Scroll down for reviews of the latest from Melody Unit and The Fall. Click here for the reviews of the latest from Neil Finn, Dipsomaniacs, Cheese and Utah Carol.

Various Artists
Six Years Of Power Pop

(Not Lame)

notlame.com

Apparently, the six-year anniversary gift is aluminum. In honor of the six-year mark, Not Lame has gathered together 19 of its artists and put together a collection of unreleased and hard to find tracks. For someone looking to hop onto the pop merry-go-round, this serves as a fine how-do-you-do, as the quality of the lesser known tunes here falls on the treasure side, rather than the trash side. Indeed, these leftovers are indicative of the Not Lame's keen ear for talent.

As much as I'd like, I have not heard every Not Lame artist, so this disc served as an introduction to Mark Helm and Terry Anderson. Helm's track, "Milkyway", is simply lovely. Helm has the appropriate high range voice for pop, with some very slight rough edges. The tune is a celebration of the singer's "lucky star" and the performance embodies a fellow in that special state of love where things are just plain comfortable. Fans of Myracle Brah, Swedish pop, and maybe even Paul Westerberg, would dig this. Anderson's tune is the joker in this deck, a chugging rock and roll number, in the same division as NRBQ and Walter Clevenger.

Speaking of rockers, Michael Carpenter follows with "Heartbreaker". The song starts with a fiery '60s R & B tempo and a charged vocal. Right before the chorus, the crunchy riff kicks in. Instant hook, just add volume and spin. Not as upbeat, but equally intense is "Love" from The Rooks. With some edgy electric guitar and a matching Michael Mazzarella vocal, this is a mid-tempo conflagration on par with prime Plimsouls, The Brains and Jim Basnight.

Meanwhile, Doug Powell's "Cul-De-Sac" is a stretched out carnival ride, totally in keeping with his ornate post-Rundgren magic as displayed on More. The Rubinoos' "The Girl" (what an odd topic for them!) is further evidence that a discussion of the 'noos peak years can lead to arguments - they still sound great.

Speaking of debates, pop fans can advance to tracks 11 and 12 - are you more into Big Star influenced balladry from Florida by way of New York (Flamingo's "Spinning Out") or Big Star influenced balladry from Ohio by way of Mississippi, with some Byrds jangle thrown in (Bobby Sutliff's "Time Machine")? And speaking of balladry, "Greatest Mistake I Ever Made" is sweet and tender, and some might even call it moving. It's written and sung by that renowned balladeer…Martin Luther Lennon? I'll be frank - not only is the mellow style a surprise, but I'm not always into Tony Perkins's vocalizing, but it works here quite well.

For pure uplifting guitar rock, be thankful Not Lame uncovered Wanderlust's "Where has your Lover Gone?", and Myracle Brah's "Simplified" - both tracks soar. The lyrics prize goes to Pat Buchanan and his Idle Jets, rhapsodizing in fine Southern fried post-Beatle fashion about "Karen Valentine". Clever without being cute, and darned catchy too!

Reviewing this comp is the critical version of shooting fish in a barrel. Thanks Not Lame, can't wait for the next anniversary collection.

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The Melody Unit
Choose Your Own Adventure

(Hidden Agenda)

parasol.com

This Seattle band creates an enveloping post-shoegazer sound with a nice balance of beauty and drive. This is a band that emphasizes the pop side of dream pop. "Kona Song" is a compelling example of this. The initial melody is winsome to the extreme, sounding like a cuddly, twee version of The Go-Betweens. But underneath this sugar glaze, there's a nice blend of guitars and synths (one pictures Peter Lynch in a pose similar to The Buggles' Geoff Downes in the video for "Video Killed the Radio Star", in the middle of his keyboards, playing a few parts at the same time), and there's a nifty instrumental interlude in the middle, where the guitars really come to the forefront, with some nice space age riffing.

The tunes generally go well past the three-minute mark, yet never overstay their welcome. The rhythm section of Tim Kappert (bass) and Mark Salvadelena (drums) lay down steady pulsebeats that provide a solid foundation for the songs and sounds to glide on. Sometimes, the mellow grooves and creamy vocal interplay between Kevin Kelly and Jessica Folsom suggests a collaboration between some '60s soft-pop outfit and New Order.

