Rock...



Amen - California's Bleeding

Bit of a taster for the follow up to the excellent 'We Have Come For Your Parents' this is the first CD single from Amen's new 'Death before Musick' album. I have to say on the evidence of this I'm a little worried, it's mainly down to the video on this CD - essentially a fairly conventional "band performing against white background" video - the trouble is, the haircut's seem a little too styled, the lead singer Casey Chaos looks like he's been enjoying one too many pies, and the blood looks fake. The really bad thing is I'm not walking away humming along to lines like I did with the last album... Maybe it's my age, but modern fake punk rock just isn't as good as it used to be.



Lost Prophets - Start Something

I've been listening to there cover version of "Cry me a river" pretty much constantly recently, so it's only fair that I tried there new album out, after all the first Lost Prophet's album wasn't too bad (although I'm damned if I can remember a single song off it). This one suffer's from the same problems - it's not sticking, don't get me wrong it's good; think Angel Dust era Faith No More and you're pretty close, although if you listen to the sort of music they play on Jackass you're probably a bit closer. Actually no, it's a bit more intelligent than that - the last songs really clever, it starts off as a fairly slow rock number before going all ambient in the last five minutes, this is a pretty hard trick to pull off really.



Auf der Maur - Auf der Maur

Right, first thing first: Melissa Auf der Maur was in Hole once - but I forgive her... she escaped the clutches of the Courtney Love (The day she dies of a nasty self induced overdose will be a good day - yes I know it's a horrible thing to say, but I really don't like her, and not because of the Cobain thing, it's mainly because she thinks she's this "kick-ass female role model", when really she's just a fucking disgrace!), went on to the Smashing Pumkins for a bit (very overrated band, that needs to be said), took a couple of years off, and is now back with a solo album. So, after all that negativity why did I pick it up? Well, the 'good' answer is I've seen quite a few positive reviews, the 'bad' answer is "red hair, goth chick (essentially), plays bass... nuff said!". Sorry I'm shallow, I can be attracted to music for very base reasons sometimes. Thankfully it's paid off this time, what I didn't realise (or notice in reviews) is that Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age is all over this album! So it rocks! And it even rocks when he's not on it, in fact sometimes it rocks more. If you want a point of reference draw a line between "A Perfect Circle" and "Queens of the Stone Age", vere off toward's PJ Harvey's tunes on the Desert Sessions album and you'll be about there.