R.E.M. - Monster (1994)

Predictably, R.E.M. have made a career out of being unpredictable. They've outlived their mid-80s status as critical darlings to become the most popular "alternative" band on the planet during the '90s. They've enjoyed their greatest commercial success by not touring, staying at home in Athens in the face of conventional wisdom while their last two albums – 1991's Out Of Time and 1992's internationally-successful Automatic For The People – combined to achieve sales of nearly 20 million copies worldwide.

A look at the literally hundreds of adjective-laden pieces that have been written about R.E.M. during their fourteen year career will show that no two critics have ever come to an agreement on just who or what R.E.M. really are as a band. Since the 1981 release of their self-produced independent single "Radio Free Europe," R.E.M. has somehow always managed to confound the pundits. They've constantly plagiarized themselves, worn their influences on their collective sleeves, and although every song they have ever created sounds similar, they manage to come out of the box every time with a new sound that captures new fans.

Predictably, the release of the band's tenth recording, Monster, won't be helping anyone pin an artistic identity on to R.E.M. anytime soon. Coming out of the studio after two years with an album that is heavier and more – shall we say – "metallic" than anything they've previously done, Monster at once both returns the band to its roots as well as takes them into an entirely unfamiliar direction. Casting aside the bright-edged pop songs that have frequented their last few albums, Monster showcases a stripped-down R.E.M. delivering a larger, fatter sound with a fervor uncharacteristic of their recent work.

With the exception of Monster's opening track, the single "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" with its cultural reference point, radio-ready sound and oblique lyrics, Monster is an aggressively somber album. Lyrics are largely hidden beneath a clash of sound, with the lead guitar and rhythm section dueling for position like on R.E.M.'s early work. Guest artists are used sparingly this time out, the most striking instance being Thurston Moore's contribution to the feedback-ridden voodoo rock of "Crush With Eyeliner." The dark sarcasm of "King Of Comedy," the chaotic confusion of "Star 69" and the mesmerizing, repetitive guitar riff that underlines the haunting vocals of "Let Me In" represent a departure from what many R.E.M. fans have come to expect during the past few years.

Not that there aren't a few familiar touchstones to be found hereabouts. "Strange Currencies" opens with Peter Buck's gentle guitar line, the sound flowing like a stream into Michael Stipe's winsome vocals, appealing to a lost love and bemoaning the complexities of romance. The low-key falsetto on "Tongue" is matched by a soulful, yet minimal soundtrack while "Bang And Blame," with Stipe's trademark vocal phrasing, could be mistaken for a typical R.E.M. song if it wasn't for the subtle lyrical nuances that have been woven into the mix. "You" closes Monster with a philosophical cry in the dark, lyrics buried beneath ringing guitars and a steady, dirge-like drumbeat.

With Monster, the band has carefully used their enormous success to flex their musical muscles, taking a few artistic risks and thus delivering an album that is their most mature and interesting work to date. The ability to recreate themselves from album to album without really ever straying far from their roots is the core of R.E.M.'s identity and a large part of their appeal. The individual band member's talents and limitations are melded together into a familiar group personality. Their may be other artists who do it better, or who do it louder, but nobody delivers with more consistency. Other bands, predictably, will come and go, but R.E.M. will always remain, unpredictable. (Warner Brothers)

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Frank Zappa - The Yellow Shark (1994)

Although guitarist/composer Frank Zappa's tragic death robbed the world of an artistic giant, we have thankfully been left an enormous and varied catalog of Zappa recordings by which to remember him. Rumours abound of a number of forthcoming post-humous Zappa releases, the product of a prolific creator who seems to have recorded most everything he recently wrote and performed. It is, curiously enough, a Frank Zappa album on which the talented musician never plays a note which serves as his swan-song.

The Yellow Shark, named after a gift from a creative fan (sorry – you'll just have to see the CD booklet for the complete story) is actually a collection of Zappa compositions commissioned by Germany's Ensemble Modern. The material presented here was culled from a series of performances in the fall of 1992 in Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna by Ensemble Modern of The Yellow Shark and includes snatches of 25 years of Zappa's work.