The intent "Go (or not Go)" is one of the more driving songs on the album, bringing to mind bands like For Against and Springhouse. Kelly and Folsom harmonize well, giving the song two layers of hypnotic elements, the ethereal vocals on top, the rhythm section on the bottom, with nifty embellishments by Lynch on the keys and Kelly on the guitar. The song occupies a niche somewhere between psychedelia and post-punk dance music, creating space and then filling in that space with some sonic details without ever blocking the horizon.

"Welcome Back Tomorrow" has a melody that has some vague overtones of both Country and Western (a subtle twang in Kelly's lead guitar) and Eastern melody (like Crosby, Stills and Nash numbers such as "Fair Game"), but breaks down into a calm yet rocking middle eight with little synth squalls in the background. This song is one of the best examples of how Melody Unit is in command of both the songwriting, as there is some sophisticated tunesmithing going on here, no matter how simple some of their ideas appear, and the atmosphere they are trying to create. The atmosphere is not the raison d'etre, as the songs would hold up on their own, but always enhances the song. The hooks here don't come from the choruses, as much as from the delightful chord changes and lead guitar and keyboard parts. And they resonate because of the warm textures.

Folsom gets a much deserved lead vocal turn on "Snoqualmie" - she has an angelic high end on her voice. The band just builds on a simple melody and let's her vocal carry the tune, which it does handily. Fans of Air Miami and later Pale Saints releases should flip for this tune.

This is a great album for nesting in the wintertime. Pop it in, and look out at the stars on a cold night.

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The Fall
Are You Are Missing Winner

(Cog Sinister)

voiceprint.co.uk

"Repetition", the first song on the Fall's first album, was a true artistic statement, specifically articulating the defining artistic characteristic of the band. Blues and rockabilly, the forms of music that have provided the foundation for The Fall are already premised on a certain amount of repetition of various chord patterns and rhythmic devices. Mark E. Smith and dozens of current and/or former sidepersons have merely extended this principle as far as it can go. Much like Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, and perhaps even moreso like painter Chuck Close, The Fall illustrate how one can take an extremely basic structure and constantly find ways to make it fresh. Arguably, The Fall have been more successful than those three artists at finding variables and adding textures to their foundation. From scratchy rockabilly to lumbering post-punk to wobbly Motown to pseudo-glam to basic garage to dancey electronics, The Fall has dabbled in most of what rock has had to offer in the past four decades.

The latest installment in the Mark E. Smith saga finds a bunch of new mates playing with him. This edition of The Fall is solid, although drummer Tom Head is missed - he was a powerhouse beatkeeper. The record has a murkiness characteristic of early Fall recordings. The version of the blues standard "Bourgeois Town", which takes on a guitar part similar to Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn Theme", harkens back to the trash blues tuneage of the '70s, but played just a bit more quickly. And more competently.

The other cover on the disc is an obscure Motown number composed by R. Dean Taylor, "Gotta See Jane". The opening of the track actually comes off more like The Easybeats' "Friday on my Mind" - in fact the song plays like the verse of that Aussie beat classic, but without ever exploding into a big chorus. The rubbery back-and-forth rhythm is insanely catchy - a perfect fit for The Fall.

The originals are all over the place, generally good and no flat out stinkers. "My Ex-Classmates' Kids" is a 4/4 garage rocker, where Smith intones not lyrics, but salvos ("I cry for them/five days a week/I cry for me/three days at least/on the radio/politburo sucker/on a cooking show"). Non-sequitir salvos, but would you expect less (or more)?

The band dabbles in some weird Eastern modal guitar tuning on the military lurch of "Crop-Dust", while "Ibis-Afro Man" reaches epic length, mixing separate recordings in a discordant fashion, as an unrelated acoustic track fades in and out of the deliberately paced blues stomp, making Smith even harder to understand than usual, though I discern the lines "I used to fuck all night" and "I'd eat a monkey for breakfast/I'd eat a skunk for lunch". The song has the effect of passing through an area where two radio stations are occupying one frequency. Almost midway through the tune, the stomp cuts out, the acoustic part still is barely palpable, while a monkey scream repeats and repeats. This fades out, and next thing you know, the song becomes a scorching punk track.

Fading is also a trick on "Reprise: Jane - Prof Mick - Ey Bastardo", where the music suddenly drops out in spots, as if the tape had been erased. Rosemary Woods does not appear in the production credits.

While there are some modern technological touches on the disc, this disc sounds like it could have been waxed by a late-'70s Fall lineup. It's a sign of how innovative The Fall is that even a flashback-type disc sounds fresh in the context of the times. If this edition of the band is given a chance to gel, some great albums should follow. This is a good start.

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