Archive Review: Psychic TV’s Hex Sex (1994)

By now, all of you certainly know the story – Throbbing Gristle, the artistic progenitors of Psychic TV, created the genre of industrial music back during the seventies punk era. Since their subsequent founding in 1982, Psychic TV has further supported and influenced the industrial style, infusing it with elements of Crowley and the occult, primitive ritual and ancient mythology and an anarchistic spirit. Fifteen years down the road, however, and look where it’s gotten us...the original focus of industrial music has been lost as apocalyptic pop stars grace the Top 40.

Lost among the many musical achievements of PTV is one startling truth, however, that you may not know, or don’t realize: Psychic TV may be a lot of things, but first and foremost, they’re a great pop band. That said, let’s move on to the proof: Hex Sex, the first of two discs collecting the cream of PTV’s prolific output of 7” and 12” singles. Relegated to cult status on this side of the pond, PTV has nonetheless had a healthy ride upon the British charts, and most of those hits can be found here. 

From the band’s energetic reworking of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” to their passionate ode to the late Rolling Stone Brian Jones, “Godstar”; from the brutal exclamation of “Eve of Destruction” to their orgasmic rendering of “Je T’aime” or original, more experimental cuts like “Supermale” or “Magick Defends Itself,” Psychic TV have defined the cutting edge of creativity. 

At their best, Psychic TV will make you rethink what you know and believe about music, society and yourself; at their worst, PTV is still artistically exciting. Hex Sex is a fine documentary of some of the band’s more accessible moments...which is not to say that these cuts won’t draw blood. This is 21st century pop for those unafraid to look into the abyss, and should be treated as such. (Cleopatra Records, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, March 1994

Psychic TV

 

Archive Review: Nik Turner’s Sphynx (1993)

In the early ‘70s, as part of the legendary and influential British band Hawkwind, Nik Turner frequently explored the outer reaches of human consciousness, both musically and lyrically, taking the listener on an aural journey to strange lands that mixed science fiction, fantasy and magick in creating a truly surreal landscape. Hawkwind’s legacy can be found in many of today’s top experimental artists, from The Orb to Psychick TV. Since those heady days, the enigmatic Turner has expressed himself equally as tantalizingly through bands like Sphynx and Inner City Unit. With Sphynx, the album (no connection to his earlier band), Turner’s first recording in seven years, he continues down a similar path, transporting us musically to an ancient Egypt full of mystery.

With a band that includes a former Hawkwind mate, guitarist Helios Creed, Turner has created a truly amazing musical reality. This 70-minute sojourn will take you across the desert sands to the Great Pyramid, with proper attention and homage paid to the old gods Anubis, Isis, and Osiris along the way. Through timeless invocations and poetic sacrifice, Turner has made Sphynx a beautiful tapestry of otherworldly psychedelia, hallucinogenic rhythms, synthesized sound, and cold chrome guitar riffs. It is an invigorating, mind-expanding journey, a complex and exciting experience that you’ll want to delve into again and again, as the music and your imagination both come alive in a blur of color and reality. (Cleopatra Records, released 1993) 

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, December 1993

Archive Review: Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell (1993)

Some 16 years ago, an unknown vocalist by the name of Meat Loaf, fresh from a stint with Ted Nugent’s mid-’70 Free For All band, hooked up with a songwriter named Jim Steinman and recorded what was destined to become a rock classic: the Bat Out of Hell album. Critics hated it with a passion, but to an American audience sick of watered-down rock ‘n’ roll, disgusted with disco and unfamiliar with the punk stirrings a continent away, Bat Out of Hell – with its bombastic, guitar-driven tales of young lust, alienation, and romance – was bigger than life. The album has been a consistent best seller since its 1977 release.

After a much publicized and highly public split, Steinman went on to write a handful of hits for artists like Bonnie Tyler, while Meat Loaf recorded a bunch of albums (some good, some not so good) in a battle against obscurity. To the benefit of an audience still starved for the real rock thing, the duo has reunited to create a sequel to one of the most enduring albums in rock history.

Slapping Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell onto the CD player is like being 19 again. This is the elusive pulse of rock ‘n’ roll, that hard-to-capture spirit of the music and all of its promise that makes Bat Out of Hell II and its predecessor work so well. It’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock ‘n’ roll – if they don’t get it, chances are, they never will. This disc is loud, overblown, and exaggerated, but it’s also got more hooks than a Bassmasters tournament and it rocks like a house afire. Even as history repeated itself and critics slagged Bat Out of Hell II, it shot straight up to number one upon its release.