A mutant hybrid of rock, jazz and random cacophony rendered as classical compositions, The Yellow Shark not only serves as an excellent showcase for the talents of the Ensemble Modern (easily the equals of better-known outfits such as the Kronos Quartet), but also champions Zappa's compositional skills in creating it. Mostly instrumental, the few lyrical pieces presented here – especially "Welcome To The United States" and "Food Gathering In Post-Industrial America, 1992" – remind us of Zappa's vicious sense of satire and his disrespect for any sort of authority. Not surprisingly, even mesmerizing instrumental passages such as those found in "Outrage At Valdez" or "Times Beach II" manage, through tone and texture, to make a significant social commentary without a single word. Such was Zappa's genius, and The Yellow Shark, the final project he worked on before his death, is a fitting monument to the artist's passing. (Barking Pumpkin Records)

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Too Much Joy - ...Finally (1996)

I've lived with this disc for a couple of months now, spinning it almost daily during that time and, like the Rancid album reviewed elsewhere, have yet to tire of it. Every listen brings something to the forefront, some undiscovered musical dimension, a new favorite song. From the unrelenting energy and weeping guitar riffs of You Will, a wicked little bit of social satire that opens ...Finally, to the working class blues of Underneath A Jersey Sky, New York rockers Too Much Joy have returned with a vengeance.

Formed the better part of a decade ago by a bunch of high school buddies with similar tastes in British punk and American pop, Too Much Joy made a splash on the indie rock scene with their 1988 Alias Records release Son Of Sam I Am. With a backing soundtrack of classic guitar rock and punkish energy, the band's smart ass lyrics and wise-guy stance served them well through a handful of well-received albums. After an unassuming sojourn into major label land, followed by a brief hiatus, TMJ have signed with the newly reactivated Discovery Records and delivered what is the best effort in their lengthy career with ...Finally.

With a musical style that travels across some three decades of rock history, mixing the disparate influences of sixties pop electricity, seventies arena rock bombast and eighties punk attitude and sincerity, ...Finally is a solid batch of songs. If the band isn't quite as ascerbic, lyrically, as they once were, well...they've gotten older and a bit wiser. They haven't lost an iota of their youthful enthusiasm, however, with cuts like the retrospective, self-effacing Weak or the soaring Different Galaxies providing invigorating evidence of their commitment and talents. Even if their smart ass antics have been toned down, the band's tongue is still firmly placed in their collective cheeks. I Believe In Something mixes a philosophical search for the meaning of a friend's prolonged death ("My friend had his death foretold / When he was twenty-six years old / I say the right things they're no help / His body slowly eats itself") with the patently irreverent ("Twelve step programs are the new religion / Gideon bibles make good rolling papers"). How To Be Happy provides a different take on love and relationships, disdaining the lost love in one breath ("Learning how to be happy / And learning not to care") slipping into melancholy the next ("I've got the tiniest bedroom / It's gigantic without you / Do they have bedrooms where you are?").

...Finally showcases a band with a fine sense of pop style, and the chops to pull it off. Even the choice of Billy Bragg's wonderful A New England – here given a non-stop vocal delivery and punkish arrangement that is as far away as possible from Bragg's or Kirsty MacColl's hit versions of the song – illustrates the band's ability to take the familiar and imprint it with their own identity without losing the spirit of the original. Too Much Joy are a top notch band, from Tim Quirk's infectiously flawed vocals and lyrical romanticism to Jay Blumenfield's undervalued six string contributions and scorching leads. The rhythm section of Tommy Vinton and William Wittman aren't just content to back the guys up front; they provide a constant presence in each song, with Vinton's muscular drumming and Wittman's carefully crafted and fluid bass lines adding an integral element to the trademark Too Much Joy sound.

A magnificent comeback effort, ...Finally may finally win Too Much Joy the attention they deserve. I've always considered them to be a band ahead of their time, maybe it's time that alt-rock audiences caught up with them. ...Finally comes highly recommended, an early candidate for "best of the year" status. (Discovery Records)

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Jello Biafra - Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police (1995)

As a young man, Jello Biafra had something that he wanted to say. Through the lyrics of the songs he wrote, performed by the band that he assembled upon arriving in San Francisco, the Dead Kennedys, Biafra achieved a semblance of fame and an even greater notoriety. His sharp-edged poetry struck out at the bloated hypocrites and authoritarian power structure of America with great wit and insight. Even if his words weren't the most polished or flowery, he delivered them with a ferocity and passion that made the Dead Kennedys hardcore pioneers, influential far beyond their commercial reach.

