[kj] Dinosaur Jr!

[Darth E. Vader]

Today I bought a new Helmet album with a cover of
REQUIEM

12.4 A promo copy of the new Dinosaur Jr album which
at least one person I know  downloaded illegally off
the internet months ago, arrived in the post. Official
release date for people who still like to buy records
and support the artists who make them is April 30th.
This might well knock Kristin Hersh off the top of my
ever expanding pile of albums released this year. The
first track is so good I had to hear it twice before I
listened to the album and that lyrical guitar is one
good reason to melt my speakers again after the recent
live Killing Joke disc set fire to one ol' cone! This
is one band who sound like they really did have
unfinished business and realised exactly what made
their first three albums so great. The post-Bug ones
really missed Lou Barlow's four string thrash, and
unlike some of the later Dinosaur Jr albums this
doesn't sound too polished. I heard that Lou Barlow
has also reformed the original Sebadoh, but the press
release for the expanded reissue of 'The Freed Man'
(an album I originally bought for just £1 in Probe
Records, Liverpool) doesn't mention that. 

Well, the Dinosaur Jr album made it from afternoon to
past midnight on constant repeat which I'm guessing is
about a dozen consecutive spins and that's the first
album this year that has done that. Lou Barlow's two
songs are certainly amongst the best he's ever
written, and J. Mascis has at long last made an album
as great as the mighty Bug. This is close to the
brilliance of You're Living All Over Me as it'd be
feasible for them to have made.

Makes me think Black Flag and Husker Du ought to get
on the reformation bandwagon before they get too old!
And whatever happened to the Butthole Surfers?

www.dinosaurjr.com

www.myspace.com/dinosaurjr

11.4 I went out to see ol' Wiltshire punk rabble
Subhumans who were if anything even more fun than last
time in Liverpool. Bought their live CD which is
excellent, but an apathetic public couldn't care less.

I ought to mention the new Young Gods album as a lot
of Killing Joke fans are into them, and whilst I only
have two other albums of theirs, I expect fans will
like this one. Alan Vega's new album on Blast First is
also very good if you like a bit of gay disco with a
dirty old man ranting about armageddon over the top.
I've listened to an almost John Peel level of new
music releases recently, and its only the tip of the
iceberg. 

Some of the albums I've enjoyed so far this year are:

Melt Banana - Bambi's Dilemma
Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
Kristin Hersh - Learn to Sing Like A Star
   www.throwingmusic.com
Killing Joke - Inside Extremities
The Scientists - Sedition (awesome live set)
Nina Nastasia and Jim White - You Follow Me
Low - Drums and Guns
Grinderman
  www.myspace.com/grinderman
Rosy Parlane - Jessamine (guitar drone heaven)
Read Yellow - Gang Violins
   www.readyellow.com
RTX - Western Xterminator
   www.myspace.com/rtx
   www.truxrox.com
Githead - Art Pop (a perfectly titled album)
   www.githead.com
Alan Vega - Station
Mighty Roars - Swine and Cockerel (like Yeah Yeah
Yeahs if they'd pumped up the punk instead of watering
down for their second album)
The Stooges - The Weirdness (great sound, shame about
the pitiful lyrics)
Alessandro Stefana - Poste E Telegrafi (guitar twang
beauty)
   www.alessandrostefana.com
Hanne Hukkelberg - Rykestrasse 68
Arve Henriksen - Strjon (experimental ambient jazz)
Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden
Michael Gira - Songs for a Dog 
Frank Black - Christmass
Grabba Grabba Tape - Kurt Kobaya (Spanish crazies in
fuzzy suits who recently rocked Manchester for Satan)
Ghost - In Stormy Nights
Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow
Jesu - Conqueror
Jana Hunter - There's No Home
Young Gods - Super Ready / Fragmente
John Convertino - Ragland

and a few singles:

Lone Lady - Army
  www.myspace.com/hiholonelady
Mugstar - Bethany Heart Star
   www.myspace.com/mugstar
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Strange Form of Life
Flamingo 50 / J-Church split
   www.flamingo50.co.uk

OXES!
and an extra special mention for Oxes EP on Monitor
Records, which with only five tracks for nine quid was
a little bit expensive, but the wide grooves on the
vinyl pressing make the drums sound like they're going
to demolish the building when you crank it up high!

And one more thing:
The Fall (or A Fall as I prefer to call them these
days) have finally begun to suck. I've liked every
other Fall album, even Are You Are Missing Winner had
Crop Dust to redeem it, but the best thing about
Reformation is the manic cackle that opens it. After
that its downhill all the way, although the first
three tracks are probably the best. I never thought
the day would come when MES wrote boring lyrics! Seems
about time for some new blood to take the stage...

********

Cracked Machine irregular cyberzine
http://www.webinfo.co.uk/crackedmachine

Look at grafitti scrawled on the wall:
Dubya can't catch family friend Bin Liner...
But what the HELL?
They talk to God!


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