The world is a different place than 1977, though, and this sequel reflects the urgency and identity of the decade. The cynicism of “Life Is A Lemon and I Want My Money Back,” the erotic fantasies of “Out of the Frying Pan (and Into the Fire),” the confusion of “It Just Won’t Quit” all play to a different time and place. It’s the two key cuts here, however – the idealistic, decade-old “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” and “Wasted Youth/Everything Louder Than Everything Else” – that serve as the youthful anthems around which all else revolves. It’s the energy, the hope provided by these songs, and in rock music, that attracts the audience. It’s what Meat Loaf does best. It may be better to burn out than to fade away, and I’m glad that Meat Loaf captured the chance to burn brightly again. (MCA Records, released 1993)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, December 1983

Archive Review: Copernicus’s No Borderline (1993)

Some say that he is a madman, others a genius. I personally prefer the latter, viewing Copernicus as one of those great eccentrics that rock ‘n’ roll has a tendency to spawn and nurture, a crazed artist working on a plane distinctly above our own. It’s up to us to rise to his level, not expect him to lower himself to ours.

“Few men have imagination enough for reality,” is the quote from Goethe which graces the back cover of No Borderline, the fifth, and possibly the most oblique and confusing Copernicus album yet. Copernicus chants poetry like some tribal shaman, his deep baritone voice delivering mesmerizing stream-of-consciousness-styled lyrics that are backed by an amazingly diverse combination of musical styles, from progressive rock to avant-garde jazz. The ten cuts presented here aren’t so much songs, as one would expect them, but rather the many separate glimmering facets of the same musical gem. 

They are best taken as a whole, the experience anything but passive as the listener is pulled into a fantasy world of Copernicus’ creation. I’ll leave it up to each individual to reach a sort of understanding as to the underlying message of No Borderline. Suffice it to say that Copernicus is that rarest of creatures, a true visionary, playing by rules of his own making on a field of his own imagination. (Nevermore Records, released 1993)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, October 1993

Copernicus

 

Archive Review: Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. (1993)

With Chaos A.D., Sepultura lay claim to being the baddest thrash outfit on the planet, delivering an album so awesomely full of monster riffs and rhythms that you’ll have to reinforce the floors and walls before playing it at a truly appropriate volume. Singer Max Cavalera’s muscular vocals are supported by a gifted trio of musicians, from the ringing guitars of six-string maniac Andreas Kisser to the rhythm section of bassist Paolo Jr. and drummer Igor Cavalera. Together, this Brazilian quartet make some of the toughest, meanest music to be found in any rock style today.

Underlying and often overshadowed by Sepultura’s powerful music is their lyrical subversion. Brazil’s best-known export are also musical freedom fighters, guerilla poets using their words as weapons to showcase the ills of a world gone mad. Thrash is a music made for political commentary, and Sepultura utilize it to its fullest, breathing passion and fire into songs like the apocalyptic “Refuse/Resist,” the violent “Manifest” or the haunting world-view of the Jello Biafra-penned “Biotech Is Godzilla.” 

The wonderful instrumental “Kaiowas,” inspired by a Brasilian Indian tribe who committed suicide rather than be oppressed by the powers of authority, provides a welcome break in the fury. Most of Chaos A.D. is appropriately unrelenting, however, with Andy Wallace’s fine production brightening the already sharp instrument that is Sepultura. If the band’s last album, Arise, was their big breakthrough, then Chaos A.D. is their destiny. (Roadrunner/Epic Records, released 1993)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, December 1993

Archive Review: Elliott Murphy’s Unreal City (1993)

This was released several months ago, the return of singer/songwriter Elliott Murphy to these shores, and it’s been growing on me, nagging me to review it ever since I got it. It keeps returning to the CD player, each new spin offering some new insight or phrase that I missed the first time out. Murphy lives up to every claim ever made for him as a songwriter, an artist so poetically gifted that he throws away lines that lesser writers would base entire works on.

In the way of background, after a handful of under-hyped, under-appreciated late ‘70s/early ‘80s albums, which earned massive amounts of critical acclaim heaped upon near-total commercial failure, Murphy split to find some respect and mystery in Europe. Unreal City is a diary, of sorts, of the past decade’s adventures. Each song on Unreal City tells a story, presenting a lyrical postcard of a place, a memory, an emotion...

