Death From Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

How about a drum & bass combo with a real drummer and a real bass player but they rock out and the bass playing sounds like Lemmy? That's what you get with Death From Above 1979: a bass player and a drummer who sings (with the occasional synth thrown in for texture). That's the band, folks. Speaking of minimalism, the singing reminds me of Jack White when he's really rocking but with even more energy. The sound is different, it's noisy, it's modern, but it really works at times on their debut album, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. Check out Turn It Out and Little Girl.

Steve Howe - Turbulence

The problem with instrumental rock guitar albums is that you keep being reminded that they are GUITAR albums because there are GUITAR solos all over the place and, gosh, isn't that a great GUITAR solo, whether it should be there or not but it's a GUITAR album, what do you expect? Yes's best-known guitar player, Steve Howe, has released several albums and I finally decided to pick up one, having been impressed by a recording of one of his solo shows. Be forewarned that some of his albums have him singing and he is a terrible singer. Turbulence, though, is all instrumental so we are out of danger here. What I liked about this album was that I found myself forgetting that I was listening to a guitar player's solo album. I sometimes find Howe's playing a bit cold but he sure knows how to let the song take the spotlight and have the guitar(s) serve it instead of the song merely being a vehicle for (yet another) guitar solo. Check out Running the Human Race and Corkscrew. Do you hear what I mean? I'm looking forward to more of Steve Howe's (instrumental) albums.

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment

I love great pop albums. Unfortunately, "pop" is a much-maligned word in rock because it is too often used to describe crap. Great pop albums, though, are precious. Here is a short list of what I consider to be some great pop albums:

• A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles (1964)
• Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. - The Monkees (1967)
• In Color - Cheap Trick (1977)
• Get the Knack - The Knack (1979)
• Beauty and the Beat - The Go-Go's (1981)
• 11 - The Smithereens (1989)

Enough hooks to open a tackle shop, harmonies aplenty, and a beat you can dance to. You get the idea: great pop. That leads us to the Kaiser Chiefs. I'm not saying that their new album, Employment, is good enough to join the ranks of the above great albums. It's a very good album. I am saying that the Kaiser Chiefs have a great album in them. Check out the first single, I Predict a Riot, and Na Na Na Na Naa and just try and keep from moving to the beat.

Porcupine Tree - Deadwing

My favorite of the latest wave of prog rock bands is Porcupine Tree. Their 2002 album, In Absentia, was my introduction to them and it is a wonderful album with some truly stunning cuts, such as Blackest Eyes. They manage to produce both lush and hard rocking sounds in the same song yet it doesn't sound forced or unnatural. Don't pigeon hole them as just a prog band, though. They have their own unique sound that makes them special. There were several albums before In Absentia and I was afraid I had caught the band at its peak and that it was all downhill from then on (which has happened to me plenty of times). Their latest album, Deadwing, has arrived and I am happy to report that the band sounds even better. Shallow is the first single and it's rocking (so nice to hear a so-called prog group unafraid to rock out). Check out Open Car as well.

As an added bonus for me, when Porcupine Tree swings through Los Angeles next month I'm going to get to see Robert Fripp open for them. How cool is that?

Garbage - Bleed Like Me

I clearly remember the first time I heard Garbage. I was cruising through Tower Sunset and I heard this song. I went to the counter and asked who that was. "Garbage," was the answer. This caused me to pause for a second, then I remembered reading a few sentences about this new band. The song turned out to be Milk and I was hooked. Here we are, ten years and three albums later, and Garbage has released Bleed Like Me. They have pulled back from the over-production of Beautiful, and that's a good thing. Oh, it's not a stripped down, live-in-the-studio affair but the studio tricks are more restrained this time. Now we get rockers like the excellent Why Do You Love Me and the the catchy Sex is Not the Enemy. Let's hope we don't have to wait another four years for their next album.

Hanzel und Gretyl - Uber Alles

For those who like their industrial music with a teutonic twist, Hanzel und Gretyl have come to the rescue. Take KMFDM, add some Rammstein, then, with a wink, turn it up to 11 (Jello Biafra says Rammstein and the Runaways but I haven't seen HuG live so I'll leave that one alone). Don't let the air raid sirens and rally chants scare you off. With songs titles like Third Reich from the Sun and SS Deathstar Supergalactik, you know you have nothing to fear but fun itself. This is not HuG's latest album, though. That would be 2004's Scheissmessiah (see, nothing to fear) but Uber Alles is what I picked up first, so there.

50 Foot Wave - Golden Ocean

Alternative queen Kristin Hersh is stepping back into a band after the Throwing Muses reunion of a few years ago. 50 Foot Wave is the band's name, another trio, and the band has come to rock. Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with the oeuvre of Throwing Muses but this album album, Golden Ocean, sounds consistently harder and more punk than TM (to these ears). Did I not dig deeply enough? Take a listen to Clara Bow and Dog Days and let me know if I'm wrong.

Buddy Holly - The Buddy Holly Collection

One of my early extravagences as budding nutcase record collector was The Complete Buddy Holly. This six-LP set had every Buddy Holly recording known up to that time. It sounded like a good idea. Problem is, not everything an artist records is all that great. I played all six LPs once (see, back in prehistoric times you couldn't easily skip to just the tracks you liked) and didn't touch the set again. My mom has it now. She was a teenager when Buddy was making hits and I doubt she's listened to it yet. Fast forward a decade or two and we now have The Buddy Holly Collection. A two-CD set that is much easier to digest. The fifty songs are arranged chronologically so you can hear Buddy's progression from rockabilly to Elvis wanna-be to his breakout That'll Be the Day. You can hear his style slowly emerging but it's that song where he finally blossomed. Buddy Holly is one of my three favorite rock and rollers from the fifties (the other two would be Elvis and Little Richard). He was more than just a performer, though, as his talents as a songwriter and producer were coming into their own at the end of his way-too-short career (he died when he was 23). If you listen closely, you can hear how songs like Well...All Right and Learning the Game would have influenced bands such as The Beatles. While you're at it, check out my favorite Buddy Holly tune, It Doesn't Matter Anymore.