Three 65, Day 50
Nirvana, In Utero

I've reached Day 50, and cannot believe I've gone 49 full days without once covering a Nirvana album. Granted, they don't have the largest discography in history - they're no Grateful Dead - but they are one of the most important bands in history.

The metalheads all love Bleach, and everyone loves Nevermind; no one but a weirdo would state that Incesticide is their favorite Nirvana record. But it takes a true punk to prefer In Utero over anything else in the band's recorded output. For me, this album - the last one the band put out, before vocalist/guitarist Kurt Cobain screwed the pooch and blew his brains out - is the epitome of Nirvana-ness, the ultimate sound the band wanted to produce.

Atonal and dissonant, intentionally abrasive, In Utero is Nirvana at their snarly best. Take a look at the first line on the album: "Teenage angst has paid off well / now I'm bored and old." Unlike other bands who only played at discomfort (namely Pearl Jam), Nirvana was genuinely shocked at their success, and a little more than off-put by it, too. So they responded to their newly found fame by putting out the rawest, angriest album possible.

In Utero has no accessible "in," other than maybe "All Apologies" (and even that ends with feedback); it's all sharp edges. And even with that intentional fuck-you posture, it still comes off as a pure pop-rock album. Take "Rape Me," for example, which caused such a consternation with big chain retailers: a song with such a violent subject comes off as a total anthem, a document of vulnerability so poignant it could only have come from Cobain.

I'll be honest. I prefer the difficult stuff to the easy stuff, any day of the week. But Nirvana sugarcoats its jagged little pills so well, it's hard to tell the difference here.

Three 65, Day 49
Big Black, Songs About Fucking

All the great, great music you love, the Nirvanas, the Tools, the Ministrys, the Nine Inch Nails... all of them have at least one of their roots traced back to Big Black. Steve Albini's band of pranksters from Illinois were the first at marrying electronics to sheer guitar angst, and some would say they were the best.

The central conceit behind Big Black is simple: thrash out on guitar, set the drum machine to maximum, sing about whatever makes the audience uncomfortable, and fuck all the rest, including production values. That Albini ever became the go-to production guy for a generation of alternanerds looking to get street cred for their debut is one of the biggest jokes in rock music. The guy turns on a microphone and leaves the room; simple as that. Fuck Pro Tools, fuck processed sounds, fuck polish: Just record it, slap a sticker on it, and sell it.

Fucking was Big Black's last album - they knew it at the time, the audience knew it at the time, and Albini was determined to go out with a bang (pun most definitely intended). "Bad Penny" is the ultimate synthesis of Black's sound, the final snarl: "I think I fucked your girlfriend last night / Then I fucked all your friends' girlfriends / Now they hate you." The song topics here are about murder, debauchery, sex and death, the ultimate pigfuck anthems for a group of Midwestern teens to disaffected to care about much of anything. It's no accident that of all the bands to cover Kraftwerk, Big Black were the only ones able to inject pure hatred and evil into it (see "The Model").

The album ends with "Bombastic Intro," thirty or so seconds of pulsing drum machine and screaming guitar. That they ended their career with an intro is an insight into Albini's modus operandi: be contrary, and confound at all costs. One can now find Albini fronting Shellac, and doing things like playing bowling alleys at 10 am on January 1st. Fuck you? No, fuck you.

Three 65, Day 48
Rollins Band, The End Of Silence

I first got into Rollins Band shortly after high school; I thought, based on the title of the song "Blues Jam" and Rollins' poetry, that he was going to be some kind of grizzled, laid-back jazz/blues dude a la Tom Waits. God, how wrong was I.

Henry Rollins (or just Rollins, as he prefers) was the frontman for the influential punk band Black Flag. When that band imploded, he formed Rollins Band, a hard rock / funk metal collective that carried the "Rollins message" to the four corners of the universe.

"Low Self Opinion," the first song, hit me like a ton of bricks, because after high school, I had no esteem for myself - at all. "If you could see the you that I see / when I see you seeing me / you'd see yourself so differently / believe me" is the ultimate line; I nearly broke down crying when I understood it. Because there were people in my life that felt that way, I just had to find them. Corny as it sounds, the first song on Silence was the beginning of the end for the high school bullies that sought to keep me under foot.

Rollins also tackles relationships on songs like "Grip" and "You Didn't Need." But the real meat of the album comes towards the second half, when the songs slow down, get all groany and feedbacky, and it becomes a grind of pain and loss: "Obscene," "Just Like You" (about Rollins' relationship with his much-hated father), and the aforementioned "Blues Jam" (anything but).

True, Rollins' lyrics are a bit hokey, and the music is a bit same-y over the course of the album. But if you're going to have just one album by Rollins Band, forget something like Weight, which was successful only thanks to the videos, and pick up End Of Silence.

Three 65, Day 47
Stone Temple Pilots, No. 4

A lot of people don't like Stone Temple Pilots (henceforth referred to as STP for the sake of my carpal tunnel syndrome), and that's okay by me. I get it. I mean, they started off as a cash-grab - Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains were all original bands, and STP raped their sound for everything it was worth on their debut album, Core.

But a strange thing happened over the next few albums: the outer STP, the grunge-clone, stripped itself away - molted - and a real, honest-to-goodness band emerged. The fully formed STP explored its softer side on their second album, Purple, and found melody with their third album, Tiny Music. But it was their fourth album (rather anticlimactically named No. 4) where everything came together.

