review

Rob Zombie The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser (T-Boy/UMe) At first glance, one might assume that everything is just business as usual for Rob Zombie on his sixth solo studio album. Its title, The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, reads like a compilation of words pulled from the titles of his other albums and seems a little laughable and ridiculous, at first. Likewise, the same could be said of all twelve of the titles...

Michael Jackson Off The Wall CD/Blu-Rae (Epic/Legacy) It’s unlikely that anyone would ever attempt to downplay Michael Jackson’s importantce in pop music and pop culture history. In the era when pop and rock did battle for supremacy on radio and television airwaves, Michael Jackson – the youngest member of the Jackson 5 – elected to ignore the popular trends which dominated both and simply chart his own course using elements of both but sounding like niether. It worked beautifully too;...

A critical evaluation of Tim Ginger by Julian Hanshaw. Do you know why it’s probably a good idea for anyone interested in comics to stay away from the mainstream DC/Marvel stuff? Because not in a million years would you read a book like Tim Ginger if you did. The concept of Tim Ginger is both unique, extravagant and also very simple at the same time. It deals with a topic that most of us don’t think about which is parenthood,...

A critical evaluation of Renée by Ludovic Debeurme. Readers need to buckle up and strap on their helmets, because this book is going to take you on an emotional ride and it’s going to get uncomfortable. Renée should be applauded for getting so many things right in a medium that is honestly either misunderstood or under-appreciated. Who says comics can’t look fresh and tug at your heartstrings in a disturbing way? There are a lot of ideas floating around in...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 20th Anniversary Vinyl Me Please deluxe edition 2LP + 7” of The Score by The Fugees. Looking back on it, it’s nothing short of astounding how volitile the hip hop scene of the Mid-Nineties was. Before Eminem made dick and fart jokes as well as unveiled homophobia de rigeur, different factions of the Gangsta Rap community were battling both with each other as well as internally for seats at the head...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Gangsterville” single by Joe Strummer, being reissued for Record Store Day 2016! With the benefit of hindsight, the first thing listeners will notice about this single’s title track is how well it dovetails with the final days of The Clash, and where they were when the wheels finally fell off with Combat Rock in 1982...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day-released Goodfriend LP by Matthew Sweet. Chances are, if you grew up anywhere within the reach of a rock radio station’s signal between 1989 amd 1996, you have more than a few memories for which Matthew Sweet’s music provided the soundtrack. Between 1989 and 1996, Sweet was everywhere; a string of singles including “Sick Of Myself,” “Girlfriend,” “The Ugly Truth,” “Time Capsule” and “Evangeline” got heavy...

A critical evaluation of NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories by NOFX and Jeff Alulis, published by Da Capo Press. As “Fat” Mike Burkett says himself in the final chapter of NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories, “I guess when a person tells one fucked-up story it sounds believable, but a series of fucked-up stories back to back sounds too weird to be true. Collectively, NOFX have enough fucked up stories that no one ever knows what to...

Artist: Fat White Family Album: Songs for Our Mothers Label: Fat Possum Records Isn’t it incredible how, over time, the basic structures of established musics can become re-imagined/re-engineered for no other reason than they’ve become displaced from the time and places they were first developed? The possibility of time and place being so important for something non-corporeal like music may seem like a dubious one but, in listening to Fat White Family’s new album, Songs for Our Mothers, it suddenly...

  Artist: Dandy Warhols Album: Distortland Label: Dine Alone It’s unlikely that there is any band in rock right now more underrated than the Dandy Warhols. A lot of that has historically had to do with the fact that the band has seemed to go out of its way to throw fans a series of elegant braking balls to confuse and frustrate them; since Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (a.k.a. “the breakthrough”) came out in 2000, Courtney Taylor-Taylor and company...