New Model Army
High
Attack Attack

They may be long past any notion of glory days to the casual observer but New Model Army’s glory is in mainstay Justin Sullivan’s unique and singular vision. Similar to Mike Scott and The Waterboys the name these days is a vehicle for Sullivan’s grittily windswept anthems of eloquent ire, social compassion and political puritanism. Perhaps best summed up in the title track’s tag of ‘from on the high hills it all looks like nothing’ in answer to all the crazed cacophony of everyday life, these tales look out from small desolate towns to open air and freedom with an ever beguiling mix of idealism and realism – getting away while acknowledging the strife thousands of miles away as well as your own binds to the you and places of your pasts. Similar to Scott he also retains a fluidity of approach, not to say line-up, rarely slipping into stagnancy that reinforces his natural questing questioning and yearning for resolutions. While by no means an outright classic in the vein of The Ghost Of Cain and more so Thunder And Consolation, HIGH bristles with trademark passion, warmth and wisdom that deserves (re)discovering. Fervently flouting any tags applied to him and the band from folk-rock, goth, agit-punk and on Sullivan is evermore the alternative poet laureate of these lands akin to T.V. Smith. Long may they reign.

- Stu Gibson

Brimstone Howl
Guts Of Steel
Alive

Fermented out in the fetid wastelands left behind in the debris out in Nebraska thee Brimstoners  brittle garage-blues with boundless  with the invention and devotion that harks back biblically to The Gories and prime-cut Blues Explosion than the spate of no-pedigree plastic pop practitioners cobbled together by pederastic A&R – arse and rimming - perverts in the wake of all that Hives jive and White Stripes, who were uniformly all practised Iggy slur and vacant stare and could doubtful find a cock if the Ig came and stuffed his right in their pockets. Which, gladly, is exactly the sort of obsequious, simpering posturing this howls at until strips willingly peel off to the ground at the untouched Converse before they can be torn off and their bowels exit into the ether. If you had to go to church on a Sunday it’d be one based around this, and those of its ilk, where the brimstone wouldn’t bother the true believers whose spirits already resound to bastard blues with a bike-chain in place of a crown of thorns a la Billy Childish and even the blessed Creedence.

- Stu Gibson

The Donnas
Bitchin’
Purple Feather Records 

It’s always been a love/hate thing with The Donnas, hasn’t it? They started out as rag tag pre-teens in hand-me-downs with attitude to spare, and that was really cool, but then somewhere along the way they became hot young girls, which is even better, but the fact that they knew how to play decent music made them a major label PR hack’s wet dream. And so they got all dolled up like giddy girls at a sleepover and started blasting bubble gum pop to the delight of the army of Hot Topic mall rats that now made up their fan base. Of course, the paint had hardly dried on that project when indie was the music du jour, and so The Donnas put on some skinny jeans, started going by their birth names, and stripped their sound down a bit. Keep in mind, they’re still really good looking at this point, and no matter what their sound or image, we knew they were still kind of badass underneath it all. I mean, their songs were always about fucking and getting wasted no matter how they disguised the lyrics, and one of them actually did get handcuffed on the hood of a cop car for drinking whiskey in public, so the MTV image might have fooled the kids, but it didn’t fool you and me, Jack. 

Now The Donnas are at it again with a flash metal suicide of terrific proportions – we’re talking air raid sirens, a Joan Jett-esque album cover, and enough laser guided Def Leppard arena riffs to rip holes in your jeans. And on top of all that, the girls are now as hot as ever, adorned from head to toe in tight black leather, probably cut from the same cloth as Sebastian Bach’s pants. Frankly, I simply melt for a girl in leather, so this is my favorite Donnas incarnation yet, but I suppose that’s beside the point. We might be able to believe that The Donnas are now rocking out the way they want to, having released this one on their own Purple Feathers record label, but I’m still struggling to find the authenticity behind the title track’s admonishing salvo “This is what it sounds like when heads roll/You’re gonna want more/So hold on tight” because there’s still too much bubble gum fun and not enough chainsaw chaos here. And we know they have it in them. So, my message to The Donnas is no more posturing, no more songs about how mad boys make you, and no more time at the salon. What you need to remember is more leather, more whiskey, and more legitimate bitchin’ ACTION. Oh, Donnas, I love/hate you. 

 - Jeff

W.A.S.P.
Dominator
Demolition

Wonderfully starting off with a riff that almost replicates 9-5 Nasty and Wild Child (and is itself repeated at various times throughout proceedings) you can be forgiven for thinking that old Lawless and whoever is aboard nowadays are trading on old moves and cashing in on whatever vague infamy they courted in the mid to late eighties, following formulas like a bloodhound with ever-reducing returns. Not so, always a few packs of cards sharper than many of his contemporaries on L.A.’s bleach-blond boulevards (and in his own band) Blackie, for the most part, side-stepped the great grunge flood that washed away many of the most deserving and applied his intelligence to W.A.S.P.’s always melodic metal mayhem, unleashing a series of perhaps patchy, though on current form, ever improving, records such as Taking the quagmire of the Iraq conflagration as his cause celebre Lawless fuses allegory and some effective imagery, never descending to demagoguery or doggerel, with what must surely now be such a trademarked sound a la Maiden’s gallop. As such Heaven’s Blessed, Teacher, Long, Long Way To Go and closing spell of hoodoo hokum Deal With The Devil more than validate this crop of sexual perverts as they now sling it back at the nay-sayers by paradoxically providing a viewpoint on present social and political perversities.