Sure, the first three tracks bring the hard rock goods - "Down" is one of the heaviest songs they've ever recorded - but I want to talk about the pop. "Church On Tuesday" closes with vocalist Scott Weiland singing "na na na na," which is... weird for a band as overtly hard rock as STP. "Sour Girl" takes things even farther, with a psychedelic pop sound that, minus the studio polish, could have made it to college radio in the late 80s. Elsewhere, "No Way Out" is a mix of both styles - heavy on the verses, atmospheric and psychedelic on the choruses. And "Atlanta," the closing ballad, sounds almost exactly like The Doors - no mean feat for a band that started out aping the Seattle sound.

Three 65, Day 46
The Flaming Lips, The Dark Side Of The Moon

Being a huge Pink Floyd fan, and a huge Flaming Lips fan, I was all over this shit the day it came out. The two seem like perfect companions; after all, the Flaming Lips are practically a latter-day Floyd, minus the internecine tensions.

Too bad that it's ultimately disappointing. Certain substitutions work: the wailing klaxons and coughing that replace the clocks at the beginning of "Time," the spoons that are substituted for the cash register at the beginning of "Money," etc. These are all nice little touches, but when it comes to soul, when it comes to depth, the album ultimately fails.

Take the vocals on "The Great Gig In The Sky," for instance. Peaches is an interesting choice, but as a substitute for Clare Torry, she just doesn't cut it. Her shrieks sound like an animal in pain, instead of a woman in ecstasy, and it just doesn't work. The same goes for the substitution of all the male voices interviewed on the original album with Henry Rollins - sure, he's saying the same thing, but he comes off as gruff and confrontational instead of affable and warm.

Pretty much everything on this record plays out this way. Sounds good, don't get me wrong, but this is tough stuff the Lips are tackling, and they're just too out there to handle the more grounded elements of Pink Floyd's sound.

Three 65, Day 45
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew

I wanted to write a lot about this album, but unfortunately don't have the time. Which is just as well, because I don't really have the vocabulary to describe it perfectly. I'm not one of those jazz-bo nerds who will tell you about "tonal modalities" and "arpeggiation." I just know what I like, and I love this album.

This is nearly the first in a long round of "jazz-rock fusion" albums that Davis and the jazz community produced in the 1970s (if not the actual first). The musicians sought to unleash the chaos of jazz over the chaos of rock and roll and perhaps merge the two. It works better than you might think. Although nothing here "rocks out," per se, all of it sounds a lot more energetic than regular jazz. And it sounds dark, too, in a way jazz never really sounded before, dark and haunting. Horns pierce the gloom of dark keyboard and percussion runs, sounding like whales dying in a sea of ink.

Davis would release other jazz-rock fusion albums, including the excellent In A Silent Way and The Complete Jack Johnson, but none of them hold a candle to this milestone. Not just another jazz album, Bitches Brew is an iconic display of talent from one of the greatest musicians of all time, and thus defies categorization as either jazz or rock.

Three 65, Day 44
Sleigh Bells, Treats

Sleigh Bells slay, simple as that. They sound like what would happen if the Powerpuff Girls smoked angel dust and were unleashed on Ministry's battery of studio sound effects.

Treats is their first and only LP, and boy, is it a doozy. Their basic sound involves a lot of distortion, furious guitars, clattery percussion, and the vocals of Alexis Krauss, who sounds like a vapid teenage bombshell in the mold of, oh, say, Lindsay Lohan?

That's okay, though - it's kind of the point. The dichotomy produced by the vocals and music is sharp enough to make your ears bleed. "Tell 'Em" blasts off like a jet fighter; "Rill Rill" rides a wave of victorious synths into a sea of vapid vocals. And "Straight A's" is just psychotic, as Krauss screams what sounds like "Ain't got sleep / I got straight A's!"

The album closes with the title track, which M.I.A., who first "found" Sleigh Bells, used as a basis for her song "Meds And Feds." Here, the drums just pound like sledgehammers, proving this band to be a two-person wrecking crew. Although a little more maturity could go a long way in this group's hands, the fact that Sleigh Bells don't take themselves very seriously - and sound great doing it - is a blast of fresh air in a cloud of over-indulgent hipsters.

Three 65, Day 43
The Streets, A Grand Don't Come For Free

Mike Skinner is The Streets, a UK hip-hop/electronic artist (the press calls it "grime"; whatever). His first album, Original Pirate Material, is often considered to be his best, an untouchable pinnacle of early 21st century music. I beg to disagree: today's album, A Grand Don't Come For Free, is the real winner.

Why? Well, for one thing, Skinner has some focus here: He's not just ruminating on abstract topics. Cast as a kind of modern-day Ulysses, Grand is a concept album about a day (or two) in the life of a disaffected British street youth, circa 2004.

It starts with "It Was Supposed To Be So Easy," which spells out Skinner's basic MO in a few lines: "If I wanted to end up with more now / I should have just stayed in bed like I know how." Hilariously, Skinner sets out a couple of basic tasks - get money from the ATM, return a DVD, call his mum - and fails to accomplish any of them.

Then there's "Could Well Be In" (boy meets girl), "Not Addicted" (gambling woes), "Blinded By The Lights" (drug woes), and "Get Out Of My House" (boy loses girl). Eventually, he comes to a kind of acceptance of his life, simultaneously finding a thousand pounds he thought he'd lost in the back of a TV set.

The production on these tracks is sprightly and engaging, mostly variations on techno and hip-hop that suit the lyrical delivery well. As always, Skinner remains a brilliant frontman, self-effacing and boastful at the same time. Unfortunately, this would be the last good Streets album: Skinner released three more records before calling it quits, and they all suck in profoundly different ways.

Three 65, Day 42
Dinosaur Jr, Where You Been

On Day 34, I discussed how my mother took me to a record store called Purple Haze and more or less changed my life by allowing me to pick out three tapes at random. (Tapes... remember them? But I digress.) One of those tapes was this album, Dinosaur Jr's Where You Been.

