1. Native Tongues poster children Black Sheep have a new release dropping next month after hibernating for the past 12 years of the rap game (Dres’ solo joint Sure Shot Redemption (1999) didn’t make many waves, despite being somewhat decent). I’d like to say I’m excited – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1991) is easily my favorite hip hop record of all time – but after listening to a few forthcoming tracks on their MySpace page, I just can’t muster the enthusiasm. Dres sounds hungrier than ever, still retaining the sharp wit and clever lyrical puns of yesteryear, but the production is a tired re-hash of those stock “neo-soul” beats (“Be Careful”, “Sunshine”). Prediction: I’ll buy it anyway, of course, then chide myself for my unrealistic expectations.

2. There are a number of jazz records that are perfect sonic representations of this time of year in New England, when a blanket of bracing cool air sweeps across the city every evening, the traffic slowly dissipates, and the comforting glow of the streetlights subdues the neighborhood. Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments” resides here, epitomizing the inherency of the word “cool” and achieving an additional measure of timelessness with each passing year.

“Stolen Moments” – Oliver Nelson 8:46 (Blues and the Abstract Truth, Impulse! 1961)

3. With all the buzz surrounding the new season of HBO’s The Wire, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and see what the fuss was all about. I just finished the first season completely floored; “visual novel” really is the best phrase for it. How the writers skillfully managed to develop over 30 distinct and multi-dimensional characters over the course of 12 episodes is beyond my range of comprehension, but rarely have I viewed something so rewarding as this. I also love the lack of any kind of musical score for an additional facet of realism (ironically, being a film scoring major, my favorite cue is usually silence).

4. Mark Prindle has my vote for The Best Way to Kill Time at Your Desk and Laugh Your Ass Off. The man’s in-depth analysis of the Steppenwolf catalog alone is the stuff of legend.

5. While shopping at the otherwise satisfactory Eastside Marketplace the other day, I heard the following three atrocities piped through the store speakers, in order:

• “Set the Night to Music” – Starship
• “True Colors” – Phil Collins
• “A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That” – Carolyn Dawn Johnson

This is simply unacceptable. Who is responsible for this sort of programming? I can’t imagine a demographic that wouldn’t be, at the very least, slightly irritated by this kind of forced exposure to undoubtedly the disgraceful nadir in the history of popular music. If you haven’t had the pleasure of acquaintance with the third one, it’s notable for containing the most disgusting, maggot-infested, steaming mass of a guitar solo ever committed to tape. I had paid for my groceries and was out of the store before the next torrent of aural waste was dispensed.

6. Is it too early to start thinking about holiday gifts? Instead of my usual list of records this year, I’ve decided to make it easier. Please note that it must say “di Parma” somewhere on the package.

7. I love getting all riled up by sites like the ridiculously-named DigitalDreamDoor.com, which has one of the largest collections of absurdly amateurish, grossly uninformed music lists on the web. My favorite is the “100 Greatest Hip Hop Producers” list, which throws criteria such as innovation and influence out the window for old reliables: safety and popularity. Pete Rock holds a disgraceful #13, Diamond D is slapped in the face at #49, and Madlib, Large Professor, and J. Dilla are even lower than that. Dr. Dre, unsurprisingly, holds the #1 spot.

8. Suddenly I wondered aloud, “Where the hell did the last two hours go?”

9. Anita Baker has always been my girl, and Rapture (1986) has been sounding really good lately in between spurts of Mastodon and Carcass (still not out of my metal phase just yet). Combine 2 parts husky voice of seduction, 1 part watery bassline, 2 parts original songwriting, and 3 parts sultry sexiness and you’ll get “Been So Long.”

“Been So Long” – Anita Baker 5:10 (Rapture, Atlantic 1986)

10. I was glad to see that John Zorn was one of the recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship this year; as one of the hardest-working musicians today, the man certainly deserves it. What I’m not looking forward to is the forthcoming surge in the amount of Zorn product unleashed to the masses, courtesy of Tzadik, for which the term “quality control” has no meaning. Thus, I can reasonably expect the following treats within the next year or so:

• The Explanations, Vols. 1-4. Four discs worth of behind-the-scenes studio commentary, where John Zorn divulges the secrets to deciphering his unreadable scores! Listen to Zorn spend over 45 minutes explaining the complexities of a six-bar movement in his Adagio for Hamster Wheel Quartet!
• The Take-Out Orders of The East Village. Listen to John Zorn describe his favorite Thai eateries in his neighborhood, along with actual phone orders placed to said restaurants!
• Filmworks, Vol. XXVII. Having completely exhausted all contacts for film work, John Zorn turns to the medium of malfunctioning televisions, composing cues for various types of poor reception and deafening static! Featuring Yamantaka Eye on vocals/screams, Jamie Saft on white noise, and Mike Patton on bowel movements.

