September 18, 2002

Alameda's Ipecac Records, the label run by Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton and former Alternative Tentacles associate Greg Werckman, has been filling a needed void over the last couple of years and establishing a solid track record in the process. Anchored by Patton-fronted all-star groups Fantômas and Tomahawk – both of which have managed impressive sales (six figures) for an independent label – and by a good half dozen Melvins albums, their roster is filled out by lesser-known but worthy acts from the forward-looking corners of hip-hop, electronic, noise, industrial, hardcore, and metal. So far Ipecac's role has been less in "discovering" artists than in cherry-picking various semi-established acts – like mumbling rapper Sensational from New York dub-hip hop imprint Wordsound and industrial godfather Jim Thirwell – and presenting them to a wider audience (one that, in this case, will buy anything with Patton's name attached to it). Whatever the case, it's good to see Patton stepping up and making this music more visible: few musicians with his influence seem willing, or for that matter even bother, to keep up with new music.

These two albums come from the world around Boston's Hydra Head label, most commonly associated with the abrasive hardcore-metal of bands such as Botch, Coalesce, and Cave-In. Isis guitarist-vocalist Aaron Turner runs Hydra Head, but his band's music sits somewhat apart from the trademark "Hydra Head sound," falling more in line with the slow, low, and heavy tradition of pain-wielders like Neurosis, Swans, the Melvins, and Godflesh. On Oceanic their songs frequently hover in the eight-minute range, but even then, everything is connected – this is music that works at the album level. As is necessary when going for an epic, soul-purging experience, Isis know how to use dynamics, and they have a great ear for subtle shifts in mood and density (meaning that there are no tedious quiet-to-loud buildups or predictable crescendos). Turner doesn't open his mouth often, but when he does, it's nearly always in a full-throated roar. Still, the feeling is more about desperation than about anger, conveying that moment when everything horrible comes crashing down – only without resorting to cloying emo-grade melodrama. These guys aim high, and while they may flirt with pretension, ultimately, they mean it, man.

Phantomsmasher (originally Atomsmasher before a lawsuit forced the name change) spring from the fertile loins of guitarist-bassist-electronics guy James Plotkin, whose career – too long and diverse to adequately summarize – includes the eccentric Earache-label experimental metal band OLD to dark-ambient collaborations with Scorn's Mick Harris and Zeni Geva's K.K. Null. Their debut, Atomsmasher, came out last year on Hydra Head subsidiary Double H Noise Industries. It was a real ear-opener, coming through with the fusion of blasting grindcore, glitch-based electronics, and computer-manipulated guitar ambience promised by their lineup (rounded out by hyperactive vocalist DJ Speedranch and metal drumming hero Dave Witte, formerly of the legendary Human Remains and Discordance Axis). It was also noisy as hell, although because of Plotkin's blissful guitar harmonies, also oddly tranquil. Phantomsmasher, while still frantic by most standards, is actually subdued in comparison, as if it were the work of a futuristic cartoon rock band with a bionic drummer and a singer who takes a lot of drugs, then runs around barfing up pixel tiles. Again, credit Patton for releasing this: he has mined similar territory in the past few years, and by letting this stuff out of the bag, he risks making himself look comparatively tame. (Will York)

Patricia Barber
Verse (Premonition/Blue Note)

With their self-consciously smart wordplay and sly left-of-center musical approach, Patricia Barber's songs almost qualify her as the Mose Allison of the new millennium. But as her seventh album magnificently reveals, Barber is a far more elegant pianist than Allison, favoring a sparse Bill Evans approach to self-expression. Her compositions and arrangements – played here by longtime bassist Michael Arnopol, drummer Joey Baron (on all but one track), acoustic and electric guitarist Neil Alger, and trumpeter Dave Douglas – sidestep easy jazz or blues categorization. And her song poetry strikes literate postgraduate poses far removed from Allison's rural Mississippi roots: Barber doesn't sleepwalk, she "somnambulates" through "doppleganger days"; she calls on Descartes and Aristotle to support her positions; and when she gets the blues, they are "like David Hockney's pool" or "Edward Hopper's afternoon."

Except for one song based on a Paul Verlaine text, Verse is pure Barber, eschewing the standards that dominated 2000's Nightclub and the pop covers (Sony Bono, Bill Withers, the Doors, Paul Anka, Peter Green) that punctuated both 1999's Companion and her 1998 breakthrough, Modern Cool. It opens with a look at love through the eyes of "The Moon" ("I can't shine without you") and continues to examine the emotion from various viewpoints – being lost in it or broken into "Pieces" by it, faking it without "The Fire," and craving the "Regular Pleasures" of "mediocre aspirations" and "humdrum complications." Barber often sublimates a wink and a nod into the dark, cool delivery of her intellectual repartee, whether organizing it into lists (as on "Clues," a noir string-augmented twist on Jobim's "Waters of March") or turning it into an aphrodisiac meal à la the oyster-slurping scene in Tom Jones ("I Could Eat Your Words"). The deeper you sink into Verse, the more late-20th-century influences (Joni Mitchell, Laurie Anderson) you might detect, and the more they dissolve into intellectually and sensually delectable Barberism. (Derk Richardson)

Bangs
Call and Response EP (Kill Rock Stars)

Aptly described years ago as a trio that had "decided that the Go-Go's just weren't fast enough," these days Bangs play as if Carlisle and company never even got the car outta neutral. Which is to say that after the blatant Belinda-isms of their 1998 debut, Tiger Beat, the Olympia, Wash.-based band realized they'd rather dance to Van Halen than "Vacation," and they've been speeding up to get down ever since: first with the Cheap Trick rips of their "Maggie the Cat" 7-inch, then with Sweet Revenge, the best irony-free hair metal album of 2000.

Recorded by Unwound's Justin Trosper, the 16-minute Call and Response continues Bangs' pro-aerosol evolution as the trio – guitarist and Valley-girl-gone-postal Sarah Utter, bassist Maggie Vail, and umpteenth new drummer Peter David Connelly – tear through a half dozen of their fastest, fiercest songs to date. Highlights "New Scars," "I Want More," and "Dirty Knives" (featuring ex-Bikini Killer Tobi Vail's seriously scary screams) will get heads, err, banging, but just wait till the band throw their lighters in the air for the misty-eyed ode to livin' on a prayer, "Kinda Good." Kinda great, actually.