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 Death
Race 2003
Skinless
From Sacrifice to Survival
(Relapse)
My lord. If played at certain volumes, this scorching new
collection from Saratoga’s Skinless is music that could be
implemented for years to come for clearing runways, razing
abandoned industrial sites and ensuring that your pesky neighbor
won’t be back to borrow your hammer anytime soon. There’s
something for every metal fan under this swirling, deafening
maelstrom of wattage as Skinless truly come of age.
 Guitarist
Noah Carpenter and bassman Joe Keyser give a free rein to
pure, hypnotic heaviness in From Sacrifice to Survival,
particularly during “Battle Perpetual Will” and “Miscreant,”
an indelible thrust on the senses where you can almost smell
the protein burning as its thick smoke blinds you. Punishing
soundscapes like “Dead Conscience” and the disc’s title track
see vocalist Sherwood Webber experimenting more with the dynamics
of his voice, his unearthly growl layered with black-metal
shrieks, spoken-word refrains and even a little freakin’ melody,
thank you very much. Drummer John Longstreth has a knack,
or maybe even a perversion, for finding the pocket of each
groove and tearing it to ribbons, adding a new, darker depth
and dimension to the Skinless assault—the most scathing example
being the unfathomable helicopter breakdown at the end of
“The Front Line of Sanity.” Longstreth, formerly behind the
kit for Relapse labelmates Origin, is a welcome addition to
the fold after the departure of longtime skin basher Bob Beulac.
Produced by veteran metal producer Neil Kernon, this disc
showcases how death metal should be: an ever-evolving hypothesis
tried repeatedly by brutal stress-fatigue technology. And
while the droll splatter-samples and the horror-movie schlock
have given way to the tastes and neuroses of a more mature
monster, Skinless continue to challenge the traditional boundaries
between death, doom and thrash with this dark source of unadulterated
acceleration, threatening to pull you apart with every change
in your plane of motion. So far the most refreshing pit music
of 2003, and I’m not just talking for the locals. You’re gonna
need a tetanus booster and dental insurance.
—Bill
Ketzer
Tony
Bennett
Artist’s Choice
(Hear Music/Sony)
The buying-CDs-in-Starbucks phenomenon doesn’t make any more
(or less) sense than its promotional predecessors in the LP-era.
Triple lattes and world music are no more (or less) compatible
than natural gas and Fred Astaire dance tunes were in the
’50s.
The latest coffee-shop promotion finds esteemed artists selecting
a disc’s worth of “music that matters” to them. So far, the
releases have been mixed. While Lucinda Williams and Ray Charles
made interesting picks, the Rolling Stones and Sheryl Crow
went the boring and obvious route.
The Stones chose a dozen African-American artists, plus one
each from the Beach Boys and Eddie Cochrane. There are no
contemporaries (sorry Ray, Pete, Eric, Paul and Ringo), nor
the band they once termed their fave (the Four Seasons), nor
the guy who taught them country (Gram Parsons). Mick and Keith,
petty and ungrateful as ever. This is the evidence that the
artists do compile each disc.
Tony Bennett has picked a predictable but pleasing roster
of artists. Some of the choices tend to the obvious side.
Frank Sinatra, Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole,
Doris Day, Duke Ellington and Count Basie are all represented
by trademark tunes; lesser-known recordings by Billie Holiday,
Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire stand out. The flow of the songs
is very good, however.
The disc is noticeable, too, for Bennett’s liner notes, as
when he explains how Crosby (on Cole Porter’s “I Love You
Samantha”) bizarrely, and effortlessly, hums the intro in
a different key than the rest of the song.
There are worse things to do while sucking down an overly
caffeinated beverage than listening to this perfectly nice
CD.
—Shawn
Stone
 The
Lonesome Organist
Forms and Follies
(Thrill Jockey)
Opening with toy piano and accordion, the one-man band known
as the Lonesome Organist (aka Jeremy Jacobsen) invites listeners
into Forms and Follies, the third installment of his
hybrid cartoon- carnival-cabaret (his second album was aptly
titled Cavalcade). The Lonesome Organist’s self-recorded
set finds his self-imposed loneliness cracked by the similarly
inclined Nick Macri (aka Bobby Conn), who adds bass to a couple
numbers. Jacobsen’s prankster and romantic impulses are both
given their due here, the former sometimes giving way to the
latter and vice versa. Melodies give the 14 songs their heart,
their concise purposefulness embracing the sad, the surreal
and the celebratory. While sharing some traits with film music,
these pieces have far too involved foreground and background
movement to lie still behind visuals for very long. Jacobsen
also invites assorted postpunk sensibilities to attend the
banquet, resulting in the dense hijinks of “Who’s to Say Your
Soul’s Not Carbon,” a sort of second generation Tom Waits
kitchen-sink production.
Elsewhere, there are hallucinogenic skating-rink themes (“The
Multiplier”), Keatonesque silent-screen melancholia (“Blue
Bellows”), vibes-based jazz vamps (“The Moon Fugue”), and
fractured, doowop-informed crooning (“One of Me”). Much of
Jacobsen’s multi-instrumentalization is recorded in the same
way he plays live: simultaneously (his multitracked vocals
being the most obvious exception). Jacobsen has his feet in
two worlds, one being the live dazzle of a one-man band, the
other being the more open-ended realm of composing and recording
studios. He continues to demonstrate a keen sense of using
the right tool for the job, maximizing the emotional bearing
of the music in the end.
—David
Greenberger
The
Erotics
All That Glitters Is Dead
(Cacophone)
Cancel my Gold Circle subscription to Al Goldstein’s Screw
Magazine. There’s a new organized criminal in the waste-management
industry, a wonderfully insipid and lurid steamroller of obsession
and psychosis. You never could take Erotics frontman Mike
Trash anywhere. Hell, you can’t even dress him up, but give
him six strings and 60 bucks for bail and watch what happens.
A
certain fatalistic, sci-fi porn sensibility is the platform
for All That Glitters Is Dead, from the anthemic choruses
of “Supermodel Suicide” and “Only Girl for Me” (an incognito
version of the band’s infamous “Helen Keller”) to the rapacious
hooks of “Bullet” and “Star-Spangled and Beaten.” Trash has
finally given up on the idea of a lead guitarist and has assumed
those chores himself, his smudgy junkie’s voice an abrasive
slur over the murderous hail of his Les Paul. Bassist Bil
(that’s not a typo) Dolan, a killer guitarist in his own right,
anchors Trash to planet Earth with flawless nickel-plated
steel rumbling through the crossfire while Mickey King dutifully
whaps the skins à la Tommy Ramone. Infamous for hiring career
felons and sociopaths, Trash seems to have found some stability
in this current lineup, and it shows here in the details.
It’s easy to categorize the Erotics as a glam outfit, what
with the oozing mascara eyeballs and all, but to me it’s just
rock & roll that can blow the chrome off a tailpipe at
50 paces. Virtuosos? Oh god no. But All That Glitters .
. . is as brash and subversive as it gets, while maintaining
that curious, infectious listenability, one that dances with
hookers, wrestles with troopers and performs unspeakable acts
at the rest stop. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
—Bill
Ketzer
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