Let me begin by saying that I’ve always had issues with the phrase “guilty pleasures.” Why should I feel some sort of shame or answerability for liking, say, the new Beyoncé single? And to whom am I confessing this horrid accountability? I ceased worrying about what others thought regarding my tastes ages ago. No, the only time I feel actual guilt when enjoying a piece of music is when the accuser is my own conscience. I strive to be as open-minded as possible, but there are certain kinds of music for which my revulsion runs bone-deep, and when I happen upon myself taking pleasure in something that swims against these principles, I can’t help but feel a little icky inside. I have certain expectations and assumptions regarding my tastes, so when I discover that I have developed an interest in a band that sounds like, I don’t know, Spin Doctors, it’s a tad discomforting. Each of the following three records has more or less left a sour taste in my mouth. Except, you know, a good sour taste.

While not the sole catalyst, they are one of the prime culprits for the wretched rap-metal movement that plagued the latter half of the 90’s. On the surface, their music has all the angst-fueled aggression that a 14-year-old kid has at his dad for confiscating his skateboard for a week. They have a “turntablist.” Based on the evidence, I clearly should loathe the Deftones. Yet there was always an artier, intellectual edge to them that belied the company they kept: vocalist Chino Moreno has released a spoken-word album, and guitarist Stephen Carpenter has loudly professed his adoration for My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. When a friend dragged me to a show of theirs back in ’98, I was baffled when the band immediately extinguished the mosh pit with a straight-faced cover of “El Scorcho.”

The group’s debut seems too self-consciously aggro for me to enjoy, but I find more and more to like about sophomore release Around the Fur (1997) each time I listen to it. Drummer Abe Cunningham has a refreshingly restrained, intelligent approach to the kit, Moreno avoids sputtering rap-rock hooks in lieu of frail and vulnerable falsetto lines, and there are somber moments of chilling quietude that still surprise me. The shoegazey heaviness of “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is actually kind-of pretty; subtract the ripping guitar distortion and the Terry Date production and what’s left is a pleasant little slice of dreampop.

“Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” – Deftones 5:08 (Around the Fur, Maverick 1997)

For a few years I was a member of BMG Music Club, devising variations on my full name to open multiple accounts and pay next to nothing for twelve CD’s. Evidently their warehouse ship wasn’t that tight, because I was constantly receiving the wrong discs in the mail. When Finelines (2001) by a band calling themselves My Vitriol mistakenly arrived one day, my curiosity got the best of me and I popped the disc in my stereo. I found myself pleasantly taken aback at the Ride-like drum pattern and dreamy, Cure-like chorus effect on the guitars. Suddenly the song exploded into pitch-shifted noise, a restless tom pattern cued a wall of ringing guitars followed by a nasty pick slide, and the band began tearing into a ferocious current of sound, causing me to promptly forget what I had originally ordered. “Yes!”

No. This band is just awful, and I had been duped. Had my Bullshit Detectors been up and running, I would have immediately identified My Vitriol as shameless hacks whose music is so painfully obvious it stings the ears. What does it indicate when the best descriptors for a group are all other band names? Had I heard this in my younger, greener teenage days, I would have been an easy victim: “My God! A band who has managed to combine the breezy melodicism of the Smashing Pumpkins, the moody atmospherics of The Cure, the noisy haze of My Bloody Valentine, and the balls-to-the-wall energy of Foo Fighters!” Yet without the meekest shred of originality. Touché, My Vitriol. You may have won this time, but I’ll be onto you for your sophomore release, which is, what, going on five years now? Stumped as to which bands to brazenly, criminally thieve from? Gutless bastards. In the meantime, I’ll be sneaking secret listens of Fineless when have full confidence that no one else is around.

“Alpha Waves / Always: Your Way” – My Vitriol 5:58 (Finelines, Epic 2001)

Man, was I disappointed when The Rising Tide (2000) was released. Despite the subtle hints of pomposity Sunny Day Real Estate nestled into How It Feels to Be Something On (1998), I was in a grim state of denial with this record. I began to absorb it with a dull resistance, and dozens of knee-jerk criticisms pinballed throughout my brain. Is that orchestra really necessary? That is such a trite progression. What’s with all the suffocating compression, on a drumless track, no less? What is that, a vocoder, for Christ’s sake? This is so emo; I’m feeling nauseous. Hey! That’s exactly the same as the coda to The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”! Why is that synthetic piano necessary? God, do I miss Diary (1994).

