Richard Barone - Clouds Over Eden (1993)

As a member of the Bongos, one of the more obscure outfits on the early-80s Pop landscape, Richard Barone often saw his work with the band – gems like Beat Hotel or Drums Along The Hudson – overshadowed by musical peers on both sides of the Atlantic. As a solo act, he's not done much better, mired in obscurity while consistently producing material showing considerable skills as a wordsmith with a fine-tuned ear for penning pop melodies...talents never more evident than on his latest effort, Clouds Over Eden.

Barone tends to bring a contemporary sensibility to classic pop stylings, proving himself quite capable of evoking fond musical memories by bringing scraps of everything you've ever heard on the radio to the table without ever sounding derivative. The Orbisonesque guitar riffs on Forbidden, for instance, masterfully underline Barone's tale of loneliness and frustration, while the jangling guitars and sweet harmonies of Nobody Knows Me illustrate Barone's subtle touch on dozens of '80s college-rock bands. If radio were more open and less formatted, there'd be a welcome mat out for cuts like the Beatles-influenced title cut, Clouds Over Eden or the chilling Law Of The Jungle. As it is, pop poets such as Richard Barone, or his colleague and frequent collaborator Jules Shear, must craft album after album for a small, but appreciative audience. (Rhino Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Clouds Over Eden from Amazon.com)

Sepultura - Roots (1996)

After a brief dalliance in major label land, Brazil's best known musical export lands back at their original musical home, Roadrunner Records. The resulting release, Roots, is, without a doubt, Sepultura's strongest effort yet. The band's musical growth over the course of their last few albums is impressive, the maturity that they bring to their current work showcased wonderfully by Roots. Dismissed by mainstream critics as a "genre" band, Sepultura have surpassed that label, becoming instead a truly international phenomena, lyrical and musical spokesmen for a generation of dispossessed and alienated young fans across the planet.

Metallic, as a word, doesn't even come close to describing Sepultura's music. They're at their best when they're tearing the roof off of the motherfucker, playing it loud and loose. Lead vocalist Max Cavalera has a singing voice that lies somewhere between pain and pleasure, not so much caressing his lyrics as much as bludgeoning the listener with them. Six-string maestro Andreas Kisser knocks off molten riffs like a steel foundry forges concertina wire, razor-sharp and beautiful. The rhythm section shakes and roars like a flaming jet engine. It's a potent, explosive musical brew that Sepultura concoct, thick and frothy and quite intoxicating.

It's their lyrics that have won them an international audience, however, with Cavalera's sincere treatment of issues like social justice, poverty and the environment touching upon concerns common to all mankind. As such, Roots lives up to and, in some cases, surpasses the band's previous efforts. Songs like Roots Bloody Roots, Endangered Species, Dictatorship or Straighthate tread on familiar lyrical ground, yet are infused with new wisdom and knowledge. Although not the most poetic of songwriters, Cavalera is akin to a hardcore Woody Guthrie, reaching people with the genuine intelligence and straight-forwardness of his timeless messages.

Sepultura have yet to capture to the mass audience they deserve stateside, and quite honestly may never break through to the mainstream. Their art is too primal, too raw, too loud and too honest for the tender palates of most music buyers. For those of us who like our rock and roll a bit rough at times, Sepultura will do just fine, thank you. The band has never compromised their sound or their message, always delivering what their legion of loyal fans crave and then some. Roots may not be a watershed effort, but its a damn fine collection of music...and that's all we can expect from one of the planet's most exciting and vital bands. (Roadrunner Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Roots from Amazon.com)

Mick Ronson - Heaven And Hull (1994)

Mick Ronson is one of those quiet legends of rock & roll, important and influential not for any single thing but rather for everything. Ronson was a talented guitarist, but no six-string wizard. He was an better-than-average songwriter with a flair for drama, but a perfunctory vocalist. As a producer and session pro, Ronson offered a light hand tempered by experience and knowledge. It was the total package, however, including Mick's enormous charisma and his innate ability to bring something valuable to the work of some of the biggest creative egos in the biz, that made the man a capital 'R' Rock & Roll Star. Ronson died of cancer in 1993, feverishly working to create this last album, Heaven And Hull.

As a creative swan-song, few artists have accomplished so much. Heaven And Hull, named after Ronson's hometown of Hull, England, is an excellent showcase of pure, unadulterated rock & roll spirit. Many of Ronson's old mates showed up to contribute, including David Bowie, John Mellencamp, Crissie Hynde and Martin Chambers of the Pretenders, Ian Hunter, Brian May of Queen and others. The music created is no mere tedious superstar collaboration but rather timeless, bright and shining rock & roll. Cuts such as Like A Rolling Stone, All The Young Dudes or Life's A River are classics in any era, performed here with great tenderness and sincerity by the various assembled artists. Through all the cuts runs a singular thread, however, that of Ronson's guitar and indomitable presence.