An artist in paradise, Murphy is following the trail of such literary greats as Fitzgerald or Hemingway. He remains unsure of himself, however, as on “Destiny,” when he sings “thought I was a romantic/when I crossed the Atlantic/ but that didn’t change the tide/but that’s a different story/in the search for love and glory/there’s no place left to hide...” Much of the album possesses a dark shadow to it, with lonliness and mortality often explored. On the haunting “On Elvis Presley’s Birthday,” Murphy remembers his childhood, his late father, and uses Elvis as an icon of both, singing “driving in his Cadillac/it was Elvis Presley’s birthday/they said it on the radio/my father liked Elvis and it was wonderful.” The song sadly ends, though, with the verse, “this is an unreal city/you can be anybody you want to be/when you’re alone.” It speaks to the memories which fuel the dreamer in each of us.

Through all of the travels presented on Unreal City, the joy and the tears, the acute observations on love and life, it is the birth of his son in Paris, inspiring the writing of the album’s closer, “Let It Rain,” which brings this sojourn full-circle. “Ever since I was a child,” begins Elliott, “my manner described as mild/it was always too late to estimate/the force of the hurricane blowing in my head.” He ends this opus of faith renewed, and, indeed, the album’s story, by denying the fates their victory. In joy he sings, “I believe in love/I believe in birth/I believe in giving something back to the earth...so let it rain.” It is as powerful an affirmation of life as has been written, by one of the rock genre’s most talented yet unknown artists. (Razor & Tie Music, released 1993) 

Originally published by R.A.D! zine, October 1993

Also on That Devil Music: Elliott Murphy’s Notes From the Underground CD review

CD Review: Sour Ops’ Bikers Make Better Lovers (2026)

Decades ago, before corporate radio mergers created a handful of ginormous  broadcast inanities playing homogenized – and creatively neutered – playlists, listening to your local FM radio station was an adventure. I remember sitting in my bedroom during the early-to-mid-‘70s, listening to the local Nashville rock station WKDF-FM every night, where you could hear a wonderful blend of the commercial giants of the time (Zeppelin, Stones, Deep Purple, Sabbath, et al) played alongside lesser-known but incredible artists (Audience, Humble Pie, Osibisa, Mott the Hoople). 

Nashville rockers Sour Ops remind me a lot of those days, with the band’s enthusiastic embrace of the old and new, and their savvy ability to blend the two into something both timely and yet timeless. Bikers Make Better Lovers is the band’s follow-up to 2024’s delightful Evangeline and their fifth album overall (plus the perfectly cromulent five-song EP Tinder Flame), the Sour Ops not-so-quietly building as impressive a catalog of music as any of their Music City contemporaries and, really, any indie rockers across America.

Sour Ops’ Bikers Make Better Lovers

Bikers Make Better Lovers cranks off with the swirling, synthy ‘80s action movie vibe of “Opting Out” before launching into chiming guitars, cascading rhythms, and frontman Price Harrison’s soaring vocals. Harrison’s oblique lyrics are an enigma wrapped in a soundtrack (seems to be about a romance gone sideways), and the song’s melody will get under your skin from the first note. Harrison’s short guitar solo buzzes like an angry beehive but cuts like a thousand stings while the rest of the band pitches a perfectly joyful noise. Even the lofty backing vox, dancing atop shards of guitar and bass, embellish the song in ways beyond nuance.

“Problem Number Next” follows a similar musical blueprint, albeit with more “wall of sound” instrumental density, drums and bass providing a solid rhythmic backdrop atop which Harrison delivers one of his shortest, shocking, Sonny Sharrock-styled solos. The band’s melodic sense is unparalleled, every tune an infectious mix buoyant pop and erudite rock ‘n’ roll in nearly equal measures, and perfectly suited for FM radio airplay (or would be, if radio wasn’t such a wasteland…). The new wavish ‘80s enchantment of “The Power of Right Now” leans towards the British rock of the era, but still incorporates enough U.S. college radio influence to play to both sides of the fence. Harrison’s use of a Theremin on the song results in an abrasive solo that veers hard towards the psychedelic ‘60s.

The semi-anthemic “She’s So Strange” is a big-beat hard rocker with clamorous instrumentation, vocals that shoot out of the dark like a poison arrow, and an overall chaotic soundtrack that would win a switchblade fight with the Jesus & Mary Chain. The romantic kiss-off of “Made of Lies” is made all the more impactful by Steve Ebe’s massive drumbeats and Tony Frost’s foundational bass lines while “Gym Bro” benefits from the song’s overall, free-for-all cacophony, with clashing, crashing instruments vying for position beneath Harrison’s cool vocals.

