#2123 Big Black - Songs About Fucking

This is a machine that makes rock and roll songs. It doesn't work very well. It lacks that human touch. It is rusty and perfect. It grinds its gears. It does not care. This is actually very rock and roll. Especially in 1987. It is not angry. You're angry. That's on you, you fucking, person 3.5/5

#2122 Amigo the Devil - Manimals

What a well-named act.

All four tracks pulse with dark molasses, death pulling in close for a kiss, telling you it won't be alright, but that's alright -- with all the vital sting of a half-remembered Scandinavian fairy tale, shadow cast through Warren Zevon's LA streetlight shimmer. Unsettling, slinking, impossible to put your finger on, impossible to ignore 3.5/5

#2121 Eddie Hazel - Game, Dames And Guitar Thangs

Man, that doubly, wubbly, guitar sound, as heard w/ Funkadelic, now dancing through smooth, strange covers and a handful of loosey goosey jams. Barely any songs here, but it's all worth it for that one of a kind, effortlessly sweet ghost of a guitar sound 3.5/5

#2120 The Pretty Things - The Pretty Things

Modestly better than average blues-driven 60's garage rock. It's played nice and loose, the mix is torn wide open, and dude can wail -- harmonica can too.

Packed with Bo Diddley beats and Rolling touchstones, worth hearing if you're into this kind of thing, but there's nothing here that's going to shake your foundation loose 3/5

#2119 LLoyd Price - Lloyd Price Greatest Hits: The ABC Paramount Recordings

Great singer, smooth songs, all coasting on that New Orleans beat, every verse sliding on a pillowey, swinging, backsinging setup and a bah-dap! bah-dap! bah-dap! payoff. It just all waves back and forth like in the laziest breeze, like right nice with a cool drink 3.5/5

#2118 Dinosaur Jr. - Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not

Man, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all these new albums from all these 90's underground bands.

Pleasant enough, as usual - the vocals croon effortlessly, the guitars crunch agreeably, but there's nothing new by 2016 standards, nothing new by Dinosaur Jr. standards, and none of the songs surprise within themselves - it's all totally fine and not one note stuck with me 3/5

#2117 Rival Consoles - Night Melody

I just can't get enough of that frayed-edge synth, that frail, sighing whine, that ruffled buzz.

Night Melody lives up to its name, ringing endless and dark and mysterious, with blood that flows and a mind that thinks too much until it doesn't think at all. A loose house backbone comes and goes, but the beat's an afterthought, a side effect of a sound that exists to color the dark spots of your brain 4/5