I had no idea who Dinosaur Jr was, other than that they'd be playing the third Lollapalooza (which, come hell or high water, I was going to), they had a cool name, and the cover looked cool. I ended up listening to the album the next day on a ride into New York City for a school trip, and I was just fucking mesmerized.

No discussion of Dinosaur Jr is complete without mentioning Neil Young; the band, fronted by guitarist/vocalist J Mascis, sounds like Young on serious steroids. Total feedback guitar; folk-rock noodling; whiny vocals... everything. On opening cut "Out There," you can practically smell Young's road-dirt showering off the band as they tear through power chord after power chord.

"Start Choppin," the first single, continues in the aforementioned folk-rock vein. Other highlights include the fierce "What Else Is New" (a 9-minute live version accompanies the album's remastered version as a bonus track, proving that Dinosaur Jr are one of those live bands) and the sad "Not The Same," one of the first songs to make me cry. You got a problem with that?

Three 65, Day 41
Salem, King Night

Salem's sound is difficult to characterize; they're not goth, they're not techno, and although there is sometimes rapping, they're definitely not hip-hop. The music press has also had trouble with this slippery trio, resorting to retarded terms like "witch house" and "drag." (They've also been called "rape gaze," a play on "shoegaze," which pisses a lot of people off. Don't get me started on how stupid each party's position is.)

King Night is their first record, and it's a doozy - a dark doozy. Most of their music is made with keyboards and electronic sound effects - not much guitar here - with ethereal whispering or guttural rapping floating over the background noise. "Asia" features pounding synths and heavy feedback over wordless cooing; the title track sounds like Trans-Siberian Orchestra (you know, "O Holy Night"?) blended with the sounds of a World War II battlefield. "Frost" effectively lives up to its namesake by sounding cold and bleak, and "Sick" features the aforementioned rapping in a slowed down, distorted voice.

"Killer" closes the album with an intense guitar workout; the instruments sound so processed, so far removed from their original intention, that the music is utterly alien. All of this is said in a good way, though. Salem send shivers down your spine, in the best possible way.

Three 65, Day 40
Queen, A Night At The Opera

Like many people my age, I first started listening to Queen after Wayne's World blew the lid off "Bohemian Rhapsody." (I remember my high school teachers at the time, who grew up with Queen, shaking their heads in disbelief at all the kids chanting "Scaramouche, scaramouche, can you do the fandango?" and saying "Not again.")

But Queen is a lot more than just that one song, as their finest album, A Night At The Opera, shows. They effectively straddle several different genres at once, from pop ("You're My Best Friend") to prog ("The Prophet's Song") to vaudeville ("Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon") to hard rock ("Death On Two Legs," dedicated to the band's former manager).

The best things about A Night At The Opera are the tracks that didn't necessarily become big hits, like "'39," which is a sci-fi folk song about growing old in outer space, and the aforementioned "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon," which is so old fashioned sounding, it was practically recorded in sepia. There's the multi-tracking on "The Prophet's Song," so many light years ahead of its time, and the instrumental closing track, "God Save The Queen" (not the Sex Pistols version).

There are two very significant members of Queen: Brian May and Freddie Mercury. (The other two members are, you know, like the number zero in higher mathematics: placeholders.) May played guitar and sang, and Mercury sang like his heart was on fire; he was perhaps one of the finest vocalists of all time. If he were still alive, and hadn't tragically passed away from AIDS, not only would this band still be touring, they'd be making aging hipsters like the Rolling Stones look like fools.

Three 65, Day 39
Tool, 10,000 Days

Less an album than a really big EP, 10,000 Days is a tribute to vocalist Maynard James Keenan's mother (among other things), who spent that time confined to a wheelchair due to paralysis. A touching tribute, this album could have been the best in Tool's catalog - it certainly contains some of their best material - but ultimately suffers from too much padding.

Tool have never been ones to shy away from throwing more skits on each album than a rap record has. And they're usually not skits, they're haunting musical interludes filled with buzzing sound effects. Unfortunately, this album depends on them far too much. "Lipan Conjuring," "Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)," and "Viginti Tres" are all forgettable tracks in this vein, whereas "Intension" is too quiet to do anybody - let alone a Tool fan - any good.

All of this would be forgivable if Tool released more than an album per decade. Also ultimately forgivable is the choice of first single, "Vicarious," which is a fair-to-middling track as far as Tool fare goes. Sure, it's got the requisite screaming guitar, shuddering bass, polyrhythmic drumming, and drill sergeant vocals - it's got a little bit too much of all of those ingredients, in fact, making it more of a Tool-by-the-numbers song than anything else.

Things get more interesting with the second track, the absolutely crushing "Jambi," and the third and fourth tracks (which go together), "Wings For Marie" and "10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2)." These last two, while occasionally too subdued for their own good, show a tender, softer side to Tool that most have heretofore only assumed existed.

Also of note is "The Pot," with its double entendres and witty lyrics, and the scream-of-consciousness rant "Rosetta Stoned," which shows that Tool learned a thing or two from having Mike Patton open for them on their previous tour. Unfortunately, the last actual "song" on the album, "Right In Two," while good, does not close the album on a strong note, resulting in a record that peters out. This is a first for Tool, and hopefully the last time we have to contend with such an outcome.

Three 65, Day 38
My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade

A lot of people react strongly when presented with My Chemical Romance; it's almost like walking up to someone with a big, cheese-eating grin and a handful of dogshit in your hand. Before The Black Parade (and ever since, come to think of it) that's how I reacted, as well.

Don't get me wrong: My Chemical Romance is not, by any definition, a very good band. They are a rather boring band with one very good album. Said album is basically a flash in the pan, a fluke; it's a derivative statement whose only originality is in taking the exact right amounts of previous masterpieces and blending them together into an equally original whole.

