new introductory bit here.

This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.

note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.

Rasputina consists of three firey cellists, led by their lyricist and designer Melora Creager, backed by drum loops and synths, expounding harshly about men and sex. Thanks for the Ether positions itself as an album that would have been released by a punk rock band in the 1890s, and so discusses the fate of the Donner Party and those pre-suffrage women who all died when the locked factory burned down. There are some 20th Century topics, but what the hell is the point in writing a song about Howard Hughes? It's proof that you can be too clever for your audience to take you seriously; their biggest fan, after all, is the bonehead Marilyn Manson, who remixed the single "Transylvanian Concubine." Forest is a massive improvement. Their songs take many perspectives, whether proudly proclaiming their individuality ("You Don't Own Me") or nastily attacking women who need marriage ("Diamond Mind"), but none exemplify their virtuoso attack on "value" and expectations as well as the blistering "Olde Headboard," which opens the proceedings. Their political stance and the often screeching instrumentation may be a stumbling block for beginners; stick with this album and be thrilled, the first can safely be overlooked. Incidentally, "The New Zero" is about being taken by a bear to stay the night in a hotel made of ice. A more vivid fairytale nightmare I've never heard.