Anyway, enough of that, on with the amateur music critiquing!

I'm sure this cover art has some deeper symbolism, but to me it just looks cool..

After seeing some of the singles on music TV I thought I'd check this album out, and I wasn't disappointed. The singles you might have seen on music TV are "We Know Something You Don’t Know" Feat Chali 2na & Akil (which has the pretty cool video featuring shit happening in animal suits, including the bit where the turtle steps out of his shell to breakdance a bit), and "The Hit Song" (which has a cool cut and paste style newspaper type video).

The overall style is that upbeat sort of clever lyrical hip hop.. no mention of gat 9's and drive by shootings which is refreshing for a rap album. The beats are good, and Abdominal has a good lyrical style which is pretty clever in places. There's a couple of tracks that I end up skipping now and then, but most of this album is good - definately worth a listen if you like rap but want a change from gangsters talking about their bill folds and Shorties.. yeah.. I live in South Central (Epsom) boyeeeee..

Also recommended if you like this is the DJ Yoda "How to Cut and Paste CD" - I grabbed this also, but had a hard time getting into it, mainly due to the choppy nature of the mixes (well hell look at the fucking title, I shouldn't be surprised really.)

50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Trying

Love him or hate him, the New York City crack dealer who stays high all the time can whip out a pretty good tune when he wants to. All the tracks you've probably heard thrashed to death on the radio plus others are on this cd, which is very listenable in parts, which of course features cameos from his "favorite white boy" Eminem.

Grab yo self a sho'tie and a bottle full of bub and check this CD out..

Dew Scented - Inwards

Pretty straight up, but pretty listenable metal. Hard to really describe, but if you're a fan of heavy music then it's worth checking this out, nice heavy cd without losing any listenability (if that's even a word).

As a reviewer on amazon.co.uk says: "the name sounds like a boy band but they're most definately not!". Definately one for the metal heads.

Scribe - Stand Up / Not Many (CD Single)

Send a shout out to Canterbury, there aren't too many dudes who flow like this. This CD Single is a sneak peak of his forthcoming album "The Crusader" (due out sometime mid October), and judging by the quality of these 2 tracks it should sell pretty well. Some cool beats courtesy of P-Money (although I'm not sure if he does all of Scribes tracks or just a few?) with Scribes rhymes laid over the top. He has a good style and some good flow, and he's got to be the first to send a shout out down to the Canterbury region in a hip hop song.

The single contains both songs, and a few remixed versions of "Stand up" (radio version, instrumental version, and lyrics only version). It's interesting how a subtle change such as the edit on "Stand the fuck up" makes such a difference to the impact of the song.. perhaps someone with an interest in writing a thesis based around the positive affects of cursing in the mainstream media could take that a little further.

Anyway, New Zealand hip hop, stand the fuck up and support Scribe.

Killing Joke - Killing Joke

Yes Yes.. blah blah.. first release in years.. blah blah Jaz Coleman and orchestras, blah blah.. Dave Grohl drumming blah blah..

Killing Joke have been around for 25 years, and after a 7 year gap since their last release (1996's Democracy) they're back with this self titled CD. I won't say too much about it, if you're a fan, then you'll probably already have it. If you're not, then it might be worth checking out if you dig that kind of semi repetitive industrial guitar type of action. Some of the songs can sound a little bit similar in parts, but there are some stand out tracks (although if you listen to bFM then you'll already have heard them 2398394 times, as it seems to always happen when bFM decide they like a band/CD).

Anyway, a good album - pity that Dave Grohl is such a fucking cock.

Is this slightly tortured and retarded looking fellow meant to be anyone we know?

There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. I recently got hold of a digital reproduction (but I've deleted it now, honest Mr RIAA) of the new Limp Bizkit album - and I hate to say, I'm listening to it for some reason.

Yes Fred Durst is a fucktard, and yes Limp Bizkit aren't exactly the most pioneering band singing about relevant issues of today, but in a a musical climate filled with people churning out unlistenable crap for the sake of "being hard" it's kind of refreshing to just listen to a brain dead album with some interesting grooves on it. Am I sounding too defensive? Possibly, but a lot of people seem to be just a little surprised that I like this album.

Apparently this album was going to be called "Panty Sniffer" or "The incredibly shrinking Panty sniffer", however it seems they had a change of heart and ended up calling it "Results may Vary". The album is nothing amazing, but it's not terrible either. Skip the intro track though, or at least the first 2 minutes of it - I really don't know what they were trying to achieve when they concocted that little opening "skit", but I suspect a lot of drugs and very little editing were involved in the process. The influence of their new guitarist is kind of obvious here, and theres an overall feel of them attempting to create a much more metallic sound. For some reason a lot of the riffs remind me of early days Machine Head, and in places they sound like bad hardcore riffs heard in practice rooms many years ago, but still overall it's quite listenable for anyone who feels like some middle of the road "Nu Metal" that they can listen to (in secret) in order to kill a few brain cells.

Don't expect anything too amazing, but if you're a fan it's worth a download.

(Although as it's sitting at #4 in amazon.co.uk's Hard Rock & Metal bestsellers list a few people think it's worth more than that!)

That's it for this month. Got a comment? A Question? Want to have a flame war? Then bring it on below, or send some abuse my way at merauder@merauderweb.com.

  Print | posted on Friday, September 26, 2003 11:19 AM