What pieces? Well, the bombast of Pink Floyd's The Wall, for one; the theatricality of Queen's A Night At The Opera; the melodrama of Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie; and the punchy fuck-you-ness of Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar. A concept album about a dying young man riddled with cancer, Parade is emo at its finest, starting with the grand guignol dance number of "The End." which bleeds right into "Dead!" It sounds like musical theater as imagined by a bunch of 19-year-olds in black lipstick.

"The Sharpest Lives" is intense in its loathing, just as "Welcome To The Black Parade" is painfully poignant in its memories of a childhood lost. Then there's "Teenagers," wherein vocalist/lyricist Gerard Way admits to being terrified of his fanbase; and of course, who could forget "Mama," with its appearance of Liza Minnelli (which, by the way, actually works)?

Unfortunately, everything else in MCR's catalog is ultimately forgettable; their ability to craft this album must have come from some kind of Faustian pact with the devil. Which is disappointing, but not ultimately a surprise. My Chemical Romance are, after all, at heart an emo band, and if there's one genre that will never get its head out of its own ass (aside from reggaeton - and Latin music in general), it's emo.

Three 65, Day 37
Weezer, Pinkerton

It's hard for kids today to imagine, but Weezer was once a band with limitless potential. I saw them open for Live with my little sister, before anyone knew who they were, and fuck if they didn't blow the headliners off the stage from the minute they hit their power chords.

Of course, we all know what happened: Frontman and musical head honcho Rivers Cuomo went to Harvard, finished his degree, and became an utter fuckwad. Their last two albums, the corporate buy-out Hurley and undercooked rarities collection Death To False Metal, were so bad I went out of my way to review them - to death. Their last good album, Raditude, actually only has four good songs, and even those are pretty cringe-inducing.

But Pinkerton... now, there's an album everyone can get behind. Weezer's second record, the album was virtually ignored upon its release because it didn't sound exactly like the poppy power-metal of the debut. What it sounded like was a poppy angst-fest, which is exactly what it is.

Take a look at some of the sentiments on display: There's "Tired Of Sex," which is about exactly what it sounds like, and of course, "Why Bother?," which is about not giving a crap for fear of pain and rejection. Cuomo veers back and forth from these feelings with songs like "Getchoo," about obtaining the love of his life, and the poignant "Across The Sea," which is an ode to a girl in Japan who loves the band but can never be close to Cuomo because of, well, the sea.

The whole thing is supposedly a riff on the Puccini opera Madama Butterfly, with the record itself named after one of its characters. I don't know much about opera, but I know what I like, and what I like is this great dichotomy Pinkerton has between abrasiveness and poppiness. Just when something sounds too harsh, the melody kicks in. Weezer never sounded like this again; they never even tried.

Three 65, Day 36
Dr. Octagon, Dr. Octagonecologyst

Dr. Octagon is a freaky, homicidal gynecologist from the year 3000. Or he's rapper Kool Keith under one of his many aliases. Take your pick.

Kool Keith is a polarizing figure - either you can take his brand of horrorcore hip-hop, or you can't. Some people dismiss him as a near novelty, a sort of non-schizophrenic Wesley Willis, but he's more than that. A former member of seminal NYC rap group Ultramagnetic MCs (and, to hear him tell it, patient at Bellevue Hospital - haven't we all been there?), Keith was a huge figure in underground rap, but he didn't really make big waves until the debut of this album, under his Dr. Octagon moniker.

Which makes a certain amount of sense - Keith isn't the only genius on display here. The beats and background music are provided by Dan the Automator (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Deltron 3030, etc.), who incorporates everything from funk to classical music in his kitchen sink approach to hip-hop.

Lyrically, Keith is all over the place. He's truly one of the most scatological people in music today. Numerous samples from various pornographic films pop up (the "Intro" is just Christy Canyon getting fucked), "I Got To Tell You" finds Keith offering "rectal rebuilding" and "relocated saliva glands," and the skits are hysterical - a rarity for a rap album, whose skits are usually little more than fodder meant to pad out an insubstantial release. And Keith's flow is just amazing. He makes it sound easy, when in fact he's dripping rhymes smooth as butter.

Now out of print, for the most part, Dr. Octagon's album remains a highpoint in the careers of both Kool Keith and Dan the Automator. They never worked together again, and Kool Keith, wary of the success his new alias brought him, quickly distanced himself from the material, deigning only to perform a few tracks at his live shows as time went on. More's the pity.

Three 65, Day 35
Grinderman, Grinderman 2

Until Grinderman debuted their lineup in 2007, frontman Nick Cave was kind of in a rut. A lot of people will be shocked to hear me say this; "Nick Cave is one of the most adventurous musicians in history!" they'd say. Yeah, he is, but for years, he did one thing (and one thing very, very well): goth crooning. He was a poet of the darkness and a lover of all shit grim and gory, but it wasn't until 2007 and the advent of Grinderman that he really, you know, rawked.

Grinderman is really just a couple of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds under a different name, with a different purpose: the complete and total shaking of your boo-tay. And even with this unholy agenda, the first album didn't totally rock out; it wasn't until the second album, Grinderman 2 (how's that for original), that things really took off.

"Heathen Child," the lead single, bubbles and fumes with furious energy before finally blowing it during the choruses, with the band's buzzsaw guitars and cheapo percussion providing the backing for Cave's furious preacher-on-acid ranting. "Evil" thrashes and moans and sounds just like its title. "What I Know" is a quieter number, but the "quiet" is so fraught with noise, it could almost be a restrained Einsturzende Neubauten song. And not enough good things can be said about "Bellringer Blues," a loopy, psychedelic raga that aims straight for the heart of nausea. The Beatles never sounded like this, kids.

