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Record Reviews1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 | 0-9| A| B| C| D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M | | N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z| < Prev Section | Next Section >  RSS Feed
ROCK N’ ROLL STORMTROOPERS:
On Fire: CD
This silly band from Germany wears their influences on their sleeves: Cock Sparrer, Slade, AC/DC, Ramones, Rose Tattoo. It’s an upbeat, fun record with catchy riffs and ridiculous lyrics. Sample line: “We are bulldozers on the loose / Roaring, steaming, pounding!” Despite the fact that the music utilizes every street punk guitar riff cliché in the book, the music frankly kicks serious ass. Plus all four guys are wearing Turbonegro-esque, Daisy Duke type shorts on the insert photo, in a background of pink lighning bolts. What could be better then a little furry man-leg action?
–ayn (Full Breach)
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ROCK ONS:
Anti-Everything (Even Yer Mum): CD
I love surprises. When I first looked at this disc, I was certain it was going to be a pile of crap. I figured that, despite a cool cover with some punk rock zombies on it, the lame title and lame band name and lame song titles were a definite indicator that the music was going to be lame. Then I put the disc in and hit play. What came out was not at all what I expected. I expected cheesy street punk. Instead, I got this goth dirge that was being mauled by a spastic female vocalist. I figured I was in for something really special. Then I was surprised again. The second song, “Punk Rock Lesbian,” switched gears in the wrong direction. I held on, hoping for more surprises. The cover of “Anarchy in the UK” wasn’t one. Then the next song was something heavier and meaner. Nice. It was followed by “Puritanical Regions,” which sort of grinds along slowly, stabbing and stabbing until it makes its point. Then we go right back into boring stuff. Man, this disc is a roller coaster ride.
–MP Johnson (Self-released)
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ROCK THE LIGHT:
Let’s Do Something We’ll Both Regret and The Summer We All Got Laid: CD
Longhair rock played by a buncha shorthairs. There’s something to be said about a band that is not only unashamed about playing bona fide cock rock; they fly the flag proudly. Tunes on both discs are quite catchy and funny, with Summer... sounding the more “slick” of the two.
–Jimmy Alvarado (rockthelight@gmail.com)
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ROCK THE LIGHT:
Giving Up Never Felt So Good: LP
The third full length from Sacramento’s cock rock darlings is crammed with thick, meaty, fuzzed-out chords. After more than six years since their latest release and the addition of a new band member, RTL’s sound has matured. Flavors of KISS and Zeppelin shine through with a range pulling heavily from ‘70s and early ‘80s-era stadium rock as heard in “Ishtar,” to a smoothed-out, languid ballad with “Mouth in Hand.” Meant to be played loud, this is just in time for summer. Points also for becoming my favorite album cover this year: some dude sitting in a hotel room wearing a quasi-Star Wars Storm Trooper outfit – gotta love it. Recommended.
–Kristen K (Sacramento, sacramaniacs.com)
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ROCK ‘N’ ROLL MONKEY & THE ROBOTS:
Do What the Bee Does: CD
Reverb-drenched, ‘60s-influenced rock stuff with occasional nods to surfy and funky/soul influences.
–Jimmy Alvarado (rocknrollmonkey.com)
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ROCK*A*TEENS, THE:
Noon Under the Trees: CDEP
Noon Under the Treesis a finely constructed EP from this North Carolina band. The layout is like that
of a faded, old, yellow paged diary or novella from the past. The songs are a
melancholy ride through mini portraits of friends and lovers and the lazy
afternoons wasted in their company. The sounds captured are soft and gorgeous.
Their reverbed-up guitars, fuzzy keyboards, and cushy drums are the real meat
and hook bringing me back for repeated listens. Not to say the singing isn’t
well spoken and dreamy, because it is. These southern gentlemen would fit
nicely on a bill with the Starlight Mints, the Flaming Lips, and Superchunk.
–Nathan Grumdahl
–Guest Contributor (Moodswing)
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ROCK, PAPER, STUPID:
Self-Titled: 7"
Please take this as constructive criticism. This should have been a demo, something handed out to friends on cassette or CD-R, songs to work on, ideas to flesh out. Because, at it stands, the recording’s real muddy (if I notice that your drums sometimes sound like bricks of tofu whacked with wooden spoons, it’s probably pretty bad), the songs are ehh (there are about five good places to end them before you do), and the whole thing’s real choppy and sorta faceless (but going for Crimpshrine and Allergic To Bullshit? Maybe.). I’m no proponent of “pro dude, pro attitudes,” but a little bit more attention to the details to let the good parts sparkle—they’re in there; I just don’t want to have to dig for ‘em—would do a world of good.
