Shed your skin For Those With Contempt Strap Medina Records Word on the street has it that the bright and talented Lone Star Trio committed artistic and commercial suicide by abandoning its roots. Its sudden shift from a bona fide rockabilly band–heir apparent to cat daddy Horton Heat–to a nondescript…

“Classical music for the next millennium,” said The New York Times upon the release of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II in the spring of 1994–a hefty label for a young lad from Cornwall who was only 22 at the time. Richard James–aka Aphex Twin–has gotten used to this…

101 punks Pretty Ugly Mess Last Beat Records Cris Mess sings like a young, pissed-off Billy Idol (circa Generation X), but you can’t help noticing that this album sounds like it has been preserved in a time capsule for the last 20 years; the question of nostalgia arises like a…

If 1995 was the year of the umpteenth British Invasion (Oasis, Blur, etc.) and the domination of the true underground by the amazing cross-pollinations of dance music, 1996 wasn’t far behind in brilliance. In ’96, the feeling that pop music still has the power to stimulate, instigate, and propagate remained…

The big bang Jesus Christ Superstars Laibach Mute Records Sinsational Pig Nothing/Interscope Records If the world were about to end in a tremendous bang, Laibach would be the first in line to write the soundtrack–such is their scope and ambition. Some bands think big; this cryptic Slovenian quartet thinks colossal…

Historia de la musica rock Now I Got Worry, the latest Blues Explosion album, kicks off with Jon Spencer letting out a primal scream that sounds like a young James Brown on amphetamines. Then the album explodes–pun intended–into a frenzy of swaggering riffs, primordial 4/4 beats, and some of the…

Nothing’s shocking Antichrist Superstar Marilyn Manson Nothing/Interscope Welcome to the “shocking” world of Marilyn Manson–a pop circus where the clowns combine the names of media icons and serial killers (Twiggy Ramirez, Madonna Wayne Gacy) and spew out humorless Four-And-A-Half Inch Nails tunes. Their live shows are supposedly raucous affairs where…

Blood, sweat, and tears Five years ago Social Distortion joined the Ramones at the old Bronco Bowl for one of rock’s dream double bills–the kind that we don’t get in Dallas that often. The two bands made three simple chords sound like heaven and created one of those nights where…

Oscillator to the moon Stylistic mutation has been the tonic for old, tired rock-‘n’-roll horses since the Beatles fiddled with sitars and Deep Purple jammed with a symphony orchestra. For the past six years the London-based collective Stereolab has embraced diverse influences and tinkered with musical paradoxes with the wide-eyed…

Love’s labor lost October Rust Type O Negative Roadrunner Records Two themes run through the fourth Type O Negative album: love and death. Most of the time they are indistinguishable–“Love You to Death,” “Die With Me”–giving October Rust a hypnotic continuity. Still, the New York band manages to reinvent itself…

Downfall Solitude Aeturnus Pavement Music Even as the members of Metallica cut their hair and Soundgarden peddles its sub-Sabbath riffs alternatively packaged, Arlington’s Solitude Aeturnus continues its quixotic fight for the preservation of the metal beast. In Downfall–its fourth album–the band is more concerned with the dark, Gothic ambience of…

Suckerpunch Suckerpunch 510 Records A cliche can only go so far: “Three chords is all it takes, broken strings, fuck the mistakes,” Suckerpunch announces in “Why Bother”–a song that appropriately sums up this album. Unfortunately there are no mistakes in this calculated stab at punk revival. Even the aptly named…

It is early on a Friday night and Club Clearview is almost full. A large crowd–dressed mostly in black–defies the unwritten rock rule: Thou shalt not hang around while the opening band is playing. Several hundred eyes are fixed on the stage, where a group of young people fills the…

Low-down, dirty future techno blues Subliminal Sandwich, Meat Beat Manifesto’s latest, is a magnum opus of post-rave electronica. Mastermind Jack Dangers unleashes the possibilities of sampling and sound manipulation to produce a chilling soundtrack for the approaching end-of-the-millennium paranoia. Dub bass riffs collide with electronic beats in the midst of…

Heart of the Congos The Congos Blood and Fire Given that most of what passes for rhythm and blues today has neither, the reissue of this 20-year-old reggae masterpiece by the sublime vocal duo the Congos is a reminder and a godsend. One of the most crucial reggae albums ever…

Mazinga Phaser is nothing if not ambitious. Exhausted from a day of intense mixing, producer Matt Castille and four of the six band members are slouching in the bedroom of Castille’s home studio. Although fatigued, they’re talking enthusiastically, riding that final rush that follows a job well done. Phrases like…

Same as it ever was Stand By Tellus Tellurian Records With a surreal cover whose artistry would be right at home with any of Hipgnosis Studio’s bizarre illustrations for ’70s acts like Yes, Tellus announces that it shares the ambitions (and yes, the pretensions) of prog-rock standard-bearers. Of course, the…

Echo of the past You have to give some credit to Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant: In the year when even the Sex Pistols reform to flog the dead horse of punk, they could come back as Echo and the Bunnymen and travel with the nostalgia circus, hammering their past…

The five members of Transona Five sit comfortably in the living room of the Lower Greenville house that bass player Greg Morgan and drummer G.P. Cole share. Although still in their early 20s, the two have spent the last 10 years playing together in punk bands. They’re quite a contrast…

This year marks British punk rock’s 20th birthday, but the Sex Pistols reunion tour hangs in the air like the stench of death–or at least the suspicious smell of a million moldy dollar bills. As John Lydon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock prepare to kick off their tour…

Worshipping the Gods As a performer, Young Gods’ frontman Franz Treichler is Jim Morrison reincarnate. He stands with his eyes closed, sweaty hair in his face, arms outstretched as if he wants to fly or be crucified, and his voice vacillates between a painful whisper and a determined howl. He…

Nick Cave has a hard time describing his music, and as he speaks over the phone from New York City, he does so slowly. He forms his words with calculated enunciation, and though he is never evasive, he answers questions carefully and thoughtfully, like a man pondering his own existence…