Where Cave goes from here is anybody's guess. Personally, I hope he keeps Grinderman going at a steady pace, and puts the Bad Seeds on the back burner for now. He sounds a lot better angry than he does mopey.

Three 65, Day 34
Primus, Pork Soda

When I first started getting into music in a big way, my mother took me to a record store called Purple Haze (which is now long gone, unfortunately) in New York and bade me pick out three tapes to take home. I chose albums based on cover art, and came away with Dinosaur Jr's Where You Been, Porno For Pyros' self-titled debut, and this album. I still love Where You Been... Porno For Pyros not so much... but Pork Soda has stuck with me for almost 18 years.

Primus is a power trio, emphasis on the word "power." Their music defies categorization, such that when I stick these songs into my computer to bring them up in iTunes, the "genre" category is always something wonky: "thrashfunk," "admiral WHO?" and "Just Primus" have all appeared, non-sequitur like, on the screen. The best description I've heard is "Rush on crack," and that about does it. The bass playing, courtesy of vocalist/bassist Les Claypool, is simply phenomenal, and drives the songs. The drums try to keep up, and the guitarist spits off lead after lead of silly noises in an attempt to accentuate what the rhythm section is doing.

Pork Soda was a huge hit for Primus, as they were coming off of the immensely popular Sailing The Seas Of Cheese and headlining Lollapalooza that year. It's also, I think, their strongest album overall. First single "My Name Is Mud" is a grimy look at hillbilly lifestyle, complete with slap bass and echoing percussion. "Bob" is a suicide lament, which I would have thought an unlikely topic for a Primus song until I actually heard it. "Nature Boy" nearly one-ups the Residents at their own game, and "Mr. Krinkle" shows that Claypool knows his upright bass as well as his standard.

But the standout has got to be the instrumental "Hamburger Train," which sounds like it could have been used to score the closing mine-car race from Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom. Propulsive doesn't begin to describe the musicianship at play here. And it's not just wankery - the band does what it does accessibly, giving the newcomer a chance to appreciate all there is to appreciate.

Primus had more good albums in them - some would argue The Brown Album isn't very good, Claypool among them, I disagree - and a lot of off-again on-again hiatuses to contend with as the years went on. A new album is due in a few months, and it's anyone's guess as to what they will have up their sleeves this time.

Three 65, Day 33
Reverend Horton Heat, Liquor In The Front

Forget Dick Dale; the true surf guitar psycho is the Reverend Horton Heat. Some call it punk and some call it rockabilly, but I like the term that the Reverend coined himself: psychobilly.

Liquor stands out from the other Reverend Horton Heat albums not by virtue of its songwriting or musicianship, but its production. The band brought in Al Jourgensen, of Ministry (see Day 6), to help with the overall sound. The result is like a cold steel pipe to the teeth, followed by a quick shot of moonshine - refreshing!

The songs are louder, the attitude is snarlier, and everything is, overall, fiercer than the two Horton Heat albums that preceded this. The picture of the band on the back cover, with Heat in a jester's cap and AC/DC shirt screaming at the camera, should tell you all you need to know about this album, but in case it doesn't, here's a rundown of some of the highlights.

"Big Sky" opens things with a country-tinged instrumental so dry you can smell the desert in between the guitar notes. "One Time For Me" is a love song... if you love watching your girl masturbate. "Yeah, Right" is absolutely furious in its loathing and hatred. The band slows down for the melodic "In Your Wildest Dreams" and "I Could Get Used To It," and the whole thing closes with burps and farts over a piano-led cover of "The Entertainer."

I saw the Reverend play several times back in the day; besides polishing off a bottle of Jack's at every performance, the bassist's upright also doubles as a mosh pit surfboard when the mood hits him. It's this kind of abandon that propels the music on this album, and lifts it above the usual psychobilly flavor that the band is capable of producing.

Three 65, Day 32
Liturgy, Aesthethica

(Side note: I haven't been posting religiously this week, partly because I'm sidelined by a bad cold and partly because Blogger.com can't be bothered to get their shit together. Hang tight, kiddies - Chin Slinky is back with a vengeance.)

I overheard this album a few days ago while shopping at my favorite record store, and bought it nearly sight unseen based on maybe 3.5 minutes of hearing one of the tracks. It's just that kind of album.

Liturgy has been labeled "hipster black metal" by the press, which is kind of funny. They are certainly a metal band - riffing, blastbeat drumming, and howled vocals abound - but their approach is incredibly off-beat. Abandoning almost all of the tropes of modern metal, Liturgy have chosen to instead ally themselves with the Brooklyn crowd, performing without make-up in jeans and t-shirts and signing to indie stalwart label Thrill Jockey for this release. If you know anything about Thrill Jockey, you know the number of metal bands they had on their roster before Liturgy showed up was a whopping zero.

All of that having been said, how is the music? Exhilarating. It boils down to a simple equation: (black metal) x (math rock) = good good times. The band plays like their hearts are in their mouths, which is a requirement for this kind of music; the sheer energy on display blows your hair nearly off your head.

Don't be confused by song titles like "Sun Of Light" and "Helix Skull" and "Veins Of God." Don't be confused by a lyric sheet that focuses on mindless metal anti-Catholic posturing (you can't understand the lyrics when sung anyway; it's all just psychotic howling). This is experimental rock, plain and simple. When the band digs into "Generation" for 7+ minutes of the same damn riff over and over - effectively creating the most annoying song since Revolting Cocks' "Let's (Talk) Physical" - you know something more profound than mere metal is at work. Liturgy's Aesthethica rocks on so many levels, you can't be expected to get it all at once.