–Todd Taylor (Scattered, Smothered, and Covered)
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ROCK, STAR:
Inamorato: CD
Inamorato is a lost album recorded seven years ago, but never released. The story of Rock, Star is a fairly common one. They existed as an active band for a few years, gained a ton of fans, and then faded into obscurity before a recent reformation. They play a brand of melodic punk that was common in the late ‘90s when melodic bands took precautions to not sound like the pop punk that was, at that time, experiencing a huge backlash. This terrific album reminds me a bit of Naked Raygun. I’d like to hear more material from Rock, Star now that they’re back in action.
–Art Ettinger (Black Numbers)
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ROCKBOTTOM:
Throw Away: CD
If you wanted to hear four ordinary looking Japanese guys play a mixture of Cheap Trick and Kiss meets AC/DC, this is your potion for headbanging fun. If you are a drummer, this is even a bigger boner. The guy is a banger who is tech and wild at the same time. The songs are infectious and also on the border of being cliche. Songs sung in English with the strong accent off Japanese. Interesting.
–Donofthedead (Target Earth)
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ROCKERS, THE:
Self-titled: 7”
This re-release of their only recordings has been long sought after and is highly prized by collectors. It’s been remastered and put out at a price us commoners can afford. These four tracks of British Invasion-influenced power pop really harkens back to that era with a nod to the Beatles. Three of the four songs really stood out. The last song, “Comeback” is slower paced and not as immediate as the other three. Really tight playing and with an obvious love for the era, this was a really cool re-release that is worth seeking out. –Rick Ecker
–Guest Contributor (Cheap Rewards, cheaprewards.net)
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ROCKET:
Girls with Candy Hearts: CD EP
No matter how much thrash, grindcore, hardcore, and crust I listen to and go see, I am a sucker for all-girl bands. Now add a few covers with a blast of bubblegum, and I’m like a catfish hooked with a designer lure. Starting off is a cover of The Professionals which was one of Steve Jones’ bands after the Sex Pistols. I vaguely remember the song, but I was never really into them. But this band turns it into a new song. Never heard the Nick Gilder song “Backstreet Noise” before. All I ever heard was “Hot Child in the City.” I would have never known it was a cover if I didn’t look at the liner notes. Their rendition of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” becoming “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” was an easy lyric change and enjoyable too. It didn’t feel sacrilegious. Their Iggy Pop cover of “Funtime” has the elements of quirkiness that a band like Fuzzbox in the ‘80s or Elastica in the ‘90s would have done. Their originals are great too. This one’s a keeper! Now if a copy of their previous release that I read about with the Redd Kross and Bay City Rollers covers comes my way, I will be one happy music junkie.
–Donofthedead (Teenacide)
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ROCKET:
Girls with Candy Hearts: CDEP
No matter how much thrash, grindcore, hardcore, and crust I listen to and go see, I am a sucker for all-girl bands. Now add a few covers with a blast of bubblegum, and I’m like a catfish hooked with a designer lure. Starting off is a cover of The Professionals which was one of Steve Jones’ bands after the Sex Pistols. I vaguely remember the song, but I was never really into them. But this band turns it into a new song. Never heard the Nick Gilder song “Backstreet Noise” before. All I ever heard was “Hot Child in the City.” I would have never known it was a cover if I didn’t look at the liner notes. Their rendition of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” becoming “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” was an easy lyric change and enjoyable too. It didn’t feel sacrilegious. Their Iggy Pop cover of “Funtime” has the elements of quirkiness that a band like Fuzzbox in the ‘80s or Elastica in the ‘90s would have done. Their originals are great too. This one’s a keeper! Now if a copy of their previous release that I read about with the Redd Kross and Bay City Rollers covers comes my way, I will be one happy music junkie.
