Reviews

River Monster

Bedlam Hour Win a Billion Dollars! CD

BEDLAM HOUR’s interpretation of melodic HC/punk is slick and professional-sounding, with all the rough edges smoothed away. In the past, it’s what might have been described as “commercial,” although I don’t know if that still applies. They jettisoned the abrasive, imperfect, and confrontational qualities associated with the genre, but kept some of its musical landmarks (power chords, relative brevity, etc.), polished the distortion, tightened the delivery, and cleaned up the recording. And Win a Billion Dollars! is clean. So clean you could eat off of it (if you choose to).

Brandy & the Butcher Pretty Girls / Mr. Dorite 7″

A couple of tough rock’n’roll tracks from this South Carolina band. This reminds me of that wave of bands in the late ’80s that were hard rock but claimed to be punk influenced. They do a decent job here, but this just doesn’t do much for me. Maybe I’m missing the bar band appeal?

Soy City Stranglers Midwest Rock N Roll EP

Four doses of fast and furious Midwestern hardcore punk. Tasteful touches of metal (the slow bit in “Counting the Days” into the “let’s go” that brings back the charge is especially choice) and lots of single-note guitar picking à la Filthy Phil, and then they drop serious tonnage on the hardcore breakdowns. Q: What do you get when you combine testosterone, beer, full stacks, and denim? A: SOY CITY STRANGLERS.