beaumont starts it off with a simple harmonica solo, before the horns and skankin’ grooves kick in. This is probably the most faithful interpretation on the disc. Oddly enough, coming out of the late ‘70s The Specials are probably the most well known band covered on this disc, because even the most crusty of old school garage punks had a soft spot for The Specials. These six tunes are tons of fun and leave you waiting for more. Long live The Guns of Navarone.

(More information at http://www.myspace.com/navaronereggae)

HEY NOW MORRIS FADER – RIDE THE FADER – SELF RELEASED (Produced by John Taft and Hey Now Morris Fader; Engineered and Mixed by John Taft; Mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance Studio Cambridge, MA)

Hey now have I ever told you that I love these two guys to pieces, in a platonic way of course. Their 2007 debut, “Bang the Bass, Turn Up the Treble” brought me back to my Beach Boys / Beatles loving childhood with their hand clapping sing along sugar pop (during which incidentally along with Sugar Smacks I loved that cereal called Sugar Pops, later innocuously named Corn Pops). They were top 5 for the year. Actually, if you click here at http://wormtown.org/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=21155 you’ll find that they were tops for me. Not much beat the sing along pop of “Locked Away” and “All I Got” and the happy gloomy Ben Folds Five meets Robert Smith cynicism of novice and gone, actually no one did.

I’m pleased to report that much like the pitcher they named their band after, they have not suffered a sophomore slump. If anything, this album blows away previous expectations. It’s a perfect enough mix of give and take, happiness and cynicism to make it their own Led Zeppelin II or Black Sabbath “Paranoid.” (Sorry I couldn’t come up with a good pop metaphor, but most pop bands tank their second album).

Ride the Fader opens with sparse piano and vocals before kicking into the busy grooving breakup song “Vanishing.” Brooks Millgate is quite the storyteller who manages to come up with songs that everyone can relate to. They keep things real in “Airport Song” as they start out waking up in an airport lounge (I’ve actually done that myself). The calming music blends with pianist singer Brooks Millgate’s salty sweet lyrics, “I’ve crammed everything I own in a bag to drag around, I find myself a window and watch the planes as they touch down. I sit in a corner, bite my tongue and fake a smile. I’m trying hard to hide that I’ve been stuck here for a while. I guess that just being here must mean I’m on my way. I panic while I’m facing putting up with this delay. I say it’s OK, but it isn’t easy to believe, that’s it’s all laid out from A to B.”

Though for me that’s the lyrical high point of this album, it’s an album of many high points. “Etc., Etc.” has an Oasis like opening for a song about the classic battle between optimism and cynicism. Judging from the lyrics, “Everything has got to end, so here’s to my success or else my throwing in the towel, until I learn to get things right, misfortune always wins the fight,” guess who wins?

“Down in Front” sounds closest to the band that most people compare these guys to Ben Folds Five. For me it brings back early 80s band like Spandau Ballet and Simple Minds (in a good way of course). “Eddie in the Mirror” is one of my favorites on the disc. It describes a psychotic schizophrenic who up until now has done a good job of hiding just how sick he is. “Hypochondriac” has a nice jazzy beginning for a joyous pop song. I’d come up with a modern day reference, but for the most part it reminds me of The Beach Boys and John Sebastian. “Running in Place” has a great drum build up and some pretty cool harmonies. Add in the clever line, “In retrospect I probably never was ahead,” and the chorus of, “I’m going down, but who cares,” and you’ve got yourself a great song.

For the home stretch, “Talking to Myself” brings on a sad ballad that slips into a catchy upbeat Beatlesque tune that’s got a little accordion thrown in. The finale, “Punchline” is a classic relationship gone wrong tune with a bit of everything thrown in: arena rock like emotive crooning, backing Turtle like vocals, and a skronking sax. HNMF are a unique enough band that comparing them to any other band or this album to any other album doesn’t really work. How does this compare to their debut? Better? Worse? Different, sorry but that’s all I got. Which album would I rather hear? Depends on what mood I’m in. To be honest, this month I’ve been in a crappy post Holiday mood. This one fit that mood just right.

(More information at http://www.myspace.com/heynowmorrisfader)

JON SHORT – LIVE AT TERRA BLUES N.Y.C. – SELF RELEASED (Recorded live at Terra Blues Manhattan, NY)

Hallelujah, I hear the blues and I actually like them. A pretentious band manager once told me that they thought that all reviewers should state all of their biases when they write a review. That of course is bullshit. No reviewer does that evuh. That being said, I gotta tell ya’ that when I got back to the Worm from UMass/Amherst I stopped by Gilreins (you know, the home of the blues) because I liked what I knew as the blues. Unfortunately, most of the band that I saw were blues rock bands doing half assed covers of “Mustang Sally” and “Messing with the Kid,” which kind of turned me off to the whole Worcester blues scene or the Worcester blues mafia as it became known. I didn’t really bother with the blues for another 15 years until (in between his rockabilly and surf rock) Jason James and this guy got me turned back on to them.

That said, the two most obvious observations that I have about “Live at Terra Blues” are: 1. You don’t hear any clapping after Jon’s done playing a song, so you can’t really tell that it’s live and 2. Considering that it’s just Jon’s voice and guitar, he could have recorded it anywhere. So, everything you just read…toss aside. I really like this CD. It’s the perfect end of the night, contemplating the day gone by and the one to come kind of disc. I’m sure I’ll get lots of mileage out of it for years to come.

“Live at Terra Blues” opens with a simple bumping, shuffling, acoustic blues guitar riff that builds up the spiritual, “One Kind of Favor.” In it John talks to God before he dies in an emotive croon that I’d like to say reminds me of a Mississippi Delta guy, but to be honest I hear a lot of Van Morrison in his voice. Though he’s most definitely playing Mississippi Delta blues on his guitar, his voice through “Bad Luck Blues” has that blue eyed soul. “By “Depot Blues” he relaxes, settles into a down home country blues voice, and gets himself comfortable for the next 40 minutes.

He’s in his groove by the time he’s rolling on the story telling “Depot Blues.” “Turn your Money Green” tells the cautionary tale of a crooked snake oil salesman like preacher. The slow strumming of “Me and the Devil” introduces a Jimi Hendrix “Brick House” sounding riff (the blues song, not the funky Commodores tune). The high tones finger picking of “M&O Blues” strolls in before the slide guitar of “Barefoot Blues” takes over. This funtime tune has one of the best lines on the disc as Short sings, “You’re a long ways travelin’ baby, long, long way from your home. I’m out here drinkin’ my whiskey, how are you getting home?”

The mood goes from glad to sad with “One Dime Blues.” Though it’s an upbeat sing along, it’s a song about being broke. “Hamhound Crave” kicks off my favorite part of the album as the next four songs are tops. On “Hamhound Crave” he turns down all sorts of good food for his beloved hambone. “Miss Maybelle” is one of the catchiest sing along tunes with quick shuffle beginning and long enunciated chorus. The laid back strolling “Michigan Water” follows. For the home stretch, Short pulls out the joyous handclapping sing along “Queen Bee.” He stretches out his voice with some high and low sounding vocals and a soulful loving chorus. The strummed spiritual, “It’ll be Me” brings the album home. (More information at http://www.jonshort.com)

Coming in late Feburary – Reviews of new CDs from Ask the Ice, Holly Hanson, The Macrotones and Miars

(If you or your band has a new album, or EP or is about to release one, write to me at spaceguy3@charter.net and let me know how to get a hold of it. Rock On – Phil McNamara)