–Donofthedead (Teenacide)
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ROCKET 350:
American Grease: CD
Another foray into territory previously navigated to better effect by the Reverend Horton Heat.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Beatville)
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ROCKET 455:
Cross-Eyed: 7"
Two doses of sloppy, trashy punk’n’roll loaded with attitude from this Detroit combo. That’s all I gotta say ’bout that.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Get Hip, PO Box 666, Canonsburg, PA 15317)
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ROCKET 455:
Cross-Eyed: 7"
Rocket 455 raucously roar with robust bowery garagerock trashiness which sent me into a spastic state of all-out foot-stompin' insanity. The duo of deviant ditties contained on this skull-pummelling platter of psychotic sounds fiercely rage with murderous musical madness like there just ain't no tomorrow. It knocked me upside the head with such full-force seething intensity, I'm now permanently brain-damaged, cross-eyed, and imbecilically slobberin' all over myself... wheeeee, what fun!
–Roger Moser Jr. (Get Hip, PO Box 666, Canonsburg, PA 15317; http://www.gethip.com or Rocket 455, 5299 Tarnow, Detroit, MI 48210)
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ROCKET 455:
Go to Hell: CD
Picture the Jesus Lizard cranking on a more garage/trash Velvets trip . Good and nasty rock’n’roll, just as it should be.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Get Hip)
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ROCKET 455:
Cross-Eyed: 7"
Rocket 455 raucously roar with robust bowery garagerock trashiness which sent me into a spastic state of all‑out foot‑stompin' insanity. The duo of deviant ditties contained on this skull‑pummelling platter of psychotic sounds fiercely rage with murderous musical madness like there just ain't no tomorrow. It knocked me upside the head with such full‑force seething intensity, I'm now permanently brain‑damaged, cross‑eyed, and imbecilically slobberin' all over myself... wheeeee, what fun!
–Guest Contributor (Get Hip)
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ROCKET 69/DION BLADE & THE NEW KINGS OF ROCK:
: Split 7"
Rocket 69: The phrase “Iggy humped Kiss” is on their side
of the cover. That pretty much sums it up nicely. Huge sound, huge riffs, huge
tracks. Dion Blade: Take the aforementioned phrase, add “while being sodomized
by Motorhead” and you get the picture. A darn good single.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Rockin’ House)
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ROCKET CITY RIOT:
: CD
Recorded in ’99, from what I’m reading, in their home studio with the aid of a drum machine—the band didn’t acquire an actual human drummer until 2002—is this self-titled release from Rocket City Riot. A band with a high energy rock sound similar to New Bomb Turks or Electric Frankenstein. Read the band’s website and they are still active, and, apparently, working on new stuff, which, this is what they said not me, “sounds more like Roy Orbison meets the Lemonheads.” Huh?
–Dave Disorder (Zodiac Killer, myspace.com/zodiackillerrecords)
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ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT:
Live from Camp X-Ray: CD
I really loved Rocket From The Crypt’s Circa Now album. I’ve had a copy of it for about eight years now. It spent a couple of years in my truck. It got stolen and I went out and bought another copy. That copy’s in my wife’s car right now. I still listen to it every month or so. I’ve also listened to the stuff they’ve released since then, but nothing compared to Circa Now. Mostly, I’d listen to their new releases and shrug them off as a band trying to chase too many trends or putting together a bunch of songs fit for the B-side of a forty-five without putting out any A-sides. Live from Camp X-Ray changes that. It takes RFTC back to their original sound, back to songs that can be at once melodic and haunting and infused with a good dose of straight ahead rock. But this album also blends together some of the elements that RFTC hasn’t been able to pull off too well over the past few albums – solid horns and pop-style catchiness – without letting those elements take over the sound. When you get down to it, this album is pretty exciting. I re-ignites my faith in RFTC, and, for the first time in years, one of their albums is back in heavy rotation around here.
–Sean Carswell (Swami)
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ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT:
Live from Camp X-Ray: CD
I really loved Rocket From The Crypt’s Circa Now album. I’ve had a copy of it for about eight years now. It spent a couple of years in my truck. It got stolen and I went out and bought another copy. That copy’s in my wife’s car right now. I still listen to it every month or so. I’ve also listened to the stuff they’ve released since then, but nothing compared to Circa Now. Mostly, I’d listen to their new releases and shrug them off as a band trying to chase too many trends or putting together a bunch of songs fit for the B-side of a forty-five without putting out any A-sides. Live from Camp X-Ray changes that. It takes RFTC back to their original sound, back to songs that can be at once melodic and haunting and infused with a good dose of straight ahead rock. But this album also blends together some of the elements that RFTC hasn’t been able to pull off too well over the past few albums – solid horns and pop-style catchiness – without letting those elements take over the sound. When you get down to it, this album is pretty exciting. I re-ignites my faith in RFTC, and, for the first time in years, one of their albums is back in heavy rotation around here.
