Music

Chicago’s Bear Claw wear their hometown on their sleeves with their Steve Albini-produced LP Find The Sun, but some might not find that to be a necessarily good thing. With a dark, Shellac-influenced angularity, the two-bassed-trio often find themselves in well-chartered territory with the production further driving them into the niche that At Action Park helped to forge over ten years ago.

In the tradition of croaking white-boy singer-songwriters from Dylan to Neil Young to Springsteen, this guy really can’t sing. His voice warbles and strains at higher notes and rests more comfortably at a flat drone down low.

When I asked a friend of mine whom, to her credit, has been raving about this band longer than anyone I know; what it was about it she liked so much, she simply replied “it has everything I like about music right now all in one band.” I can see how she’d get that out of listening to their debut full length Funeral.

You would be hard-pressed to find a review of a Julie Doiron record that does not make mention of how dark and hauntingly beautiful sounding her records are. There’s good reason to mention this since Julie Doiron stands out as one of the best Singer/Songwriters in North America.

The Mendoza Line Fortune plays more like a three way split cd than an actual album. The tracks rotate in sets of three between Bob Dylan sounding male vocals set to folk-ish guitars, female vocals set to contemporary country and then a more traditional indie band sound with both male and female vocals, and a hint of alt. country in the song writing.

Okay Tommy Stinson, lets see what you got. After literally growing up in the greatest American band ever, the Replacements, Stinson has released albums under the names Bash and Pop, and Perfect, was (is) a member of Guns and Roses, and is finally putting out a solo album.

I don’t like to have to give bad reviews out, but I should be honest, right? This isn’t the worst record ever, but its pretty bad.

Harder and Harder is The Paybacks second album. Rocking out of Detroit, The Paybacks write and play like they have to show us what rocking means. Straight up.

Rocket from the Tombs is one of those bands that a lot of people know about, but have never heard, because they never put a record out. Everyone who knows about them because the band’s members went on to form two of the best proto punk bands ever, The Dead Boys, and Pere Ubu. Finally, some dude took the time to dig up whatever recordings the band made, clean ‘em up a bit, and here they are.