Though it's another album of slow-building textural ambience, Depths is quite organic-sounding compared to the duo's debut. Besides the spacious noise that remains a focus, there are several tracks of faraway guitar pop ("Silent Ocean" and "Undercurrent" are highlights) that include vocals (by Windy) much closer to singing than their previous work. (AMG)

The world of experimental rock is crowded with musicians seeking to add more and varied sounds to their growing body of recorded work, while restlessly seeking to diversify their approach by absorbing more and more from outside their musical universe in terms of form, source, and stylistic considerations. Dearborn, MI, duo Windy & Carl tread a different path: They are interested -- no -- obsessed with creating a musical aesthetic based solely on digging ever deeper into the sub-subbasement of drone-based guitar music. As evidenced by this, their fourth long player, they've accomplished that. Windy & Carl, with their deceptively spare production mannerisms and subtle shadings of guitars, barely audible vocals, some keyboards, and employed sounds from other spheres, have developed a manner of letting the music speak for itself through them. By getting out o ... Read more »

Gang of Four's existence had as much to do with Slave and Chic as it did the Sex Pistols and the Stooges, which is something Solid Gold demonstrates more than Entertainment! Any smartypants can point out the irony of a band on Warner Bros. railing against systematic tools of control disguised as entertainment media, but Gang of Four were more observational than condescending. True, Jon King and Andy Gill might have been hooting and hollering in a semiviolent and discordant fashion, but they were saying "think about it" more than "you lot are a bunch of mindless puppets." Abrasiveness was a means to grab the listener, and it worked. Reciting Solid Gold's lyrics on a local neighborhood corner might get a couple interested souls to pay attention. It isn't poetry, and it's no fun; most within earshot would just continue power-walking or tune out while buffing ... Read more »

Only the wit of Bongwater and Shockabilly guitarist and renowned producer Kramer could get away with this -- a three-LP rock opera released as a box set in 1993 on his own Shimmy Disc label. The collection covers a year's work in his Noise New Jersey studio, where he toyed for long hours with the George Martin aesthetic, an answering machine, and his extraordinary gift for pop songwriting (not to mention guitars). Somehow, he sculpted it all into a cohesive whole with The Guilt Trip. What better way to spend an afternoon immersed in psychedelic pop -- it's as though he set out to make his own dream of a '60s concept album.

His hybrid sound borrows from the best of the Kinks, ... Read more »

Starting with the awesome "I Don't Need Society" and ending with the anthemic "Explorer," D.R.I.'s debut album was an important stepping stone in the evolution of both metal and hardcore. D.R.I. drew a line in the sand between the American hardcore bands who wanted to stick close to the original punk sound and bands who wanted to branch out into heavy metal territory. D.R.I.'s use of thunderous heavy metal drumming and California hardcore songwriting made Dirty Rotten LP something special, putting them in a category with Corrosion of Conformity and Suicidal Tendencies as the forefront of a new movement. Their angry lyrics revolved around the usual political and social ills, but their approach was a staggering blend of pre-grindcore blastbeats (that particular drumming style may have even had its first recorded instance here), blunt and simplistic guitar r ... Read more »