It's been just about fifteen years now since the release of the Dead Kennedys' first album, the powerful Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, and Biafra has come a long way since he wrote songs like Kill The Poor, Holiday In Cambodia or Let's Lynch The Landlord. Throughout this decade and a half, he's been responsible for the formation of a successful indie record label in Alternative Tentacles, and through the label he has helped dozens of other underground artists of every stripe – from punk to industrial to outright experimental – make their art known to the world at large. He's suffered through the break-up of his band, a well-publicized obscenity arrest and a lengthy legal battle against censorship.

Probably more than anything else that Biafra has accomplished during the past fifteen years, however, the most important in my eyes are his contributions towards the rebirth of the spoken word. Along with Henry Rollins, another underground icon, Biafra popularized an exchange of ideas and information, promulgating a widespread epidemic of thought created by a mind virus of his creation. Through the course of a handful of multi-disc spoken word collections and subsequent public performances, Biafra has torn down the artificial commercial barriers that have been holding back one of the simplest, oldest art forms in the history of mankind: speech.

Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police is Biafra's fourth spoken word album, and, perhaps, his most adventuresome to date. A three-disc set, Biafra covers a lot of material over the course of the collection's three plus hours, managing to keep the listener's attention level constantly focused upon his words without ever lapsing into boredom. Biafra's insights are invaluable, his information well-researched and solid. Just as he did with the Dead Kennedys, Biafra uses a wicked sense of humor and a razor-sharp wit to comment on the foibles of the society we've created even while he is verbally skewering his deserving targets.

Given the time to stretch out and take proper aim at his targets, Biafra is devastating. Message To Our Sponsor offers progressive answers to social ills upon which conservatives and liberals alike stumble over in their mad rush to prove that they're more regressive. Experts provides a not-so-subtle commentary on the disasters created by the overpaid consultants we sadly turn to for answers, while his scathing satirical attack on the Religious Right is as hilarious as it is thought-provoking. His traditional Talk On Censorship covers his entire relationship with Tipper Gore, the Frankenchrist ordeal, his Oprah appearances and provides more than a few warnings that although the governmental cast might be different, nothing has really changed. The autobiographical Eric Meets The Moose Diarrhea Salesman is a brilliant accounting of growing up during the seventies and the insights provided by youthful innocence.

Throughout the course of the thousands of words to be found on Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police, Biafra uses his verbal skills to warn us that the Emperor really isn't wearing any clothes, and that we should never fail to question authority. In an American media dominated by Lilly-white, right-wing conservative Christian voices, Biafra stands tall as a voice of reason, of concern, of passion. His is a radical world of ideas, of questions, of informed opinion. He never fails to move me, to make me think, to provide a different slant on a subject. Whereas Rollins' spoken word material opened the door to the sharing of personal reflections, Biafra's material has always carried with it the threat of danger, of subversion. Jello Biafra still has something to say; hopefully, he'll continue to share it with us for quite some time.... (Alternative Tentacles)

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Bad Religion - All Ages (1995)

Contrary to the belief of many scribes, the recent punk rock revival hasn't occurred overnight. Mainstream critics have all but ignored the punk underground, perhaps thinking that it would go away if they just didn't write about it. The kids knew all along what time it was, jamming local all ages shows at clubs across the country to see bands like 7 Seconds, NoFX, Operation Ivy and the grandpappy of them all, Bad Religion.

Formed during the early-80s American hardcore punk revolution, Bad Religion rapidly became South Cali faves with the release of their uncompromising debut, How Could Hell Be Any Worse? As the hardcore movement began to lose steam come mid-decade, mutating into a dozen varied musical forms, the band split into separate factions and stayed out of the game for almost four years. In 1988 the original five members of Bad Religion reunited to release the ground-breaking Suffer, and a revitalized punk scene was born that would carry over to the present day.

Over the next few years, Bad Religion would rewrite the book on punk rock. The band had developed a driving, furious rock style that combined the attitude and energy of punk with musical elements drawn from almost 40 years of rock & roll. Intelligent lyrics, often espousing a certain socially-conscious world view, were contributed by vocalist Greg Graffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz. Released through Gurewitz's Epitaph Records label, albums like No Control, Against The Grain and Generator captured the hearts and imaginations of young fans, each selling upwards of a hundred thousand copies – unheard of, at that time, for a punk band on an indie label.