- Stu Gibson

Whiskey Rebels
Create Or Die
People Like You

It’s all to easy to snobbishly disregard bands like the Whiskey Rebels sometimes, such is the strangulating straightjacket of street-punk. PLY seem ever able to differentiate easily between the Rancid, or rancid, wannabe’s that clog up Hellcat’s stable so much that it now resembles a see-through exercise in vanity and squeamish back-slapping. Possessing both sawn-off hardcore kilojoules and cojones and a natural melodic flair that adds extra poignancy to the direct but deft lyrical content of being down and out but defiant the Rebels bring their own optimism and hope to Reaper Calling, To Be Poor Is A Crime, Carry On and Sex, Thugs, Rock’n’Roll but more importantly the belief and passion of Big Chuck and co. pile-drives this into being a staunch mini-classic of heart, soul and fire.

-Stu Gibson

The Generators
Welcome To The End
People Like You

Double headed tenth anniversary reissue of this debut that also saw the unleashing of the now mighty I Used To Fuck People Like You In Prison records. Where a decade of delivering the decadent and decent goods of the finest punk rock and psychobilly around has seen the label become almost a by-word for the purest merchandise, so The Generators have grown into a caustically combustible legion of punk rock stalwarts, easly surpassing the more generic influences contained here, i.e. The Clash, Rancid, Stiff Little Fingers classic old school punk as a whole, which remains the hallmark of a great band, that they now are and this debut provides evidence for at the outset. A whole lot darker these days than on this rather more sunnily disposed set, this record, replete with three bonus tracks, does also show the scorched romanticism, dead-end dreams and social discord amidst the L.A. streets and world at large that litter their more recent albums (like current album THE GREAT DIVIDE), such as Plastic Roses, Voices In The Night and Freedom.

-Stu Gibson

McQueen
Break The Silence
Demolition

Brighton (UK) femme foursome McQueen slay scuzzy L.A. riffs, strip ‘em down and shove ‘em full of gristle that’d’a caused half the hairdo posers to leave town to risk their early retirement in Glambangsville, Arkansas, before gutting ‘em on metallic mosh-pop skewers that makes them relevant to post-grunge hoodie-hardcore kids. Like they’re exorcising the nightmare of being played Vixen, Phantom Blue and Lita Ford by their elder sisters but looking around their own teenage wastelands saw Courtney Love and were equally sick by her media whoring and the angry bitch clichés and crummy caterwauling of over-hyped shite like Kittie, they mash up a loada hair-pulling on Neurotic and Dirt and only really let up for a bit of air on single The Line Went Dead and the title track mid-way through. Quite probably set for hugeness considering pop nuggets like Numb, but that doesn’t leave a better taste as they seem perfectly angled to a certain demographic designed to cover all bases without being as extreme as they at times can suggest on the best moments.

-Stu Gibson  

Hanoi Rocks
Street Poetry
Demolition

Hanoi continue their reformation blues, following 2005’s Another Hostile Takeover. Thirteen tales told through the eyes of survivors, tigers couldn’t tear down the walls of their hearts, though their spring-bed of utterly carefree frolicking classics like Oriental Beat is, perhaps naturally, replaced with a cheery cynicism that rolls the boogie on Highwired and Stones-y strut of Power Of Persuasion without descending to Aerosmith style balladry. Though you think good Hanoi can be got, and kept, down? – This One’s For Rock’n’Roll, Powertrippin’ will disabuse doubters of the Some tassled, tousled glimmers of their halcyon daze still linger on the title track and Fashion’s elegantly un-satiated Andy McCoy riff. Where opener Hypermobile takes some of the grit GN’R added to their own admitted Hanoi influence a la You Could Be Mine the T-Rex / E Street Band doo-wop Teenage Revolution displays the glorious galavanting with song-forms they once showed on Malibu Beach (Calypso), and Worth Your Weight In Gold and Tootin’ Star (a certified Harmonica Mike Monroe raver) stand up, shoulder to shoulder centre-stage at the mic and help cast the rather awful seventies Stone’s suck-a-thon that is Transcendental Groove to the shadows. Anyway, even weaker moments like Walkin’ Away wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t see these fate-defying rockers shy away from flicking fingers at destiny for a fair while yet.  

Fashion is also out as a single with a rather fine, fume-guzzling romp through Dave Edmunds’ Trouble Boys and vids of the A-side and Boulevard Of Broken Dreams live with Monroe’s ‘I’m me, I’m clean and I feel great closer’. Fair enough.