Just as I was about to file the record away forever, regretting the $12 that could have gone toward that Talk Talk import disc, I listened one last time. By the time the shimmering chords of the closing title track made their appearance, I knew it was too late. I was sweating in the sickly, comforting pool of addiction, and The Rising Tide was my drug of choice. My feelings perfectly echoed a key lyric in “Rain Song”: “You are the devil, they say, and it’s candy.” I knew that this wasn’t the Sunny Day Real Estate I fell in love with, but rational thought was long gone by then. When they came into town I was one of the first in line at the venue and relished every moment of the show, joyously singing along to the blue-light saccharine bliss of “The Ocean.” It wasn’t until the vomit-inducing The Fire Theft (2003) that I snapped out of it, and I now keep a cautious distance from The Rising Tide, entirely aware of my weakness and firmly clutching my sobriety.

“Rain Song” – Sunny Day Real Estate 4:03 (The Rising Tide, Time Bomb 2000)

Atlanta-based quartet Mastodon (guitarists Bill Kelliher and Brett Hinds, bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, and drummer Bränn Dailor) has been quickly ascending the ranks as the best metal band in North America for the past five years, and new release Blood Mountain (2006) will likely solidify their position at the top. Situated as an alternative to the tedious snooze-metal of bands like Isis and Cult of Luna, Mastodon are furiously intense, brilliantly technical without being overly mathy, and capable of writing intelligent concept albums with subject matter ranging from obscure mythological creatures to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Musically, Blood Mountain is almost too good to fully take in one sitting: not a single riff is wasted, Dailor’s drumming is still unbelievable, and the production is more polished and varied, yet complements the music tremendously. Even if metal isn’t your teacup, you have to at least listen to why hundreds of thousands of metal fans are shitting themselves into a frenzy and haling the band as the second coming of (the anti-?) Christ.

There is a caveat, of course, which keeps Blood Mountain from being a perfect album, and it’s colossally significant. It isn’t my intention to swim against the tidal wave, but Mastodon seems to be hopelessly lost when it comes to the vocals. No longer content with the violent roars that characterized Remission (2003) (of which I loved), Sanders and Hinds mine from Ozzy power-balladry on “Sleeping Giant” to distorted, filter-swept Mike Patton yelps on “Bladecatcher.” One problem: neither has any vocal presence whatsoever. It could be chalked up to a sad attempt at broadening their fanbase or an unsuccessful yet passing effort in the name of experimentation (let’s hope it’s the latter), but it’s undoubtedly the most frustrating aspect of the record. There’s also little here that matches the searing intensity of “Island” from Leviathan (2004), but by no means is Blood Mountain sedated or toned down in any way.

Put simply, each song here (save the psychedelic closer “Pendulous Skin”) has at least one riff that absolutely slaughters most metal bands’ entire catalogs. Dailor has tightened up his kit work into something resembling a mechanized octopus; the maelstrom-like flailing that dominated past albums has been streamlined to lock into perfect time with each successive riff that the guitarists fire at him. For an example, feast on “Capillarian Crest,” which takes the average, say, King Crimson tune, injects it with amphetamines and steroids, grinds it to a pulp, then reassembles the remains with jaw-dropping levels of execution. Play this track for any metalhead and you’re guaranteed to get a frozen pause from the headbanging for the calm utterance of two words: “Jesus Christ.”

“Capillarian Crest” – Mastodon 4:25 (Blood Mountain, Reprise 2006)

“Siberian Divide” softens the texture slightly with some ringing acoustic guitars in 7/8, but is still dominated by thrash metal riffing and phenomenally complex drumming – my God, just listen to Dailor’s fill at 2:33. Cedric Bixler-Zavala from The Mars Volta drops in for some otherworldly operatic vocal shrieks, and at 4:14 the guitarists break into a demonically badass riff cribbed directly from the Slayer playbook.

“Siberian Divide” – Mastodon feat. Cedric Bixler-Zavala 5:32 (Blood Mountain, Reprise 2006)

Perhaps the best description of the lyrical content of “Siberian Divide” comes from Dailor, whose comments in an interview had me geekishly grinning from ear-to-ear:

“[The character is] caught in a blizzard where [he] becomes frostbitten and frozen and [he’s] starving and starts to hallucinate. [Then] this snow queen appears before him and tells him it’s okay to start eating his own flesh. And then he starts to do that. Then an aurora borealis appears, and he thinks it’s God, and it starts affecting this crystal skull he’s been toting up the mountain, and it starts to warm his body. That, coupled with the knowledge of the aurora borealis being God, gives him the strength to start to carry on again.”

And an army of prog-metal fanatics, looking up from their secret weekend Dungeons & Dragons tournament with handfuls of 20-sided die, nodded their collective heads in approval.