THE DRIPS - s/t [White Drugs/Wichita 2006]

Ok, The Drips kind of sounds like The Bronx. The Drips and The Bronx shares two members, the guitar-player and the singer (the main songwriters of both bands, I think).

It doesn’t matter, both bands are great and this (the first) album by The Drips is definitely one of my favorite albums of the year. I can’t get enough of it, I play it all the time and I really don’t get tired of it.

Like both the albums by The Bronx this is a perfectly short record (11 songs in about 27 minutes). This CD also contains some really, really good (punk) rock (n’ roll) songs, and “16, 16, Six” is one of the best songs of the year so far. It might just end up with the title by the end of December.

So, my advice, to you my friends is that you check this one out if you like The Bronx...


Find out more and listen to some songs at: http://www.myspace.com/thedrips or http://www.thedrips.com/

ANGELS AND AIRWAVES - We Don’t Need To Whisper [Geffen - 2006]

Angels And Airwaves is Tom DeLonge’s new band (Tom used to play guitar and sing in Blink 182), and “We Don’t Need To Whisper” is their debut album. Tom hyped this album a lot before it came out, like it was going to include some of the greatest songs written in decades (or something like that).

Well, it doesn’t. It’s just a pretty good record.

I like the overall mood/feel of this album but the songs sound too much like each other, and it feels like you’re listening to the same song over and over. Even though that might have been what Tom (he wrote all the songs and produced this album) intended, it’s not really a good thing. I get a little bit bored, but some of the songs on here are really good, and I can’t help thinking that this could have been a really great debut EP with maybe 6 songs.

Musically the songs on “We Don’t Need To Whisper” are going into the same territory as some of the songs on Blink 182’s latest (last?) album “Blink 182” (Geffen 2003), and that’s an album that I enjoy quite a bit. Even though I think that “Take Off Your Pants And Jacket” (MCA 2001) is Blink’s best record. The skate-punk mood from earlier Blink 182 is gone, and Angels And Airwaves plays mostly slower pop-songs.

So, if Angels And Airwaves had signed a contract with my record-label (if I had one) I would have tried to talk them into releasing an EP with the following track-list: “Valkyrie Missile”, “Do It For Me Now”, “The Adventure”, “The War”, “Good Day” and “Start The Machine”.

It would have sold millions of copies and I would be filthy rich by now (but that’s not the way it happened). So my suggestion is that you buy this album if you liked the last Blink 182 album, and then you make your own copy of the 6-track EP.


Listen to Angels And Airwaves at: http://www.angelsandairwaves.com/ or www.myspace.com/angelsandairwaves

JENIFEREVER - Choose a Bright Morning [Drowned in Sound – 2006]

I know that this record have been out for a while now but It doesn’t matter I just felt I have to write about it since it seems so many people haven’t heard anything from it or never even knew this band existed.

Jeniferever is a 4 piece band that comes from Uppsala Sweden. I discovered them at a show we did together at some festival in 2002. I didn’t know what to expect and they caught me off guard. I was blow away by their focus and perfection on delivering the moody delayed and shimmering melodies with such power and intensity. And now 4 years later they have by all means been growing as musicians as well as performers.

Their new record “Choose a Bright Morning” is in every way the best they have done so far. It offers you 9 songs filled with passionate beauty and great scenery. It comes with an awesome production. Their sincerity is so obvious and I get a moment of clarity while listening to this record. They’ve almost managed to use every single ingredient I want music to have and therefore created a piece of art that is so close to perfection in my world.

It’s just a shame more people haven’t been able to take part of this fantastic band that I hope soon will get all the attention they deserve. At the same time I feel I've failed to tell you how highly I think of this record. My words simply can not desribe it enough.

Believe the hype: www.myspace.com/jeniferever

FAP – Malekasino Dondolo [Stupid Dream -2006]

FAP is a dynamic duo from the little Swedish town Sandviken. They have been around since 2004. After many live performances they release their first record, on vinyl (!)
FAP are known for their creative live set that is well illustrated with their video installations.

This 7 piece electronic adventure called Malekasio Dondolo takes off somewhere in the middle of Múms love for sparkling digital rhythms and the subversive electronica Notwist are known for. Combining acoustic elements with the various electronic sounds makes the music ambient and atmospheric with both big and small landscapes that are mellow and suggestive enough to fall deep and long into.

From time to time it’s very meditative and harmonic other times you get thrown into a very bizarre blipping beat that build itself around a high frequently and very disorientating noise that if you’re hung-over will make you puke almost at once and make your cats (if have any as I do) go neurotic and behaving a bit crazy.

