Album Reviews

THE OLD 97'S
Drag It Up
(New West)
The cool thing about Drag It Up, the group's first album since 2001, is it sounds like it was recorded in a phone booth. The mental picture created by the crowded arrangements is of the fellas huddled around one microphone, fighting to be heard. Drag It Up lopes through great, light-hearted lyrics and biting sarcasm on tracks like "Coahuila" and "Bloomington," but slows way down with the creepily dark "Valium Waltz" and the Beatles-meets-Neil Young "In the Satellite Rides a Star." The disc grabs your attention early and holds it throughout; the changing pace of the record and granular recordings work great. The Old 97's make Drag It Up worth the wait. Lance Looper [buy it]

RAILROAD EARTH
The Good Life
(Sugar Hill)
The roots music scene has been waiting for an album like The Good Life. Combining quirky vocals and sincere emotion, Railroad Earth brings a lot of energy to its third record. The six-man band is efficient and somehow manages to arrange a lot of instruments into each track. Contrary to other records being released these days, these songs are a send up to life. There is a refreshing absence of brooding on The Good Life, a change of pace that will hopefully be the beginning of a trend. Lance Looper [buy it]

THE REIGNING SOUND
Too Much Guitar!
(In the Red)
An album called Too Much Guitar!—geez, how can I resist? The latest platter from former Oblivians dude Greg Cartwright lives up to its name, but not in the way, say, a heavy metal album would. There aren't a ton of six-string overdubs on Cartwright's 50s-inspired garage rock numbers, but the guitars (no doubt acquired at pawnshops in the bad part of town) are cranked so far up into the red zone that they pummel everything else here, even Cartwright's manic bark. The songs contain sturdy enough hooks to hold up to the rough treatment, and the music sounds like it might shatter the disk into a dozen pieces at any moment. 'Nuff said. Michael Toland [buy it]

SAETA
We Are Waiting All For Hope
(Fish the Cat)
Saeta wants to get its angst into the open air as quietly as it can. The Seattle trio pours its worst fears and darkest desires into arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano and cello, with songwriter Matt Menovcik's ravaged larynx providing harsh counterpoint to the soft sounds. It's the classic contrast between surface beauty and inner decay, as Menovcik's lonely characters lose hope in love as beautifully as possible. As pretty as We Are Waiting All For Hope is, it's not music for snuggling with your honey on the couch, but for staring into space late in the night after that final phone call. Michael Toland [buy it]

SPARKLING BOMBS
Dead Dreams From the Silver Gutter
(Zone 51/Coexistence Obscure)
These fine French folk put enough lipstick and pancake makeup on their power pop to leave a harlequin-shaped smear on the mirror. But there's nothing camp in Sparkling Bombs' presentation of sexy glitter rock—the quintet is too busy coming down off its sugar high to waste time on pouting and eye-rolling. The band's headlong rush of sweet hooks, crunchy power chords and flamboyant point man Alyss' great boybrat pop voice is damn near irresistible, especially when married to cracking good tunes like "Drag King Baby," "Blow My Head Away" and "Interstellar Suicide." Michael Toland

TRANSCENDENCE
Sleep With You
(Transcendent Music)
Sleep With You, the second offering from Miami-based act Transcendence, could be easily dismissed as another example of mid-'90s cock rock debauchery, if not for its content. Distancing itself from the translucent seriousness that dominated corporate rock of the time, Transcendence instead immerses itself in irony, preaching casual sex, copious drug usage and salvation via self-absorption. It almost works, too, with songs like "Minnie Driver" (misogyny at its best, uh, I mean worst), "Junkie" and Sleep With You's title track. But the concept, clocking in at a whopping hour and four minutes, just gets redundant. By the time you've made it through the first three or four songs, the idea is firmly there—"We're loud, we're hedonistic and that's the way we like it"—so further pondering is unnecessary. Then again, maybe time is another example of the excess that dominates this otherwise unremarkable record. Mark Sanders [buy it]

THE UPSIDEDOWN
Trust Electricity
(Reverb)
Portland's dapper quintet the Upsidedown swirl together many of the same psychedelic, shoegazer and glam rock elements as their Northwest brethren the Dandy Warhols and the Turn-ons, minus the brattiness of the former and the indie rock casualness of the latter. Lots of good stuff going on here, yet, somehow, I find my mind wandering as it plays. It's as if the melodies creep up to the border of captivation, but never quite cross it. Some of the bluesier stuff like "Pepper Spray" and "Elizabeth" kicks up quite a cloud of dust, but it's not enough to obscure the essential blandness of the rest of the record. Or maybe I'm just soured by the cover of "Spirit in the Sky." Michael Toland [buy it]

THE WEAKLINGS
Rock-N-Roll Owes Me
(Dead Beat)
The pissed-off gutterhound side of rock strikes again with Rock-N-Roll Owes Me, the firebreathing new LP from the woefully misnomered Weaklings. This Portland crew sees Chuck Berry, Thin Lizzy and Antiseen as being part of the same lineage, so this record is not for the fainthearted. There's nothing weak about Rock-N-Roll Owes Me—the record oozes riffs, thuds, sneers, snarls and enough bad attitude to make John Lydon retire, and it boasts the best title in a dog's age. Showing that the band's heart is lovingly put in the wrong place, the vinyl version has a rippin' take on the Lords of the New Church's "Little Boys Play With Dolls." Michael Toland

WEEN
Live in Chicago
(Sanctuary)
Believe it or not, this is my first exposure to Ween. I have no idea how representative of the band's sound this live CD/DVD set is, but the first thing that struck me is how musically accomplished this is. Gene and Dean Ween gather a hell of a group of players around them for these Chi-Town shows, and many of the songs seem set up to show off Dean's six-string mastery and Gene's versatile singing. As novelty-oriented and outright tasteless as many of the lyrics are (or at least are supposed to be), the music is usually vibrant and melodic. There's even a credible cover of Led Zeppelin's "All of My Love." I can't call myself a convert, but some of these tunes—the classic rocker "Transdermal Celebration," the jaunty pop cut "Even If You Don't," the funk rock workout "Voodoo Lady," the prog-lite "Buckingham Green," the pissed-off ballad "Baby Bitch"—are quite attractive, scatological impulses and all. Michael Toland [buy it]