–Sean Carswell (Swami)
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ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT:
Live from Camp X-Ray: LP
When Circa Now! sunk into my cranium last decade, perhaps it coincided with me buying a shotgun and finding a dishwasher on the side of the street to shoot mere hours later and perhaps whiskey is a dandy sponge to soak memories in, but that was a fuckin' album. Heat, heart, rock'n'roll, throb, soul. It focused what Paint As a Fragrance hinted at and made a smart bomb laser beam to the happy spots in my brain. That melding of Tanner, the Saints, and Lou Rawls with dips into pot-happy psychedelia that didn't blow, but had a horn. Yeah. Successive Rocket records – from All Systems Go! through Cut Carefully and Play Loud – definitely had choice cuts – but lacked that all-important end-to-end playability for me. I listened with half an ear, always impatient for certain songs. None of those LPs roared out of my car's open door as we shot the fuck out of whatever unlucky appliance was left out on any curb in a ten mile radius. Live from Camp X-Ray's a fuckin' ball stomp by well-seasoned players not fucking around with anything except playing their hearts out. Fat's trimmed. Art for art's sake is left on the out-takes reel. Veteran power. Lifer credibility. Newcomer energy. Wonderfully actualized songs. Thick swagger, shithappy-horny sound, boogie you can sweat to, just by listening along. These hard-working mofos are kinda like James Brown without the wife beatings and drive-by shootings ordered by God. Highly recommended.
–Todd Taylor (Swami)
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ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT:
Circa Now! + 4: CD
This album was originally my introduction to RFTC back in the early ‘90s, and it’s the standard that I’ve held all of their later albums up to. As far as I’m concerned, RFTC didn’t release anything as good as Circa Now! until last year’s Live from Camp X-Ray. I don’t know if it’s just sentimental on my part, or if this album is really as great as I think it is. I will say this, though: I taped this off of a friend in 1993. When the tape wore out, I bought the CD. That CD was stolen from me sometime around ’96, and a year later, I bought a new copy. So this reissue is the fourth time I’ve gone out of my way to obtain a copy of this album. It has been in my car, in my wife’s car, or in heavy rotation at home for the majority of the last twelve years. I can’t think of many other albums that I can say that about. Originally, Interscope released this album, and there’s an interesting story all about how RFTC got signed and recorded this in L.A. during the L.A. riots in 1992, and how John Reis got the rights back and re-released it himself (it’s all in the liner notes, I’m not gonna rehash it here). Press releases aside, though, this is one of my all-time favorites and it’s essential listening. There are four extra songs on this re-issue. They’re really good songs, but I can understand why they didn’t make the original cut. They just don’t have the same intensity and feel of the rest of the album. They’d fit better with RFTC’s Scream Dracula Scream (which is a pretty good album, too).
–Sean Carswell (Swami)
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ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS:
The Day the Earth Met the...: CD
A collection of assorted demo and live tracks from this long dead but very influential band, slapped together to recreate “the greatest album NEVER made.” For those not in the know, this is the link between Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys, a super group, if you will, containing members of both of those bands before they were anybody. With great (although occasionally a little raw) sound quality, this is a must have for fans of either band, if for no other reason than to hear early versions of now-classic songs like “Sonic Reducer,” “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” and “Final Solution,” not to mention a couple of Stooges covers. Hell, the majority of the songs from the first Dead Boys albums are here, and let me say that until you’ve heard David Thomas belt out “What Love Is,” you just ain’t lived. Recommended.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Smog Veil)
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ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS:
Rocket Redux: CD
Considering there’s precious little info here, I have no idea when this was recorded, although my guess would be sometime during their recent spate of reunion gigs. No matter, as it’s just peachy to finally have a clear, coherent document of these guys finally available, and to hear David Thomas’ inimitable warble on classics like “Sonic Reducer,” “What Love Is,” “Ain’t It Fun,” “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” and “Final Solution” is more than worth the price of admission. What may be lacking in rawness and youthful energy they more than make up for with hard swagger, as evidenced in a seriously rockin’ “Never Gonna Kill Myself Again.” Put more succinctly, I’m fuggin’ stoked I own a copy of this.
–Jimmy Alvarado (www.smogveil.com)
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