Three 65, Day 31
Tyler, The Creator, Goblin

A couple of days ago, I referenced a crew of skate kids from Los Angeles who were about to take the rap world by storm. For those of you who didn't click on the link, they are Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, a loose collective of like-minded ne'er-do-wells from California whose oeuvre is kind of like that of the Wu-Tang Clan... if every member was Eminem.

Their leader is Tyler, The Creator (the comma is deliberate), and he's just released the first album in the Odd Future collective that you actually have to pay for - all of the rest are available as free downloads from Odd Future's Web site. Entitled Goblin, it's a bracing listen from beginning to end. Just don't call it "horrorcore."

Actually, you could call it "horrorcore." It reminds me of nothing so much as an angrier version of Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon project, minus the sci-fi references and classy production. Tyler himself has grappled with the term "horrorcore," and on this album, he casually dismisses any attempt to fit his music into a box, but the term is apt. Any album whose high point is a line about raping a pregnant woman and calling it a threesome is horrorcore, by my standards. Calling it anything but is tantamount to referring to Slayer as "fast blues."

Built as a dialogue between Tyler and his therapist (actually Tyler, with his voice distorted), Goblin weaves its way through canyons of itchy synthesizers and brittle beats as the husky-voiced Odd Future shaman spits all kinds of vitriol at the mic. Lead single "Yonkers" finds him targeting Bruno Mars and Pitchfork.com, "Transylvania" is a song from the POV of a very pissed off Dracula, and "Tron Cat" is just obscene to the max. Elsewhere, Tyler and fellow Odd Future cohort Frank Ocean cover the peeping tom routine on "She," and the group aesthetic comes to the forefront on the banging "Sandwitches."

For all of this filth, there are moments of genuine, head-scratching normality. "Nightmare" is about the perils of fame (I can't relate), "She" is a very adult song about liking a girl - especially in this context - and "Analog" is a number about hanging out with a girl by the lake. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on "Analog," and it just doesn't, which is eerier than anything disgusting Tyler could dish up.

Finally, there's the instrumental "AU79," which makes about as much sense on this album as a speed metal solo during a Beethoven symphony. But it shows growth, and potential - Tyler isn't going to be a kid forever, but he's going to be a member of the hip-hop community for, hopefully, quite some time.

Three 65, Day 30
The Jesus Lizard, Liar

The Jesus Lizard were a band of dichotomies. Vocalist David Yow liked to say they were "three-fourths of a great band," but what made the band so great was the clash between its frontman and its back end. Specifically, the band was incredibly tight in its post-punk assault, the songs led by David Wm Sims' bass and Mac McNeilly's drumming with accent guitar provided by Duane Denison. And the singer was a sloppy drunk who often vomited on-stage. This isn't to diminish Yow's presence at all - just to underscore it. Oftentimes he sounded like a man in the throes of an exorcism.

Liar is The Jesus Lizard's best album, it's almost universally agreed (although Goat is just as good, if not slightly better). This is where the music and vocals really come together in a total onslaught to the senses, especially on opener "Boilermaker," which bursts out of the gate drunk as hell and ready to fight. "Gladiator" and "The Art Of Self-Defense" are bizarre snapshots of weirdo lifestyles, and "Puss," which is ostensibly about beating up a woman (there are no lyrics included for this song in the liner notes, curiously enough), rides a bluesy guitar lick to Hell and back.

On the second half, the band gets even weirder, with the masturbatory serenade of "Whirl," the auto-erotic mayhem of "Rope" (dig that country slide guitar), and the preacher-filled madness of "Zachariah." Coming off as totally unhinged, the band would never capture this level of psychosis in their music again.

Three 65, Day 29
Butthole Surfers, Locust Abortion Technician

I'm feeling pretty sick, and I want to review something that closely matches how I feel. The Butthole Surfers' Locust Abortion Technician should do nicely.

One of three Butthole Surfers albums to be named using random wordplay, Locust is also the finest distillation of the Surfers' sound, which is basically the kind of music a kid would make if he were: a) genuinely gifted; and b) tripping on large amounts of acid. Which is all a roundabout way of saying the Surfers had great amounts of talent... and illegal drugs.

"Sweat Loaf" kicks things open ferociously, like a demented hobo blowing the door off a southern speakeasy. It's basically a cover of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf," but that's only a touchstone, really. Just dig the opening lyrics: "Well, son, a funny thing about regret is, it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, would you be sure and tell her... Satan! Satan! Satan!"

"Graveyard" appears twice on this record, first as a slowed-down sludgefest and then, near the end, as a country-punk rumination on death. "U.S.S.A." is a trudge through the fucked-up backwaters of punk rock, with the band trading riffs and squeals with vocalist Gibby Haynes' ranting. (It also features the scariest guitar note... ever.) "The O-Men" pretty much defines everything brilliant and stupid about charging industrial rock, and "Kuntz" is an Eastern radio jingle warped out of true by the band's studio prowess. Add to this "Human Cannonball," a simple and pretty pop song that sounds tossed-off in comparison to the rest of the work here, and you've got yourself one sick motherfucking album.

Three 65, Day 28
Pink Floyd, Animals

I'm not feeling so good, so I needed an album with very few songs to review. At 3 songs (plus two bookends), Animals fits the bill nicely.

A little history lesson: Pink Floyd's run can be divided into four eras - the Barrett era, the band era, the Waters era, and the Gilmour era. Animals comes from the short but potent Waters era, when bassist and vocalist Roger Waters held firm control over the group's creative output. A nihilist at heart, Waters wanted to record a concept album (and aren't they all concept albums, after all) that echoed George Orwell's seminal novel "Animal Farm."

