Knock three times on your coffin if you want my love

So over the weekend I bought five new CDs. I was fairly broke so I just raided the "budget bin" and got the five discs for ten cents under twenty bucks. Yesssssssssss.

So first off I got this three song album called "Absolution" by a band called Autumn Tears. Now I had NO idea what this was going to be, but it was ninety-nine cents and it easily looked like it could have been some kind of Ulver-esque metal. It turns out to be folksy goth kinda stuff, honestly they sound like a poor man's Black Tape For A Blue Girl with less production and instead of dual gender vocals, it's two girls. Both girls have a better voice than the female vocalist in Black Tape For A Blue Girl, which is saying a lot. Even though some of the percussion sounds odd and out of place at times it's a steal at ninety-nine cents plus the line "The certainty of fate pinned to my heels" is definitely thought provoking.

Speaking of Black Tape For A Blue Girl I ended up buying a Projekt Records compilation; it seems to be the newest one out. So there's a bit of history with me and Projekt Records comps as in I've never seen one in a store that I haven't picked up and bought. I don't know what it is. They're an alright label, not excellent, I don't know any of their acts all that well save for Black Tape and Voltaire, but there's something about their comps, they are ALWAYS great and so I can't not buy them. =( This CD was no exception. It begins with a great track by a band called Android Lust entitled "Dragonfly." I ended up listening to this song a few times over, it's really quite good. Very simply done, just some beepy snyths with a light drum machine under some very sensual vocals singing some odd lyrics. This is a band I'm definitely going to be looking for in the future. The Voltaire track was basic Voltaire. It was a little too cute, tongue-in-cheek to know if I actually like it or could stomach it for an extended amount of time. Like I said before, the comp like all their others is on point and of course the best track does come from their flagship band, the aforementioned Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Thi song is a weird sort-of/sort-of-not cover of Tony Orlando's "Knock Three Times." First off this thing sounds like a finger snapping Stray Cats song. You know, if Stray Cats wore all black, were completely androgynous and wore all sorts of eye liner. The lyrics are about a dead lover and turn out to be quite clever. "Knock three times on your coffin if you want my love." And there's this recurring lyric about how cute the girl is that definitely had me smiling and almost laughing at times. "She's kinda cute in a skinny kinda way" "She's kinda cute in a why don't you get out and see the sun kinda way" "She's kinda cute in a why don't you put some meat on those bones kinda way" I don't know, I thought they were amusing. Here is a fourty-five second clip of their song from their website.

The next one is Ink & Dagger's self-titled album (the fact that I didn't already own this is unacceptable.) This is a definite classic for it's genre. Noisy, punky, addictive. Great great lyrics, very dark. "Creatures like us never live forever, I need to be right twice in my life." Hell the lead singer thought he was a vampire (before he died...) "despite our vicious appetite are we really what we eat?" Fans of Le Shok should already know this, but if not, get up on it. And if you don't know who Le Shok is and you're down with The Strokes or The Hives, check them out they're like a grittier, dirtier, punkier version of those bands. Then you'll fall in love with Le Shok then you'll go find this Ink & Dagger album, not like it for a year, pick it back up and find it to be the best thing you've heard in months. Yeah.

Now for the most disappointing of the five; a darkwave compilation put out by Cold Meat Industry entitled "...And Even Wolves Hid Their Teeth And Tongues Wherever Shelter Was Given." Yeah, long title. I would imagine anyone who has this bought it because there's a Mortiis track on it, but that track like just about all the rest of the album gets very old very quick. All very sparse, almost ambient at times minimal darkwave. There's nothing wrong with this, but it doesn't seem like the best way to showcase your label. I mean there were times where I thought, "Wow I can't believe this track is this long!" and it turned out that was two tracks away from where I thought I was, it just bleeds together. There are a few brighter spots however. It gets a bit more industrial-y near the end of the album with bands like Sanctum, Atomine Elektrine and Mental Destruction. While better, even these tracks aren't necessarily great although the Mental Destruction song sounded like an evil version of the Foo Fighter's song "Weenie Beenie," so that was amusing. Besides that there was a sort of Depeche Mode sounding beat to the song "Malebolge" by Memorandum, but by that time in the album (track 13) I had all but given up, despite it and the less sparse industrial tracks.

The last album was something I was looking to get for a while now, Head Wound City's first EP. This was released by one of the truly innovative and great labels out there today, Three One G. Not unlike the band Holy Molar, this band is a sort of side project for a couple of different bands giving them a once in a lifetime kind of lineup for this genre. Within the disc you get the combined music geniuses of JP and Gabe (one of the best drummers around) of The Locust, Jordan and Cody from The Blood Brothers and Nick from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The result is the speed, fury and uniqueness that is The Locust, the completely and utter sassyness that is The Blood Brothers and the stylized musical fashion the erupts from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In the end while the album is very good, the members of the band have done some better things with their talents. I would say only buy this album if you already own and enjoy the two Locust albums "Plague Soundscapes" and "Flight Of The Wounded Locust" as well as The Blood Brothers album "This Adultery Is Ripe." Although after hearing those albums you might find this album to be more than a little trite.

Also look for a cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by The Melvins (off of their album "Crybaby." ) Leif Garrett does vocals, no that's not a typo. I find it better than the original and when trying to describe it to a friend I ended up comparing it to the old mid 90s band Stabbing Westward. It's a weird yet great track that to me proves that Kurt Cobain shouldn't have sung on that, 70s teen heartthrob Leif Garrett should have. I can't believe I just said that...