Shining Grindstone Rune Grammafon Released 2.20.07 Rating: 8 out of 10 Last Sunday, I scored an opportunity to hang out with my brother, which means that we spent a lot of time listening to records and talking music. I had a list going of all these records I wanted to play for him, which were too numerous to remember so any moment I thought of something he HAD to hear, I would turn off whatever the stereo was blasting in exchange for whatever I had in mind. I was expressing the sort of erratic and misplaced energy reserved for A.D.D.-fueled channel surfers. At some point during this wave of excited “show n’ tell,” I threw on Grindstone , the latest offering by Norway-bred progressive quartet Shining , and watched his face sort of bend and twist into a series of facial expressions as he seriously considered what he was hearing. “This album is like a film score,” I told him, “for an old science fiction movie. It’s like how the future sounded 20 years ago.” He sort of liked that desc...

The Stooges The Weirdness Virgin Released 3.07.07 Rating: 2 out of 10 In a little more than a week, Iggy Pop will be 60 years old. Consider this when you hear him push his throat to the max, showing very little wear and tear despite a career that would have a lesser man bibbed and broken, lips quivering as his nurse maid struggles to get a spoonful of strained carrots into his mouth. But, also consider this when you hear a lyric as grossly stupid as “my dick is turning into a tree,” (the album’s opening track, “Trollin’”) and realize that the big six-oh drove him to make that unnecessary observation. Hey, he can still rock, he can still get it up… The Stooges must still be amazing, right? ‘Fraid not. It’s 2007. Unfortunately for The Stooges, it’s not 1969 or 1970. Jumping off from a three-album legacy that brought alienation and hard rock to a new level of dismay at the hands (and ears) of rock critics and parents everywhere, Iggy and the brothers Asheton have come together to...