Album of the Weak

As a title that would probably have worked better back when this fucker was called 'The Weak In Sport'. C'est la muthafuckin' vie, as the French have rarely been heard to say.

Anyway, it's more New CD reviews. That's reviews of CDs that are new, not reviews of CDs undertaken after several too many stubbies of New. That would be ridiculous. If anything it'd be Speights.


Powderfinger, Dream Days At The Hotel Existence
No need to vault to the end and check the Bollocks Rating on this one - your correspondent has already slagged off the latest sop-fest production-line offering from Burnt Fanny et al in other media commitments, no surprises here. To summate, it's an unfortuate reversion to type, sadly highlighting the lads' preference for churning out pop radio friendly ballads instead of actual rock songs. If you liked Odyssey Number 5 you'll like this. If you liked Vulture Street you're shit out of luck. The high voltage approach of the latter seems now an aberration rather than a new direction - disappointingly.

Spin it because... You're trying to pull and your intended has a thing for wee unshaven Bernard.

Bin it because... Your intended clearly has piss poor taste in men (particularly if she's into you). And music too. Better off without my son.

Bollocks rating: Two stripes down the middle of the road out of five. Even less without the DVD of their best vids chucked in for free.


The Have, Back To The Burning Wreck
From over-exposed has-beens to under-exposed wannabes - the only commonality being the turd-brown river which flows through their respective hometowns. From Brisvegas we head south-east to the dank shithole of Wanganui, home of young Kiwi blues-rockers The Have. Fresh from being invited back to play their second South by Southwest in the States, these boys have chucked in their jobs and cranked out their first album. The pitch: Dallas Crane with less hype and more actual songs. Is Have. Is Good.

Spin it because... these boys crank. And we're running out of good Kiwi rock bands, with the D4 pulling stumps, the Datsuns continuing to suck and Shihad going all shouty again. Jesus fuck they've even exhumed Supergroove in time to support the Crowdies on their NZ tour. The Captain will be happy.

Bin it because... you have fuck all chance of finding a copy outside the Shakies.

Bollocks rating: Three and a have out of have.


Crowded House, Time On Earth
Speaking of NZ's favourite Aussie band...
Let us speak bluntly on this. This is nothing more than a Nil Fun solo album, and a not very good one at that, mildly redecorated with suitably whimsical cover art. It is not, in any way, shape or form, a Crowded House album. And as such, it's a fucking insult to the memory of Paul Hester. Drummers are not lightbulbs, despite all the jokes surrounding attempts by the former to change the latter. Crowded House are yet to learn from the example of Led Zeppelin and The Who: when your iconic drummer pulls stumps, so do you. Unless you're Spinal Tap. And unless there's a two foot Stonehenge monument on stage at those Crowdies 'reunion' gigs, I'm presuming they're NOT Spinal Tap.

Spin it because... you got it for free, or you're an absolute Crowdies tragic, or something.

Bin it because... it's really not very good. Even our absolute-Crowdies-tragic boss (provider of our review copy) thinks this album is total ewok-scraping choadmonger wank. His words not mine.

Bollocks rating: One failed-attempt-to-dust-for-vomit out of five.


John Butler Trio, Grand National
It's a John Butler Trio album. What the fuck do you expect it to sound like? Def Leppard?

Spin it because... there's more songs about his missus than John Howard (marginally), which is an improvement, at least in his state of mind re pants action. Speaking of which, your girlfriend probably likes it. However, in one of life's ironies, if you come home barefoot and jobless with a guitar and stinky arse-length dreadlocks, she will probably disown you.

Bin it because.. it does tend to go on a bit. And because one was obliged to review this album stuck in an impromptu carpark north of Brunswick Heads on the Pacific Highway because of arseloads of hairy Butler freaks in busted-arse Kombis going to Byron blues fest. Fuckers.

Bollocks rating: Three carbon credits out of five.