Where this adventure end is totally up the listener’s state of mind and ability to embrace the sounds and put their own puzzle together. So if you’re a fan of the Berlin-electro wave you should definitely check this out.

http://www.myspace.com/fap666

WOLFMOTHER - s/t [Interscope/Modular - 2006]

I didn’t really know what to expect when I put this album in my CD-player. A guy I know had been talking about it and then I found it at a local record-store with a 50% discount. So, my thinking was that it was well worth that money to check it out.

And I guess it was. I’m enjoying this album more than I thought I would. Wolfmother are from Australia and they’ve made a good (hard) rock (n’ roll) record that sounds like it was made about 30 years ago. I also found out when I read the booklet that the whole thing was produced and mixed by Dave Sardy (who used to play guitar and sing in one of my favorite bands - Barkmarket).

Had this album come out 5-6 years ago I would have loved it (since I was way into 70’s rock, Kyuss, Fu Manchu and stuff like that at that time). But like I wrote, I’m kind of enjoying it none the less. This has been written in like every review I’ve seen about this album, but it’s true: It sounds like Led Zeppelin meets Black Sabbath meets Deep Purple and so on… There are some good songs on here and some of my favorites are “Colossal”, “Witchcraft” and the slow songs “Mind’s Eye” and “Tales” (even though “Withcraft” has a flute in it, and I have a thing about flutes).

The lyrics are not my cup of tea at all. Alot of weird "stoner-stuff" like:

“Purple hazes in the sky, see the angels wicked eye”, “Can’t you see that there’s light in the dark, nothing’s quite what it seems in the city of dreams”, “All the people he sees in the night hold their dreams up to the light, the wilder beast is searching for sight”, “She must be mother nature’s child, cause she’s runnin’ to the call of the wild”, “Go see the sorcerer, look into the ball. You may find the answer written on the wall”

…and I just don’t get it. But I guess that’s alright, and that this is the kind of lyrics that’s supposed to be sung to this kind of music. Anyway, if you like the older 70’s bands that I mentioned earlier you’ll probably like this too.


To listen to some songs, or learn more about Wolfmother go to: http://www.wolfmother.com/ or www.myspace.com/wolfmother

THOM YORKE – The Eraser [XL/Playground -2006]

The landscape of Thom Yorkes first solo album is built upon the typical electronic sound Radiohead have been moving around in the last couple of years.

The hard compressed drum loops are mixed together with a tender piano line along with a lingering and flirting guitar melody arranged in a cut and paste environment with Thoms characteristic voice on top of it all. It’s not that chocking the sound is familiar when Nigel Goodrich (he's been producing Radiohead forever now) name appears as the producer of this 9 song album.

Thom created “The Eraser” during tours when he had some time over for just playing around with his laptop. The result is in some cases really relaxed and laid back electronic music, reminding me of the best parts of “Kid A” & “Amnesiac” and in some cases just a kaleidoscopic mess with never ending drumbeats that don’t find its way forward. But I still enjoy the simplicity of it all but at the same time I have to point out that it feels like a cold drink on a sunny day in order to calm down everyone waiting for the new Radohead record.

www.theeraser.net

THE BRONX - s/t [White Drugs/Island Def Jam - 2006]

I know, this CD is not even out yet, but I got a copy of it some weeks ago by a secret ninja-friend of mine.

This is probably the best album of 2006, and even though I’ve been playing it a couple of times every day since I got it, I can’t wait to buy the real thing when it hit the stores. I’m one of those old-fashioned guys that really like to have the whole package with the booklet and stuff. I’m not kidding you, it’s true. We still exist.

Anyway, the first record by The Bronx has been one of my favorite albums since the first time I heard it back in 2003, but I can tell you that this one is a little bit better. Everything that I loved about the first album is on here too, but this time there are both faster/harder songs and slower/more melodic songs put into the mix. 13 songs in about 34 min. Perfect. The album is great, and I really like all the songs. If I have to pick 5 favorites I will have to go with “Shitty Future”, “Oceans Of Glass”, “Dirty Leaves”, “Transsexual Blackout (The Movement)” and “White Guilt”. But it's really hard to choose, since the rest of the songs are great too.

So, if you liked the first album or the album by The Drips (same guitar-player and same singer) I promise you that you won’t be disappointed.

I wrote it in the beginning, and I’ll write it again right now: This is probably the best album of 2006. So, don’t miss this one kids.


If you like to listen to some songs go to www.myspace.com/thebronx or www.thebronxxx.com/

THE BEAR QUARTET– Eternity Now [A West Side Fabrication -2006]

I’ve been a fan of The Bear Quartet for a long long time. That’s why I was so scarred when Eternity Now came into my hands. After their experimental journey with “Saturday Night” I didn’t know what to expect. I had my hopes they had gone back to a more understandable sound, but of course not… This time things are really far out.