All That Matters Now

If Bikers Make Better Lovers was pressed on vinyl (kids: another 1970s/’80s reference), side one would have closed with “Made of Lies” and side two opening with the up-tempo “Gym Bro.” That would make the lovely “All That Matters Now” a ‘cool down’ song, and it does so exquisitely, the performance not quite a ballad, but rather a mid-tempo plea accompanied by a hint of backing vocals and the gorgeous weeping pedal steel of maestro Paul Niedhaus. The pop-flecked, enchanting “Be My Secret” is afforded a spry instrumental backdrop, one of Harrison’s more emotional vocal performances, and an overall musical warmth enhanced by Amanda Broadway’s subtle harmony vocals.

The underlying syncopated rhythms of “No Winner Tonight” add a dash of funk to the performance, but mostly they provide a fast rail for the arrangement to jet along, propelling the instrumentation forward in parallel lines (rather than the less symmetrical arrangements of previous songs) while Harrison’s somber vox mimic Andrew Eldritch of Sisters of Mercy without the Goth trappings, or maybe the shambolic strains of Ian Astbury without the semi-metal overkill. Bikers Make Better Lovers closes with “Fake Appeal,” a less melodic but no less powerful performance with what seems to be (at times) double-tracked vocals, over-amped instrumentation, and more of Harrison’s six-string fever dreams. The song is a fine way to close the album and will continue ringing in your ears long after you turn off the amplifier, leave the room, and pour yourself a shot or two...  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If previous Sour Ops albums tended to wear the band’s ‘70s-era musical influences on their figurative sleeves (The Stooges, Big Star, Cheap Trick, etc), Bikers Make Better Lovers eschews even their obvious Replacements obsession by making a bolder, brasher, and definitely louder musical statement. Taking no prisoners, the album’s performances teeter on insanity, opening up sonic possibilities seemingly denied earlier efforts. 

Noticeably missing on Bikers is guitarist Mike Harrison, whose absence allows brother Price to channel his avant-garde aspirations through the fretboard like Television’s Richard Lloyd or Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, without all the messy histrionics of shredders like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. Lightning quick and gone in a flash, Harrison’s guitar solos are just one facet of the band’s expanded and expansive musical palette that make Bikers Make Better Lovers both their most adventuresome and artistically-expressive album to date, as well as their most entertaining. (Feralette Media, released May 29th, 2026)

Buy the album from Bandcamp: Sour Ops’ Bikers Make Better Lovers   

Also on That Devil Music:
Sour Ops’ Family Circuit CD review

CD Review: The Mekons’ HORROR/HORRORble (mekons Vs. Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) (2026)

British rockers mekons released a new album in 2025, the stand-out HORROR tragically-overlooked by all but the most hardcore of mekons fans. I gotta admit that I gave it a spin and shelved it because, with so much sound & fury in the world, it’s hard to recognize true beauty when you hear it. Luckily for we hopelessly unworthy droogs, the band is reissuing HORROR as the bonus disc of an adventuresome two-CD package along with a brand new LP, HORRORble. Comprised of Dub remixes by Pere Ubu’s Tony Maimone, HORRORble will warp your little mind, and the whole shebang will be available on CD, vinyl, and digital format to fit every budget just in time for the mekons’ 13-date tour of the U.S.

The Mekons’ HORROR/HORRORble (mekons Vs. Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) 

 
HORROR stands tall entirely on its own, a prescient and present collection of socially-conscious songs glittered-up with the band’s typical folk, rock, and country garnish. Lyrically, mekons mainstay Jon Langford has never been better in describing our current nightmare with songs like the lilting waltz “Sad and Sad and Sad,” the guitar-driven Celtic-folk of “Glasgow,” the historical lament “Mudcrawlers,” an uncompromising rocker with dense, clashing instrumentation, or the Burroughs/Ginsberg influenced beat poesy of “War Economy,” a punky new wave musical jaunt with fractured instrumentation and snarling vocals.    

