RTX: Stars of
Heavy Metal
Parking Lot ²⁰⁰⁷

forte-to-falsetto range of Thom Yorke or the seductive growl of Dylan, Quever comes close, uncorking a clutch of gorgeous, emotion-drenched ditties in an affecting, androgynous croon. SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

 

Permanent Me
After the Room
Clears ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Hooks galore from suburban
New York next big things
As one of the first signings to
Island’s emo-leaning imprint
Stolen Transmission,
Permanent Me stumbled into a
remarkable 2006, landing a
Panic! At the Disco producer
(Matt Squire) and a Fall Out Boy
tour before their MySpace
friends list even hit six figures.
But the band’s debut LP shows
they’ve got the songs to justify
their good fortune: Loaded
with anthemic, confectionary
pop punk that posits what
Simple Plan might sound like
with Paul Westerberg as lead
songwriter, After the Room
Clears isn’t so much an album
as a collection of potential hit
singles. And, lucky bastards,
they’ll probably all go straight
to radio. AARON BURGESS

been a bowl of sunshine; he’s spent more than a decade dropping increasingly vacant and resigned rhymes about handing out and receiving beatdowns. So on this follow-up to Mobb’s G-Unit-sponsored ’06 flop, Blood Money, he has nothing to lose. And while it might suck to be him, here his troubles produce some haunting music. With production by the Alchemist, the album sounds as if it were recorded on the set of Requiem for a Dream. The mood is best summed up on “Mac 10 Handle,” which boasts one of the most depressing hooks this side of Leonard Cohen: “I sit alone in my dirty-ass room / Staring at candles, high on drugs.” Somebody missed a Wellbutrin prescription. CHRIS R YAN

 

Willy Mason
If the Ocean Gets
Rough
ITUNES
Wise-beyond-his-years trou-
badour rocks with sincerity
Mason is a 22-year-old rustic
singer/songwriter who’s added
his Martha’s Vineyard musical
gang for a second album heav-
ier on texture (hello, cello!)
and sweeter on harmonies
(courtesy of his mom, Jemimah
James). His slumbery Jonathan
Richman–meets–Beck vocals
make every song a potential
slacker lullaby, as exemplified
by “I Can’t Sleep.” And the sto-
ries underneath the tunes ques-
tion the world with that “What
the fuck am I doing?” insecurity
that comes from choosing the
path less traveled. ROB O’CONNOR

Melechesh
Emissaries
ITUNES
The Middle East is the new
homeland for heavy music
Melechesh have the distinction
of being Israel’s only Armenian-
Assyrian-Dutch-Ukrainian metal
band whose songs deal in
ancient Mesopotamian themes.
But the quartet—who’ve grown
exponentially from their days as
an early-’90s corpse-painted cult
phenom—is no novelty.
Emissaries begins in wide-open
throttle with “Rebirth of the
Nemesis (Enuma Elish
Rewritten),” a rhythmically
bananas thrashfest that lets new
drummer Xul plant his flag; and
for nine more tracks, the band
maintains equal velocity, exoti-
cism, even infectiousness. With

this album, Melechesh haven’t just kissed obscurity goodbye; they’ve set the bar for metal in 2007. AARON BURGESS

The Ponys
Turn the Lights
Out ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Finding just the right level of
sonic sloppiness
The Ponys’ wonderfully vis-
ceral sound comes from play-
ing amps as much as songs,
which means recording values
are particularly make-or-break
for this Chicago foursome. Jim
Diamond, erstwhile producer
of the White Stripes, captured
the band in all their tube-rat-
tling garage glory on 2003’s
Laced With Romance; oddly
enough, Steve Albini failed
on the follow-up Celebration
Castle, rendering its propor-
tions with sterile clarity. Here,
John Agnello’s knob-twiddling
is spot-on, with the guitars
quivering and quaking on the
hook-laden “Double Vision”
and “Everyday Weapon.”
J. NIIMI

Relient K
Five Score and Seven
Years Ago ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Peppy sing-alongs for puppy
lovers and true believers
Few bands play punk-
influenced modern rock as
proficiently as these amiable
Christian dudes, and on their
fifth album, the piano-driven
anthems that catapulted
Relient K from the main stage
at Cornerstone to the studios
of TRL remain intact. Too bad
frontman Matt Thiessen insists
on penning such heavy-handed
lyrics about spirituality and
newfound love: As accessible
as his sunny choruses may be,
if you don’t have a date on
Saturday night or a service on
Sunday morning, you might
feel awkward singing along.
TREVOR KELLEY

 

Papercuts
Can’t Go Back ⁵
ITUNES
Shambolic melody-making
for drama-club kids
On MySpace, head Papercut
Jason Quever lists “gospel” as
a key influence. But unless
Radiohead’s OK Computer and
Dylan’s The Basement Tapes
have been slipped into a New
Testament podcast, it’s tough
to hear the connection. On
Can’t Go Back, Quever weaves
elegant melodies through ram-
shackle folk rock so wispy that
it almost evaporates on contact.
And while he doesn’t have the

Prodigy
Return of the Mac ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Depression fuels rapper’s
best album in years
Mobb Deep’s Prodigy has never

RJD2
The Third Hand ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Emerging from the Shadow,
with middling results
Well, it’s 2007—what self-
respecting artist could spend
his whole life as a trip-hop DJ?
In 2004, the Philly transplant’s
more song-oriented Since We
Last Spoke disturbed the visions
of DJ Shadow dancing in the
heads of fans who gravitated
to his debut tour de groove,
Deadringer. Now he’s left his
label Def Jux and definitively
moved on from underground
rap to one-man bedroom pop,
longer on nuance than hook,
as textured synths and
harmonies shimmer with that

SASHA EISENMAN/COURTESY DRAG CITY

 

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