Ronson worked on Heaven And Hull right up until the time of his death. Although it's only his third solo album, Ronson's influence and legacy has been built by the work he did under other artist's names, whether it be on albums he produced for artists as diverse as Morrissey, David Johansen or Mott The Hoople, or albums by David Bowie, Lou Reed or John Mellencamp on which he graced us with his instrumental skills. No better final memory could be created than Heaven And Hull. Mick, we'll miss you. (Epic Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Heaven And Hull from Amazon.com)

Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)

Artists who are tagged with the deadly "critical favorites" label tend to have a very brief commercial existence, if, indeed, they create a meager blip on the old product sales radar at all. There are many reasons for this simple rock & roll fact of life, the foremost being that rock critics (this writer included) tend to be overeducated shitheads with an arts and literature background, an elitist crowd grabbing free promos and a spot on the guest list even while they're damning the latest pop icon with faint praise. Critics tend to shun the sort of "lowest common denominator" rock far too frequently cranked out by the labels in favor of more esoteric work.

The funny thing about "Art," though, is that it tends to sneak up and bite you on the ass. Yesterday's artistic obscurity is tomorrow's influence, and the seldom-heard and often under appreciated work of folks like Alex Chilton, Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock, et al will be a part of that next Top Forty sensation. The critic's job is to discover and recognize the quiet genius of the aforementioned and let you know how woefully "unhip" you are since you obviously passed on buying their records in favor of the new U2 or Van Halen sets...which brings us, in a somewhat roundabout way, to Robert Pollard, Guided By Voices and Bee Thousand.

Pollard is one of those rare finds in rock & roll, a completely innocent and unjaded thirty-something school teacher toiling away in an artistic netherland in his spare time. Bee Thousand is a visionary work; absent is the simpleminded posturing and preening evident on even the most sincere "alternative" release. There are twenty songs crammed into a thirty-six minute space, reminiscent of the Minutemen in their economy and scope. Whereas D. Boon created from the viewpoint of a punk aesthetic, Pollard wraps his work around some forty years of rock & roll history.

Musically, Bee Thousand offers scraps of British and American pop, discordant punk, spacey guitar riffs and quick thrusts of a dozen different sharp-edged influences. Pollard's lyrics are sheer poetry, often times oblique, literary gems hidden beneath the mix. Many of the songs here consist of nothing but a single verse wrapped around sparse instrumentation and, I'll admit, that I often times haven't a clue what Pollard is singing about. A few mental gymnastics under the headphones have assigned meaning to a number of songs, but most remain a mystery.

Is it the critic's lot to deify that which we don't really understand? Sometimes, perhaps, but the main weapon in the critical toolbox is the ability to recognize that something is going on in a song, that the artist is doing something important and extraordinary. With Bee Thousand, Guided By Voices has used a familiar musical language to expand the barriers of thought and expression in rock lyricism. Although they may never rise above their currently-growing status as "critic's darlings," the influence of what Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices are doing today will be felt in the years to come. (Scat Records/Matador)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Bee Thousand from Amazon.com)

Killing Joke - Pandemonium (1994)

Arguably one of the most influential bands of the past twenty years, London's Killing Joke is nevertheless the most obscure bunch of musical geniuses that you've never heard of. Chances are, you've heard the work of the children these gray-beards stylistically fathered, with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Rage Against The Machine and Ministry all owing Killing Joke a debt of creative gratitude. Their ground-breaking hybrid of socio-political rage, technological overkill, industrial nihilism and white noise was delivered via a handful of classic early-80s albums that would shape much of what would be created in the genres of punk, heavy metal and industrial music throughout the ensuing decade.

