Gnarls Barkley St. Elsewhere Downtown Released May 9, 2006 Rating: 3.75 out of 4 Dan the Automator has made a career out of keeping his mind open. Despite being mostly accredited as a hip-hop producer, he’s managed to branch out, creating for himself a path into alternative genres. Working with an array of singers and rhymesayers for his and Prince Paul’s Handsome Boy Modeling School , the first Gorillaz album, and then with Mike Patton for the seductive Lovage and upcoming Peeping Tom , he’s benefited from exploring other avenues. Another such producer that seems to be making the same waves is Danger Mouse, eccentric beat-maestro that came onto the scene after creating the controversial “Grey Album”, a mix incorporating the music of the Beatles’“White Album” with rhymes from Jay-Z’s “Black Album”. Though the record was more or less banned by EMI due to copyright issues, it made enough headlines and impressed enough of those who actually heard it to gain Danger Mouse some street ...

Eagles of Death Metal Death By Sexy… Reckords Records/Downtown Released 4.11.06 Rating: 3.5 out of 4 Fans are by and large observant. Every subtle nuance, every obvious cliché, every genre-defining detail is absorbed through those geeky and acute sensory intakes, and available for reference whenever they need be withdrawn from the fanboy library. Granted there are fans out there that lack so much imagination that a regurgitated copy of the object of their affections is the best they can do. But, other fans know how to expand. The realization that it’s been seen or done is depressing, but not hopeless. There are ways to improve. If there weren’t, what would be the point? Knowing that Jesse “The Devil” Hughes was at one point a journalist means that observation is his bread and butter. It’s really no surprise then that he made a rock record and knew exactly what he was doing. From start to finish, “Death By Sexy…” is a straight-up good time. Hughes and Queens of the Stone Age’s ...

Lockjaw... A mission statement of sorts is slowly trying to find its way into this journal and is being overtaken by an extreme case of writer's block. Or, in my case, lockjaw. Suffering from the type of erratic and sometimes over-caffeinated sort of speech that I usually deal with verbally, the written word serves as my clearest form of communication. Unfortunately, after going through the trouble of putting this thing together, I'm unable to find the right words. So, I'll just try and address what the purpose here is: I love music. Being someone that never had the gift, or patience, to play an instrument, but still having had an addiction nonetheless, I started writing about records when the mood suited me. Having torn through countless cellophane wrappers, and opened many record sleeves, cassette cases and jewel cases; having either heard the unmistakable sounds of brilliance, or the tragically unfortunate kerplunk of yet another wasted dollar or two, sometimes I...