Maimone had his work cut out for him in reimagining the band’s material for HORRORble, but acquits himself well from the first gorgeous note of “Before the Ice Age,” the production gimcrackery riding low in the saddle beneath the song’s haunting vocals (courtesy of Sally Tims) and ethereal soundtrack. The aforementioned “Sad and Sad and Sad” takes on new dimensions with a swirling rhythmic backdrop while “War Economy” is afforded a more traditional Jamaican Dub production that does nothing to rob the lyrics of their power by cleverly hiding them in a mix that would make King Tubby happy. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Every one of Maimone’s productions on HORRORble are a trip – I particularly like the lysergic whimsical ambiance of “Sanctuary” and the shoegaze reverberations of “Fallen Leaves” – but his rockin’ remake of “Mudcrawlers” with U.K. vocalist Benjii Webbe (of the reggae-metal outfit Skindred) brings a sense of urgency and idealism to an already edgy tune, the performance a unique hybrid of Billy Bragg and Bob Vylan. If you weren’t paying attention when HORROR hit the shelves, maybe it’s time to rediscover the erudite and esoteric charms of the mekons with this budget-priced double-dose of one of the more criminally-overlooked bands in rock music. (Fire Records, released June 5th, 2026) 

Buy the CD from Amazon: The Mekons’ HORROR/HORRORble

Download: Pete Berwick's Early Days

Pete Berwick & the Generics - Live At the Kmart 1981 (Shotgun Records)

Americana pioneer Pete Berwick recently released two obscure recordings from his shadowy past and they provide a valuable glimpse into his foundational roots. Live At the Kmart 1981 is his punk rock EP, and not all that surprising, really, as Pete has always displayed a bit o’ punk attitude on his shit-kickin’ country-rock albums like The Damage Is Done and Just Another Day In Hell. The Generics were a short-lived but hard playing outfit that banged around the Midwest for three years circa 1981-1984. 

The six songs here don’t so much as caress your cerebellum as carom off your gray matter with a short, sharp shock. The sound sucks – definitely an audience or off-stage recording – with all the sonic artifacts that implies. But the songs are fast-paced, bristling with energy, and showcase an underlying melody that bursts out of the bootleg-quality taping with a reckless fervor. Two tracks, “I Wanna Be With You” and “There She Goes Again,” received regional college radio airplay and the EP overall is highly recommended for fans of late ‘70s/early ‘80s American punk…plus, it’s cheap!

Buy from Bandcamp: The Generics  

+++++

Pete Berwick & Interstate - Poster Above the Urinal 1987 (Shotgun Records)

Fast forward a few years and Berwick – who would soon be haunting the side streets and dive clubs of Nashville – is fronting a more traditional rock ‘n’ roll outfit in his Chicago hometown, albeit one that veers dangerously onto cowpunk turf. Another audience recording, ten tracks, nine originals, and a wonderful cover of the Stones’ heroin ode, “Dead Flowers,” makes for a nice, tidy collection. 

The sound is marginally better than on the Generics EP, but still bootleg in quality – which does nothing to diminish the intoxicating cheap thrills that Berwick and his band Interstate serve up with Poster Above the Urinal 1987. The punkish edge is still obvious on songs like “Wild Ones” which, at six-minutes-plus, is adorned with too much cool Duane Eddy-styled guitar licks, wildass harmonica, and explosive drumbeats to be mistaken for Green Day or the Descendents.     
    
“Ain’t Good Enough” amps it up even further with a machinegun rhythm that Berwick’s vocals dance atop while the satirical “American Family” brings the twang with skewed humor and a stripped-down, ramshackle country sound built on aggressive guitar strum and harmonica. Berwick’s lyrics reveal his uncanny songwriting skills and dark sense of humor, skills that would only get sharper through the years. The last few songs on Poster Above the Urinal 1987 get increasingly twangier, with “She’ll Never Know” standing out in the crowd for its Dylanesque fervor and blue collar poetry and “White Lines” is just a solid hard rock jam with raging harmonica and chiming guitars underlining the lyrics. 

As for the aforementioned cover of “Dead Flowers” – which is really more of a Gram Parsons song than true Jagger/Richards composition (IYKYK) – Berwick’s drawled vox and nuanced fretwork wrap the song’s dark-hued lyrics in a blanket of pathos and a doomed Hank Williams vibe. Poster Above the Urinal 1987 provides a roadmap for Berwick’s eventual Nashville sojourn while documenting his evolution from young punk to seasoned roots-rocker, Berwick one of the most criminally-overlooked talents in the increasingly stodgy Americana sphere.

Buy from Bandcamp: Pete Berwick & Interstate