He certainly got the overall mood right. Animals is dark, twisted, and forbidding, breaking down the human race into "Dogs" (the power-hungry ladder-climbers), "Pigs" (self-righteous rule-makers), and "Sheep" (the rest of us). "Dogs," clocking in at 17 minutes and definitely the longest song on the album, twists and turns through its multiple moods, with the vocals often fading off into the distance or transforming themselves into another sound entirely through the magic of the studio. "Pigs" is suitably sarcastic ("ha ha / charade you are"), while "Sheep," which uses the same vocal effect from "Dogs," is a more upbeat number, this time chronicling the rebellion of the downtrodden.

Pink Floyd has a lot of albums in their catalog, and most of them are pretty unique. Animals is, too. Some people can't stand the overall sense of doom and pessimism that pervades the recording, but hey, that's Floyd for you.

I'm going to go take some aspirin now and lay down, thanks...

Three 65, Day 27
Smashing Pumpkins, MACHINA/The Machines Of God

In keeping with yesterday's review of Amnesiac, a decent album by Radiohead that everyone had problems with, we're going to take a look at a record in a similar position. MACHINA has the unenviable honor of being the Smashing Pumpkins' last good album; it's also their last album before the band imploded completely, casting bassist D'Arcy Wreztky and guitarist James Iha into the wilderness (or into the ever-loving arms of, respectively, crack and A Perfect Circle).

A lot of people didn't like this album. They felt it was overwrought, underwritten, and altogether too arty. I say: Fuck them. This is a great album, and it's a stunning return to form after the too-soft Adore, an electronic album the band recorded while trying to figure out what to do without their drummer. (They fired him for using heroin. As a solution, they eventually re-hired him. WTF?)

"The Everlasting Gaze" is, to put it simply, one of the hardest rocking songs in the Pumpkins' oeuvre. A lot of their songs feature vocalist/guitarist Billy Corgan's ranting, especially when the song drops out in the middle of raging full-on and leaves him with only a few notes to work with. None of them do it as well as this. "Gaze" alone is indication that he's finally begun to master his musical ambitions.

If that song was good, its follow-up, "Raindrops + Sunshowers," is great. As a song, it's decent, but as a demonstration of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin's prowess, it's amazing. The guy just does not stop. With nary a break in style or momentum, he just smacks the shit out of the skins without abandon for the duration of the entire song. Good work, Jimmy.

Other excellent moments include "I Of The Mourning," which is about Billy Corgan's love of the radio; "Heavy Metal Machine," which is as heavy as it sounds and features the immortal couplet "If I died / would my records sell?" "The Imploding Voice" is prog-rock for the ages, complete with vocal distortion, and "Glass And The Ghost Children" is a multi-part epic of slowly building horror.

The album ends with "Age Of Innocence," a plaintive return to the almost-indie pop of earlier Pumpkins albums. Perhaps seeing the end of the band as it originally stood in his eyes, Corgan penned the lyrics "Desolation yes / hesitation no / As you might have guessed / We won't make it home / Desolation yes / hesitation no." It takes a lot of balls to put it that way - a lot more than Corgan has ever been accused of having.

Three 65, Day 26
Radiohead, Amnesiac

Amnesiac isn't Radiohead's most popular album. It's often considered a distant, inferior cousin to the far more radical Kid A, released a few months prior; in fact, when this album came out, Radiohead had billed it as their return to form after the experimentation of Kid A, when in truth it's nothing of the sort. But fuck all that - I like Amnesiac. I think it's gotten a bad rap, when in fact nearly all of the songs are gems.

"Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" kicks off the album with odd percussion and distorted synth lines, while Thom Yorke mumbles (and folks, the man doesn't usually sing, he mumbles; it's okay, but let's call a spade a spade) "I'm a reasonable man, get off my case." "Pyramid Song" is a stately funeral dirge for the pharaohs. "You And Whose Army?" is an overtly political song challenging the rule of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, and it's chilling in both its desperation and sincerity.

"Morning Bell / Amnesiac" finds the band revisiting a song from Kid A, but this time approaching the material from a more positive outlook, which totally changes the nature of the song. Ostensibly about a divorce ("cut the kids in half"), Kid A's version of "Morning Bell" has one half of the marriage mourning, but this version is almost joyous. Clearly, someone wanted out of the relationship really badly.

"Like Spinning Plates" is an ambient number, and "Life In A Glasshouse" ends the record on a New Orleans-like jazz note. Overall, there are just no stinkers here, which is more than I can say for Hail To The Thief or Pablo Honey. Striking just the right note between experimentation and straight-ahead music, Amnesiac is not soon forgotten.

Three 65, Day 25
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Kanye West is, alongside Jay-Z, the face of modern hip-hop. (That both are about to be upstaged by a group of skate kids from Los Angeles is the topic for another blog post.) He's had his hand in nearly everything since the turn of the century, either as producer, remixer, or guest star, and every single one of his albums has been excellent. But My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the home run to his great game, the knock-it-out-of-the-park masterpiece that will define his career for decades to come.

Question: Is it a concept album? I don't know, but it stems from the world that produces concept albums, that's for sure. It's definitely more than just hip-hop; it's got elements of art rock and prog hardwired into its DNA. Just check out the first single, "Power," which features a prominent King Crimson sample (see Day 14) amidst its hand-clap percussion and noodly guitar line. Or "Gorgeous," which manipulates a bluesy guitar lick for its own ends. Or even "Runaway," a multi-faceted, ever-shifting odyssey of styles in the grandest classic rock tradition.

No discussion of Fantasy would be complete without mentioning its standout track (and there are so many, but this is the best one): "Monster," with its Bon Iver (!) intro and echoing beats. Jay-Z and Rick Ross stop by to trade raps with West, but all of them are upstaged by a vital new talent in Nicki Minaj, whose voice goes from baby-doll coo to salacious growl in the space of a heartbeat. If Fantasy was the album of 2010, "Monster" was that year's best single.