All Ages culls material from the aforementioned late-80s/early-90s releases, as well as a pair of previously unreleased live cuts and a taste from their 1981 debut, We're Only Gonna Die. All Ages is a significant overview of the band's work during this important time period, presenting the band's talents through cuts like You Are (The Government), No Control, Fuck Armageddon...This Is Hell and 21st Century Digital Boy. Twenty-two cuts in all are included, each one going a long way towards explaining the band's popularity and influence. This stuff is whip smart punk rock: no frills, cranked out fast and furious with style and intelligence.

Covering as it does, Bad Religion's 1988-1994 pre-Atlantic label years, All Ages serves as an excellent document of the band's achievements to this point, showcasing a considerable musical growth and their maturity into one of rock's best bands. Along with the previously-released, self-explanatory 80-85, the appropriately-titled All Ages is an excellent compilation for fans of the band as well as an important touchstone in the band's career. With the major-label release of Recipe For Hate, Bad Religion began writing the next chapter in their story, and only time will tell the story. (Epitaph Records)

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Living Color - Pride (1995)

It took a combination of factors to make Living Colour possible: several years of the Reagan administration's attack on progress, a volatile indie rock scene that spawned important changes in the music industry, and the growth in success of rap music that brought elements of African-American culture to a receptive white mainstream. Into this atmosphere stepped one of the funkiest, baddest, hardest rocking and most technically adroit rock & roll outfits to grace the genre (that just happened to be composed of four talented Black men). Living Colour's debut, Vivid, was released in 1988 and instantly received almost universal critical acclaim. The album broke down barriers of race, musical style and fashion that had been long-standing in rock.

The band's members brought varied backgrounds to the creation of Living Colour. Singer Corey Glover was an actor with little or no musical experience, possibly enabling him to develop a unique and individually powerful musical style. Drummer Will Calhoun was a Berklee School of Music grad, his jazz background serving to shore up the band's complex and diverse stylistic experiments. Guitarist Vernon Reid, an alumni of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, came into the public eye as a player in Mick Jagger's solo band. Together with bassist Muzz Skillings, Living Colour made Vivid an international success, the disc's masterful blend of hard rock, blues and jazz riffs winning them a loyal audience that cut across race lines.

Successful tours and multi-platinum status was to follow as, over the course of three albums and an EP, Living Colour developed its unique musical voice and identity. The recent release of Pride showcases the incredible talent that is Living Colour. Much more than a mere greatest hits album, Pride serves quite well instead as a musical document of Living Colour's first six or seven years. The hits are all here, of course, from the raging Cult Of Personality or the confrontational Funny Vibe to the memorable Open Letter To A Landlord and the band's "theme song," What's Your Favorite Color? Pride culls a lot of material from the band's ground-breaking debut, with a handful of cuts thrown in from Time's Up and only a couple from Stain and the Biscuits EP. A number of unreleased songs and a single release round out the disc.

Of the previously unreleased cuts included on Pride, Release The Pressure particularly stands out. A wicked, no-compromise rocker, Corey Glover's vocals are menacing, primal growls backed by some wonderfully chaotic guitar playing. Sacred Ground is a metallic thrasher run amok, echoed vocals laid on top of a frantic beat and Reid's heaviest playing yet. A jazzy beat and muted guitar open These Are Happy Times, the focus on Glover's soulful reading of the song's lyrics. Bassist Doug Winbush, who replaced Skillings after Time's Up, performs some understated but tasteful fretwork to underline the song's social message. These three cuts show the band's enormous musical diversity and skill at improvising upon a standard hard rock foundation.

A lot has been written of Vernon Reid's six-string prowess, every compliment quite justified by the man's large talent. As evidenced by Pride, it is Reid's guitar that lends the band the greatest part of its identity, filling each song with a creative energy and breathing life into an otherwise morose musical genre. After seeing and experiencing Reid perform live more than once, I'd personally place him among the legends of rock guitar, artists like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan who redefined styles and pushed the envelope. It is also shown by Pride, though, that it is a combination of talents, from Glover's vocals and Calhoun's rock-steady drumming along with the contributions of two skilled bassists that play along with Reid to make Living Colour great. The band is made up of four very talented men without which the accomplishments of Living Colour would not have been possible. Pride is a wonderful showcase for the band and what they can do musically. (Epic Records)

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