James Allred - James Allred

Alan: Downbeat syncopated modern folk. Amazing guitar playing, nice arrangements. Pink Floyd plays slow psychedelic folk.
William: Leonard Coehn with Al Stewart's voice. Stellar guitar, spooky songs. Great record.
Charles: Vocally & lyrically not interesting. However, the guitar was salvageable, albeit overproduced.
Jack: Nice guitar work, sounds like Bob Dylan.

Ambry - Holding On By The Blindfolds We Hide Behind

Alan: Excellent, highly melodic modern rock. Heavy guitars, pounding rhythms, very lyrical poetry. Post-emo beauty.
William: Hard rock emo with over-pronounced Bill Joe vocal spitting. I'm ambry too, Ed.
Charles: Structureless angst-driven heavy rock. Bland, but not horrid.
Jack: Passion and talent without direction. These boys need structure & discipline… and a chorus.

Armor For Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

Alan: Excellent modern rock/metal/edgy emo album. Smooth vocals, chunky guitars, pounding rhythms. Bloody brilliant.
William: Not bad agro-pop fixated on death. The accompanying booklet is instructional.
Charles: Music like this makes it "cool" to cry openly and still have full sleeve tattoos.
Jack: Armor For Sleep: the other Jimmy Eat World. I like the booklet. Very much.

Baby Teeth - The Baby Teeth Album

Alan: 70's style light funk-rock with words that go in circles. Cool keyboards & awesome drums.
William: Canned Grand Lovin' Spoonfunk. Frizzy haired out of range, tone & style yuck rock.
Charles: A Grand Funk trainwreck that leaves me flat as their vocals.
Jack: Too funny to be bad. Too bad to be funny.

Bluebottle Kiss - Come Across

Alan: Dark, sonic Americana - beautiful instrumentation, nice twangy guitars, coold rums, brilliant lyrics… intensely moody.
William: Great bombastic Nick Cave stuff turning to insufferable Dinosaur Jr. junior. Fantastic lyrics.
Charles: Downbeat with gothic country undertones. Fully the in-style & popular sound for "hip" indie bands.

The Bravery - The Bravery

Alan: British garage disco music. Cool programming, cool sounds, cool vocals. Disco drums still suck.
William: "you spin me right round baby right round…"
Charles: Order a New World Cure DEVOid of originality, and disco into obscurity.
Jack: If you liked this shit in the 80's, your kids hate you.

Build Buildings - There Is A Problem With My Tape Recorder

Alan: Quirky sparse atmospheric synthesized ultra-light drum'n'bass. Very cool sounds & textures. Lullabies for nightmarish baby robots.
William: The opposite of Einsturzende Neubauten. Music made by and for insects. Irritating nonsense.
Charles: Random, yet pleasing sounds of computer fucking in the CGI generated moonlight.
Jack: Crazy, experimental art stuff. I think your tape player is fine.

Cetacea - EP

Alan: Lush, epic pop music. Soaring vocals, excellent drumming over OK Computer beds of sound.
William: Monoxinal 3% by volume. Do not take Cetacea if you suffer from depression or whining.
Charles: This is the prog pretentiousness that caused a generation of punks to rise up.
Jack: Brit sounding art rock. Very interesting drums.

The Churchills - The Odds Of Winning

Alan: Nicely produced modern rock. Perfect synthesizer usage, great guitar tones. Dnady Warhols Squeeze-Fighting Foo.
William: Winston & Ward make sugary Weezer snacks in Rembrandts swill. Slick produced cup of sick.
Charles: These guys should be on the radio! They sound like everything else there.
Jack: Standard pop rock. Not bad, not outstanding.

Continuous Peasant - Intentional Grounding

Alan: Dark pop-rock, loosely held together by great piano, low guitars, and flat vocals. Somehow cool.
William: Part Bob Dylan, part Lemonheads. The hero is the brilliant/ bizarre imagery.
Charles: RACTOR lives. Computer generated lyrics and music from a fabric coated underground.
Jack: Too well-read and clever-attempting for their own disconnected pseudo-intellectual selves.

Herb Eimerman - &I You

Alan: Super 80's-sounding melodic pop. Terrible drums. Daniel Amos, Crack The Sky - cool vocal recording.
William: Not without merit, Herb can turn a tune and plays well enough… but sing like a man.
Charles: This is painfully bad, awful, shit. Please leave the early 80's buried - please. And thanks.
Jack: The return of the less talented Cat Stevens.

The Escaped - The Escaped

Alan: Good, solid, high energy punk rock. Thick, meaty guitars. Almost makes me want to fight.
William: Like setting fire to the gas nozzle and shooting flames at passing motorists.
Charles: A Clear And Present Punk Rock. Punkrockalypse Now. How Stella Got Her Punk Rock.
Jack: Good old school, angry, punk rock.

Meghan Hayes - Go And Give The Guard A Break

Alan: Laid-back rootsy AC rock with brilliant vocalist. Excellent lyrics, very well-produced, catchy tunes - and on key!
William: Joan Baez electric. She can sing and write, the band can play. Better than we deserve.
Charles: Country rock fusion gumbo done well a la Jane Siberry meets Deana Carter.

Kottonmouth Kings - The Kottonmouth Xperience DVD

Alan: A Hazy kaleidoscope that may or may not enhance your pot smoking/music listening experience.
William: As if the music wasn't grating enough, the video will give you a migraine.
Charles: Mind masturbation for mental midgets. Dope required for appreciation.
Jack: If you smoke, and like KMK, then you will love this experience enhancing audio/visual experience.