I really want to like the record and I try and try but it doesn’t matter if I am lying down, sitting up, riding my bike or drinking 12 beers. I can’t manage to understand what they want me to feel when I’m forced to listen to these awful sounds and annoying blues guitars swelled up in some industrial 80s psychedelic world that only got fucked up drum machines to offer along with some detuned pitch shifted voices.

Probably a very fun record to make when there are no rules or musical boundaries what so ever. And all you’re eating is magic mushrooms, but I don’t so I just get so tired of it.

Why can’t they just go back to doing records like “gay icon” and “angry brigade”? I don’t understand who do they expect to buy this? Some guy that thinks Clawfinger is the best thing that happened to mother earth and are mentally unstable at the same time?

It sure isn’t me that I’m sure of.

Listen to: The Repairing Of The Red Sea

JOHNNY CASH - American V: A Hundred Highways [American Recordings - 2006]

I started listening to Johnny Cash when he released “Unchained”, his second album with Rick Rubin, in 1996. A song called “Rusty Cage” was on it. I didn’t listen to old country guys, but since Soundgarden was one of my favorite bands back then, I gave it a chance. I don’t really remember, but I don’t think I enjoyed the whole thing very much.

I was working in a record-store between December 1997 and March 2005. Somewhere along the way I bought all of the American Recordings Albums by Johnny Cash and I also bought the “Love, God, Murder 3 CD Boxset" with older stuff. I started to really like Johnny. I was surprised when he covered “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails on “American IV: The Man Comes Around” 2002, since it is one of my all-time favorite songs. Anyway, on “A Hundred Highways” there are really no “hits” like that. There are a lot of songs about death and god and dying. The songs on this album are the last songs that Johnny Cash ever recorded, and it also includes the very last song that he ever wrote called “Like The 309”. The first song on this album is called “Help Me” (written by Larry Gatlin), and it’s a really great song. It sets the tone for the rest of the album with lyrics like:

Oh Lord, Help me walk. Another mile, just one more mile. I'm tired of walkin' all alone. And Lord, Help me smile Another smile, just one more smile. You know I just can't make it on my own. I never thought I needed help before. I thought that I could get by - by myself. Now I know I just can't take it any more. With a humble heart, on bended knee I'm beggin' You, please, for help...

Other songs are “God´s Gonna Cut You Down”, “On The Evening Train”, “Love’s Been Good To Me”, ”Rose Of My Heart” and some others. There’s also a really good version of the Bruce Springsteen song “Further On Up The Road”. This is a good final chapter for both the American Recording Albums by Johnny Cash, and also for the man himself. Recorded in the months between the death of his wife, June Carter-Cash and his own death (September 12, 2003). It’s a pretty sad record, but a really good one none the less.

Check out: www.myspace.com/johnnycash or http://www.johnnycash.com/

ANTI-FLAG - For Blood And Empire [RCA – 2006]

With song-titles like “The Press Corpse”, “The Project For A New American Century”, “Hymn For The Dead”, “The WTO Kills Farmers”, and “Depleted Uranium Is A War Crime”, and the fact that these guys are good friends with Tom Morello (Earlier in Rage Against The Machine and now in Audioslave) you could easily think that this is one of those political punk bands. And it is.

I first heard Anti-Flag back in 2003 when they released “The Terror State” on Fat-Wreck Chords. I thought they were pretty good and I bought the CD.

Now, about three years later, Anti-Flag sounds pretty much the same (even though they are now signed to RCA). Musically it goes from some “The Clash-territory” songs to some harder/faster HC-punk songs. The lyrics are anti-war, anti-media and anti-WTO etc, etc. It’s pretty straight-forward stuff. As you can see up in the left corner, the cover shows a cemetery outside of the White House. The booklet is filled with essays about the stories behind the songs and links to different sites on the internet. I haven’t checked them all out yet, but it seems pretty interesting, if you’re in a “there’s so much wrong with the world today-mood”, and not some “I’m so lonely and I just got my heart broken by a selfish girl that I still want to be friends with-mood”. Then you can go listen to some emo-band. (I’m just kidding kids, there’s nothing wrong with that).

But, if you enjoyed “The Terror State”, like I did, you will not be disappointed. “For Blood And Empire” is a pretty good album as well. There’s nothing really special on this album but it makes me kind of happy just listening to it, and sometimes that’s all you need.

And love, of course... No, I’m not a hippie.

If you want to hear some songs by Anti-Flag and make up your own mind about them and their music go to:
www.myspace.com/antiflag or www.anti-flag.com