The White Stripes, Icky Thump
You know the story by now: brother and sister who like shagging each other start a band despite a bizarre congenital allergy to bass players, make it big on the back of the New Rock Revolution™ which also makes heroes out of Jet, the Strokes, the Vines et al, release rather appalling piano album Get Behind Me Satan which nobody likes, then guitarist fucks off to record with side project featuring actual drummer capable of keeping actual time. And a bass player, funnily enough. Old mate Jack must have been hammering the Telfast to cope with that. Anyway, the stripey Whites are back with Icky Thump: despite the evocative title, thirteen tracks bearing no resemblance to anything by the Goodies. Pity because Jack White covering 'Run' or 'Do The Funky Gibbon' would have been worth the price of admission.

Spin it because... it's not too bad, he's dropped the piano down a well and stuck with the axe which is to be encouraged. Not quite as good as Elephant but still half-decent.

Bin it because... it's only half-decent and not as good as Elephant. Furthermore, '300mph. Torrential Outpour Blues' just isn't. I know that's the inherent irony therein, but dammit, total lack of irony is what I like about the Seppos.

Bollocks rating: three consanguinous marriages out of five.


The Fratellis, Costello Music
Standard operating procedure for the Brit music industry: if something works, clone it. For prior art, please see the Stones clones of the 60s or the generic Britpop acts of the 90s. Now, in the aftermath of the fairly unexpected ascent of the Arctic Monkeys, we have the Fratellis. Been around about five minutes before making it ignormous: check. Catchy singalong indie-pop with a sardonic twist: check. Deliberately and obstreperously Northern: check. In fact, in a masterstroke of one-upmanship, being Scottish they're even more northern than the Monkeys. You can tell however that these boys are expected to be big, rather than taking the market by surprise like the Monkeys did, by the fact that their stuff has already been product-placed into TV ads by their record company - 'Flathead' on that iPod commercial, 'Chelsea Dagger' on that Peugeot 207 one. (Yes, that's where you know these guys from.)

Spin it because... old-bastard cynicism aside, it's decent stuff. And any band which quotes the movie Still Crazy as their inspiration for getting together is fine by me. Good fillum.

Bin it because... it seemed somehow fresher and/or cleverer the first time we heard it.

Bollocks rating: three and a half polar primates out of five.


Coming soon...
On the horizon, with reasons why we're hanging out to get hold of the following:

Airbourne, Runnin' Wild
Because the film clip to 'Too Young, Too Fast, Too Soon' is the single funniest piece of music-related video I've seen since This Is Spinal Tap

Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare
Because there weren't any Difficult Second Albums™ to hang shit on this time around

Grinspoon, Alibis And Other Lies
Just to see whether the band still sounds decent after Phil hocked all their gear to Theft Converters to feed his P addiction.


What your Friendly Neighbourhood Medical Professional is Deafening Himself With Right Now (and thinks you should too)

Guitar Wolf, Jet Generation (1999)
It's very shouty, it's hideously loud, it's almost entirely in Japanese, and it carries the disclaimer sticker, 'Warning: this is the loudest CD ever made. Playing it at normal levels may damage your stereo equipment'. Can see why the D4 were hanging out to cover 'Invader Ace'.
Garage punk at its most forceful.
FUJIYAMA ATTACK!!!

Iggy And The Stooges, Raw Power (1973, remixed by Iggy 1997)
In all the nostalgic navel-gazing associated with the reunion of the original Stooges, this album from a subsequent lineup (basically the same guys - Iggy and the Asheton bros - with a different lead axe, James Williamson) gets set aside as somehow not of the same cloth. Correct. The first two albums, with the original Stooges, were turgid shit. Raw Power is fucking immense. Even after Iggy's remix, which proved there was something recorded other than massive guitar and vocals, everything is still at eleven and everything is still louder than everything else. Album opener 'Search and Destroy' may in fact be the best song the 1970s ever managed to come up with. Discuss.

The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious (2000)
The basis of their best-selling best-of Your New Favourite Band, this is chock-full of the good stuff - Hate To Say I Told You So, Main Offender, Supply And Demand, Die! All Right! etc. Plus all the good stuff that didn't make YNFB - in particular Declare Guerre Nucleaire and Inspection Wise 1999. No, I don't know what the fuck they're on about. By comparison Guitar Wolf are about as difficult to understand as Spot Goes To School.


Until next time, keep it cranked.

The Doctor is OUT (to see a consultant audiologist.)