LN - Dirt Floor Hotel Part 1

Alan: Thick, moody, ambient, downbeat beauty - deep vocals, intriguing lyric, cool sounds. Red House Painters-ish.
William: Deep, slow, echoey and gorgeous. Like a very depressed Chris Isaac. Incredible.
Charles: This band makes me sad and reflective… I love it! I want more.
Jack: Warning: do not operate heavy machinery while listening to this album.

Cas Lucas - Giving It Back

Alan: Brilliant acoustic guitar player - songs of great poetry, entrancing stories. SUPREME GUITAR PLAYING - wonderful!
William: Deft guitar-folk. Enjoyable songwriting and decent singing. Play all night, but ditch the back up singers.
Charles: Yup - a guy and a guitar - yup -uhhuh - yup.
Jack: Guitar playing guy singing nice songs.

Lynn Paul Jr. Band - Slingshot

Alan: Good, solid jamming bar rock. Hints of Cheap Trick, Vapors, 77s, Widespread Panic, Nick Lowe.
William: And in the center square… Lynn Paul. This guy has the Knack to use Cheap Tricks.
Charles: White trash meets Phish. Shake gently, add cigarette butts to taste.
Jack: Cheesy 40-something bar rock.

Angela McKenzie - Nine 9

Alan: Deliciously soulful acoustic folk with beautifully smoky silk-voiced chanteuse. Excellent songwriting, production, playing.
William: Simple and stirring arrangements, beautiful voice, lovely folk playing. Quite impressive.
Charles: Yup - a girl and her guitar - yup - uhhuh - yup.
Jack: Folky, country, acoustic girl stuff. Nice voice

New Brutalism - 2001-2003

Alan: The most aggressive (later) Gang Of Four cover band I've ever heard. Noisy, fast, hard.
William: No metal, clever hardcore rhythms, tasty bass lines. Like Cro-mags, but lighter.
Charles: Wanna-be Swedish hardcore band? Comes up just short.
Jack: Brutal doesn't begin to describe the beating these guys need.

Popular Genius - How To Be Popular

Alan: Oddly quirky Jellyfish-style pop music, 80's guitars, 70's harmonies, 90's arrangements. Brilliantly groovy, strangely cool.
William: Sickening jazz-rock with a vocalist emulating a clarinet.
Charles: Is genius self declared? Chicago meets a male Alanis Morissette and a bored recording tech.
Jack: That's a lot of horns, man! Look at the list! Wild, dad.

Giorgio Pretti - Cuidado Mano

Alan: Amazing guitar player struts his Latin stuff on smooth tracks. Bosssa nova, jazz, rock brilliance.
William: Very well done Brazilian samba, rock and ballads. The name says it all.
Charles: Basic, competent bossa nova. Paul Simon, Santana, &The Gipsy Kings do guest spots?
Jack: Warning: only for people who like getting laid.

Will Sartain - The Listening Booth

Alan: The one-man quirky indie rock machine. Great piano lines, enthralling llyrics, cool songs.
William: Get out, mom… I'm recording! Edgy, punctuated indie piano. Talent show dropout.
Charles: Make like a tree and find a key.
Jack: I bet this guy wears corduroy pants all the time.

Amie Sassano - Casting Shadows

Alan: Slightly off-key AAA-bar rock doing its best to sound like Chrissie Hynde. Passable, not great.
William: Straight-ahead roots rock, could do with more melody and oomph from the vocals.
Charles: Angsty, roots rock that just sits there. Shake and Bake music.
Jack: People should sing in their range… and avoid Ani DiFranco rhythms.

Scientific American - Strong For The Future

Alan: Fascinating ambient soundscapes moving from minimalist to near drum'n'bass. Brilliant sounds, cool arrangements, neat poetry.
William: Tripped-out manipulated sounds, soothing and curious, warped vocal treatment.
Charles: Kraftwerk tranced to the gills and dragged into the 90's.
Jack: Silky smooth background music with occasional sonic challenges & cool vocals.

Six Day Slide - Held Under

Alan: Very well written pop/rock music, touches of emo. Good players, good singers = good rock.
William: Decent R&B rock. I thought the singer was black. Annoying guitar bits.
Charles: And on the seventh day, they imitated.
Jack: Uplifting rock music. Good sound and easy to listen to songs. Well done, boys.

Jamie Stillway - Mell Of A Hess

Alan: Beautiful acoustic instrumental jazz-grass. Excellent playing, lovely compositions, very sublime tones. Perfect!
William: Baroque chamber music, vaudeville, and folk, expertly & delicately executed. Painfully good.
Charles: I learned what an octave violin is. This is a great record!
Jack: Very mellow folk with some jazz undertones.

Suit Of Lights - Suit Of Lights

Alan: Clever lyrical flow on across-the-board musics. They Might Be Giant Paul McCartneys. Fun, light, cool.
William: Plodding dub-punk with stunted vocals giving way to Himmelman/Costello wussiness. Confused.
Charles: I don't know what to say - some good, some bad - mostly bad.

Tongues - Ugly

Alan: Very heavy Australian rock - edgy but smooth, like Big Sugar, BRMC, Garbage, Bush. Rock'N'Roll brilliance.
William: Big dangerous sound like Babes In Toyland doing Divinyls' songs. Makes me wet.
Charles: Thick, meaty rock soup with a whiskey rough aftertaste and a hint of vegemite.
Jack: I wish all rock guitar was this thick and beautiful.

Turnpike Glow - Rush Home

Alan: Lower indie-rock psychedelia, draws from Joy Division, Slowdive, Durutti Column, Galaxy 500. Fascinating and cool.
William: Early 90's British art noodling. Stay-in-your-seat rock. Durutti Column VS. Unrest.
Charles: Highway hypnosis or identity crisis? Severed Joy Division Heads in your Wedding Present.
Jack: Belle & Sebastian's drugged up cousin. Can't talk… coming down. Spacemen 3, sort of.