- Stu Gibson

The Sheepdogs
Trying to Grow
(dunno, look it up)

You know, it’s funny, because the dudes in The Sheepdogs actually look like sheepdogs, with their shaggy hair and beards. You are what you play, I guess, and what The Sheepdogs play is countrified blues n’ roll that recalls creaky old porches in dust bowl towns, an organic fusion of Southern harmony and classic vibe, a long and orange horizon of organ, slide guitar, and a sweeping melancholy, like The Rolling Stones meets The Allman Brothers or something. They fit right alongside their fellow Canadian traveling brethren Lions in the Street and My Shaky Jane, and despite the ice that covers the country half the year, it’s actually nice and warm inside by the fire with a bottle of hooch and man’s best friend, your trusty old pooch, the sheepdog.

-Jeff

Red Limo
Soulful Attack
www.myspace.com/redlimo

I like these dudes because, unlike a good number of rock bands, they have brains. How do I know this? Because although they released “Soulful Attack” on 7” vinyl, they ALSO released it on CD, and they sent both to me. You see, they’re hip enough to know that even though hipster douchebags like me will tell you we prefer wax, most of the time we are too lazy to actually spin it. And they are right. I’m listening to the CD version as we speak, even though I fuckin’ like the vinyl version way better. Really, I do. Anyway, the music? Primitive, spooked, bare-bones power-pop, with a couple fingers dipped into the punk rock well and maybe a secret affection for the Banana Splits. I’m pretty sure the guitarist plays his solos on one string and the drummer sounds like he’s beating on old paperbacks. They’re like the Honeymoon Killers locked in a room with only “The Best of the 1910 Fruitgum Company”, some Big Star rehearsal tapes, and an old Midnight Records catalog from 1986 to keep them occupied. There was never any doubt in my mind that Red Limo was from New York. They  positively stink of it. In a good way, of course.

-Sleaze

High Voltage
High Voltage

Now this is exciting. What we’ve got here are five not-quite-legal upstarts from Steel Town, Canada with long hair and mirrored shades hammering out vintage, big-balled arena rock songs that pay genuine homage to every single Golden God that ever tossed a television out of hotel room window. If they were old enough to drive they’d be crashing their cars, if they were old enough to drink they’d be diving off rooftops into swimming pools, and if they were old enough to know what love was they’d be breaking hearts. I don’t know how or when they found the right records growing up, but they fucking found them, Jack – Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Motley Crue – and they wore the hell out of ‘em by the sounds of it. The 70s swagger and 80s glitter dripping off of this five song debut is impressive considering they’re a product of the 90s. Ok, so I’ve beat the age thing to death, but come on, how great is it to hear a young band playing REAL rock n’ roll and not that plastic, fashion mullet clone drone that’s sweeping the nation these days? They’ve been name dropped by Eric 13 (Sex Slaves), and with dudes like Sean Kelly (Crash Kelly), Nick Walsh (ex-Slik Toxic), and Ky Anto (Robin Black) stepping up to twirl knobs on this EP, there’s no mistaking the excitement here. They’re good now, and they’re just gonna get better.

-Jeff

The Impossible Ones
Vs. The World
May Cause Dizziness Records

Well, it’s got plenty Misfits monster-mash, a little wobbly pyschobilly, a touch of hardcore ferocity (80’s version, not the modern metal-ly bullshit), the usual macabre sense of humor (“Met her by the cemetery, coulda sworn that she was dead”), bratty teen-punk vocals, a Theremin…you know, all the things that make like worth leaving. Not exactly a brand new witch’s brew, but horror-rock junkies will eat up like eye of newt. Or whatever gross shit you freaks like to eat.

-Sleaze

Hermano
…Into the Exam Room
Suburban/Soulfood

Well, Sleaze (and probably most of you) will be happy to know that we’ve finally arrived at the point where John Garcia is now the Hermano dude, not the ex-Kyuss dude. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kyuss, but I liked Unida better, and since that horse has been put out to pasture, it’s high time we all got hip to the mighty boss blast of Hermano. This is their third full-length, so it is official – no more side project status for these brothers, even if they still play in other bands (Supafuzz, Disengage, and Earshot). With Hermano, it’s like Unida is still alive and well, only they’re playing everything in the middle of the desert, coyotes circling and vultures swirling, the hot and heavy fuzz of their monster riffs breaking the dusty ground beneath their tired feet and swallowing them whole. …Into the Exam Room follows form, and with the exception of a few beautifully haunting mellow cuts, everything on this album is huge, from the raucous riff fest of opener “Kentucky” to the fist pumping anthems “Left Side Bleeding” and “Our Desert Home” to the mountain shaking throw down of “Don’t Call Your Mama”. But that’s just how Hermano plays their cards my friends, and with each consecutive release they seem to move away from the stoner side of things toward full-tilt space boogie mayhem, taking the sonic, shamanistic vibe of The Cult and the world eating appetite of Monster Magnet with them. Another brilliant effort from that ex-Kyuss…I mean, Hermano dude.

-Jeff