With Pandemonium, the band strips down to its original founding trio, buffing up its musical muscles and delivering an hour of unrelenting noise, fury and thought. Killing Joke has always been an ideological bunch of cynics, eschewing the depressing, suicidal aura surrounding much of Britain's rock scene in favor of a realistic and hopeful vision of the world they find collapsing around them. Against a musical backdrop so heavy that it'll send even the most jaded headbanger into a fit of manic glee, Killing Joke approaches the coming millennium with an almost metaphysical view, even sojourning to Egypt to record portions of Pandemonium in the King Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

The band's collective experience of the past few years pays off with an expanded sense of creativity and lyricism, Pandemonium adding disparate strains of Middle Eastern and Asian culture to its blend of white light/white heat. The resulting effort lives up to the band's heady legacy, even while it builds upon a bright new future for Killing Joke. (Zoo Entertainment)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Pandemonium from Amazon.com)

Bunny Wailer - Crucial! Roots Classics (1994)

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Jamaica, there was a musical trio who, by coming together and recording a handful of albums, forever changed the face of popular music. The trio's artistic influence was worldwide, their popularity cutting across boundaries of race, religion or heritage to reach an international audience. Their message of peace and love, and their never-ending battle against oppression endowed them with a near-mythical status. The tragic youthful deaths of two-thirds of the trio, including the band's charismatic leader, forever sealed their place in history.

That band was the Wailers, the trio – Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer – whose impact on rock and reggae music is incalculable. As the only surviving member of the important threesome, Bunny Wailer has been lost to the obscurity of legend. This is unfortunate, considering that Wailer has sporadically released some classic reggae gems during the past decade and a half, albums like Blackheart Man and Roots, Radics, Rockers, Reggae, released on small indie labels. Crucial! Roots Classics collects material from through this fifteen year period, all unreleased songs that showcase Wailer's talents not only as a tunesmith, but as a socially-conscious and extremely spiritual poet, as well.

A devout Rastafarian, Wailer's lyrics often espouse a world view shaped by that benevolent philosophy, mixing in political commentary that serves as a musical call to arms. Reggae has long been a populist art form, bowing to no certain ideology. An example would be Togawar Game, a thinly-veiled damnation of corrupt organized politics, about which Wailer says "I don't deal with the left or right...one day the rope is going to burst and both sides are going to fall. We are Rastas, neither left or right. We stand for the people."

Other cuts such as Old Dragon, the Wailers' traditional show-opener that casts down the proverbial serpent of evil with its energy and emotion, or the angry relevance of Innocent Blame, Peace Talks or Trouble On The Road Again illustrate the struggle of the average Jamaican in the face of the island's cultural and political oppression. Crucial! Roots Classics is a powerful collection, the creation of a still-important artist deserving of a much wider hearing. (Shanachie Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Crucial! Roots Classics from Amazon.com)

Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix, The Best Of Jimi Hendrix (1998)

In their efforts to clean up the legendary artist's catalog during the past couple of years, the family of Jimi Hendrix has worked with former Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer to remix and restore classic Hendrix albums like Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland. In many instances, previous reissues of Hendrix on CD were taken from low-generation tapes rather than the original masters. In digging around dusty tape vaults and studio closets, Experience Hendrix – the company run by the artist's father and stepsister that won back the rights to the Hendrix legacy – discovered previously unknown tapes, uncovered numerous abuses and revealed all sorts of horror stories about the state of the rock legend's great body of work.

With the release of Experience Hendrix, The Best Of Jimi Hendrix, the family has finally compiled a definitive "best of" disc for Jimi. Replacing the original MCA release The Ultimate Hendrix, this twenty-track disc covers the entire scope of the artist's all-too-brief career. Signature Hendrix songs like Purple Haze, Fire, Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and Foxey Lady are all here, as well as lesser-known classics like Castles Made Of Sand, Red House and Angel, from the restored First Rays Of The New Rising Sun LP. Jimi's incredible rendition of the Star Spangled Banner from the original 1969 Woodstock Festival closes the collection.

The set also includes numerous previously unpublished photos of Hendrix and extensive song-by-song notes by rock historian and Hendrix authority John McDermott. For those who don't understand the artist's importance and influence on rock & roll, Experience Hendrix is a perfect introduction. Jimi Hendrix redefined the role of the guitar in popular music, mixing elements of the blues, R&B, roots rock and improvisational jazz to give birth to an entirely new perspective on rock music. Coaxing previously unheard and alien sounds and tones out of his guitar, Hendrix opened the door for every six-string wizard to follow. Every single one of them – from Eddie Van Halen, Warren Haynes and Johnny Lang to the late Duane Allman and Stevie Ray Vaughan – owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneering work Hendrix did during a few short years in the late-60s.

If you're unfamiliar with Jimi, or know him only by reputation, then by all means "Experience Hendrix" with this set. Then go out and buy the rest of the Hendrix catalog. You'll hear some of the best music that rock & roll has to offer, songs that sound as refreshing and amazing today as they did some thirty years ago. (MCA Records)

(Click on the CD cover to by Experience Hendrix from Amazon.com)