Music thats better than you Week... uh, October.

Forget Cassettes Forget Cassettes named their new album Salt. That’s about dead on. The tracks are jangling, bawdy excursions into acrid cynicism. Every song snarls with voracious guitars and drums as bold as thunder. But Salt is more than tense, brash Indie-rock musicianship, it’s a phenomenal product fronted by one of the best female leader singers of ‘06. With the exception of Ice Land’s Under Byen, Forget Cassettes’ vocalist slays like no other. Beth is armed with one of the most cutting and sardonic deliveries since Darryl Palumbo was young and cross. Wait, and what’s this- oh sweet Christ, she’s the one playing that guitar too?! Kicking and roaring like a liquor-bent hell-spawn diva, this is more Rock than Indie-rock and it’s about damn time. This is a ’06 best-of contender. Take notice. [THE 'SPACE] [HOME] [MP3] Forget Cassettes - Salt Deftones It’s easy to write off the Deftones. They are lingering remnants of one of the worst music genres, of all time (The Thing Of Which We Do Not Speak.) And what’s more, they are aging. Chino is 34, bro. And in a genre were success hinges upon a bands ability to emote unhinged youth-rage to their listeners, a bunch of dudes in their mid-30s who have sold millions of albums usually don’t have much to say to today’s gnashing kids. Yes, it’s very easy to write of the Deftones. Until you hear them again. Saturday Night Wrist makes it crystal clear that The Deftones are one of the few bands on the planet Earth that have improved with age. They haven’t lost their edge- it’s a cliché phrase, but it’s true, and god knows how. Chino by all rights should have switched over to some weak-wristed pop trash, or at least fallen back on a hopeless mimicry of his earlier work. But he hasn’t. And the man has actually tempered his sound to forge a new delivery that’s even more blistering and vicious than it was 10 years ago. Throw that level of frontmanship on top of the band’s polished murder-ballad approach to hard rock, and you’ve got a release that soars with the scope and majesty of Radiohead, but then comes screaming back down to earth with the unsheathed tenacity and brutality that has always given the Deftones their razor sharp edge. [THE 'SPACE] [HOME] Boards of Canada When Artificial Intelligence becomes a reality in the not-so-distant future, Boards of Canada will be the soundtrack to the dreams of machines. Haunting and blissful, Boards’ synthetic harmonies rise and fall like the tides of some far-flung planet. Of course being an electronic outfit, the sonic glory of the Scottish duo- being the Brothers Sandison- either soars or stumbles on the prowess of their rhythms. Of course these boys are legends for a reason. Esoteric and hypnotic, the Sandisons have been underground beatmaking gods for decades and without disappointing, their ’06 Trans Canada Highway EP, is yet another par- bending gift from the clouds. Although I can’t speak for the living-computers of our future- but if my dreams truly had a sonic backdrop that sounds anything like this- waking would be true misery indeed. [THE 'SPACE] [HOME]