Where can West go from here? Only time will tell. Perhaps he'll simplify his approach and embrace minimalism on future albums. But I don't think so. The man's ambition knows no bounds, and his reach really is the equal of his grasp.

Three 65, Day 24
Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

I was a little worried about the Beastie Boys for a while, I gotta admit. For three albums, they haven't been spot-on their A game. Hello Nasty was too scattershot, To The 5 Boroughs was too preachy, and The Mix-Up was too damn boring. So it's good to see them back on the ball with Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, released today.

As goofy and self-referential forever (just check out the promo video, "Fight For You Right - Revisited"), the Beastie Boys return with a solid pounding that should please fans old and new. "Make Some Noise" is a classic return to form, and "OK" rides a sprightly bass line with Vocoder distortion effects. In fact, this could rightly be called the Beastie Boys' "noisy" album - many of the vocals are run through filters, and the analog synth sounds often resemble a broken computer with a bad case of gas. All of which is very, very good.

Nas shows up on "Too Many Rappers," spitting rhymes like his life depends on it and giving the haters something to think about. Santigold appears on the reggae-tinged "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win," and the Boys bring the punk on "Lee Majors Come Again," their best rock-oriented track since 1994's "Sabotage." The nicest thing about the album? There's almost no preaching ("Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" is an instrumental, not a call to action). I've always liked the Beastie Boys, but sometimes their shit can be a little much. (Remember the debacle with The Prodigy and "Smack My Bitch Up"? How can a band that recorded the song "Girls" even think of criticizing someone else?)

Overall, not only is this album a proud return to form, but it's the band's most cohesive work to date. Almost all of the Beastie Boys' records feature a few tracks that could be dropped or ignored. Not so for Hot Sauce. This is all gold. Welcome back, boyyyyyyyys.

Three 65, Day 23
Rage Against The Machine, Rage Against The Machine

I have a problem with Rage Against The Machine, specifically the fact that when we needed them most - when George W. Bush stole the White House and obliterated Iraq for no good reason - they were nowhere to be found. Vocalist/firebrand Zack de la Rocha was off recording his never-ending solo album, and the rest of the band was playing as the embarrassing Audioslave with Chris Cornell on vocals. (WTF?) Yeah, they reformed near the end of Bush's reign of "terra" to ostensibly deliver the "knockout blow" to his regime, but it was too little too late, as far as I'm concerned.

That having been said, every one of their four albums is solid gold. Rage managed to cohere rap with heavy metal in a way no band had before, or has since. Part of that was de la Rocha's rapid-fire flow and anthemic rhymes, and part of that was the Public Enemy-style scratching and squealing that came out of Tom Morello's guitar. (I still don't know how he managed to make half of the sounds he did. Not for nothing do the liner notes read, "no samples, keyboards or synthesizers used in the making of this record.")

Their self-titled album starts off strong with the rapidly building "Bombtrack," and then blows right into its best number, "Killing In The Name," which features the immortal couplet "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" And it features it over and over again. In any other band's hands, such a gimmick would be instantly tiresome; in Rage's arsenal, it's galvanizing.

"Settle For Nothing" slows the album down nicely at the fourth track position, a slow burner that gradually builds in intensity until nothing is left in its path. "Know Your Enemy" features Tool compatriot Maynard James Keenan, and "Wake Up" calls to task the government for its (possible) role in the death of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. The album closes well, with the ecstatic "Freedom": "Freedom... yeah, right!"

Rage Against The Machine has returned for a lot of live dates, but they have yet to release another album that matches this one. However, the other three records (Renegades, Evil Empire, and The Battle Of Los Angeles) are required listening for the young malcontent.

Three 65, Day 22
The Beatles, The Beatles

They call it "the White Album," but don't be fooled; this is The Beatles' self-titled masterpiece. A concept album with no concept, and a full band record of individually composed songs, The Beatles is a sprawling epic mess in the best possible way.

I won't belabor the history of this album's recording, except to say that the Fab Four were clearly using a lot of drugs at the time. And it shows in every aspect of the album, from the weird song topics to the self-referential posturing. If you thought Sgt. Pepper's was weird, look out. (The fact that Charles Manson's insanity seized on this recording, above all others, is alone testament to its oddness.)

Things start off relatively straightforward, with the Beach Boys rip of "Back In The U.S.S.R." and the shimmery dream pop of "Dear Prudence." The band works its mythology on the bizarre "Glass Onion," and "Wild Honey Pie" (the second weirdest song in The Beatles catalog - we'll get to the weirdest in a minute) is just the song's title sung over a warped acoustic groove. Other highlights of the first disc include two stunning George Harrison compositions, the seething "Piggies" and the melancholy "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," Ringo's sole contribution ("Don't Pass Me By," a passable country-western piece), and "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," which changes styles multiple times over its brief length.

The second half of the record is a little more disparate. "Helter Skelter" is a wild ride through proto-metal, and "Sexy Sadie" is a beautiful little number about one of the many ladies that pop up throughout the course of the album. But "Revolution 9," the strangest thing The Beatles ever put on wax, takes the cake. Much maligned by music critics and Beatles fans the world over, and cursed as the work of John Lennon's lover Yoko Ono, this avant-garde musique concrete saga is just noises and field recordings. It's the sound of a band willingly thrusting off the chains of their friendly pop past, and embracing a new future as the pioneers of musical adventurism. And if the end result isn't entirely to your taste, too bad; the band was clearly out for themselves on this recording, and "Revolution 9" is the ultimate result of that.