2008-08 Vital Source Mag – August 2008
The Misanthrope
Boulevard Theatre opens its season with a modern twist on an old comedy as it presents its production of Moliere’s The Misanthrope – moved from 17th-century France to contemporary Quebec, set in an art gallery and spiced up with a liberal dose of gender-bending. The new floor of the renovated Boulevard is a rich, deep wood that suits the setting well. A single bench sits center stage, in tune with the clean, modern set dressing and costuming — a nearly flawless visual presentation from beginning to end. The rhythm of Moliere’s story may not be perfectly rendered, but the production more than redeems itself elsewhere, in jovial performances and impeccable presentation. David Flores stars as Alceste – in this production, a visual/performing arts critic falling for Cesarmene (Cesar Gamino), a flirtatious gallery owner. “Cesarmene” is the Boulevard’s male adaptation of Célimène – a coquettish young lady in the original script. As the play opens, Alceste is having a philosophical discussion with his friend Philinte – another gender-swapped role, played with charisma by Beth Monhollen. Philinte and Alceste discuss the difference between tact and honesty in modern society. Dramatic presentation usually offers a more casual introduction to characters before barreling into abstract philosophical debate, and with less sophisticated treatment, this conversation might be an immediate turn-off for a contemporary audience. But Flores and Monhollen deliver Moliere’s rhythmic rhyming couplets with understated drama and intellectual passion, making the first scene bearable and even exciting. The Misanthrope was selected as a vehicle for Flores, and he justifies the choice marvelously. Joe Frasee delivers a fun performance as Oronte, a poet in the original play framed here as a “spoken word/performance artist,” a flamboyant gentleman every bit as enamored with Cesarmane as Alceste. Oronte demands Alceste’s frank impression of a sonnet he’s written, and Alceste, despite his better judgment, agrees to hear the piece – which Oronte performs wearing nothing more than a pair of shiny red underpants. Cesar Gamino as Cesarmene plays Alceste’s decisive opposite. There is balance between opposing forces in the ensemble, but the balance between Gamino and Flores as Alceste and Cesarmene is most striking. Alceste’ longing for truth and honesty is matched by Cesarmene’s innate desire for pleasantly flattering dishonesty. Their dynamic is captivating and carries the tension of the play. We’re no longer at the point in art history where gender-bending is a shock, but even more conservative theater-lovers should be pleased by this production – besides the gender and name changes and cheeky choices, this is Moliere’s original Misanthrope – performed with total respect and deference. VS The Boulevard Theatre’s production of The Misanthrope runs through August 24. For more information, call 414-744-5757 or visit the Boulevard online.
Aug 20th, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
Well
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre opens its season with the Milwaukee premiere of Lisa Kron’s Well — a pseudo-meta-theatrical drama. Angela Iannone stars as Kron, who is trying to develop a theatrical exploration into the nature of health and illness in modern society. Ruth Schudson plays Lisa’s mother, who has unsuspectingly been framed onstage as Lisa’s case study in human health. In spite of Lisa’s persistent affirmations that she is not doing a play about her mother, her mother slowly takes over the production, leaving Lisa to wonder what she was trying to say in the first place. The set, designed by Lisa Schlenker, splits the stage down the middle. On the right, the set is furnished and domestic, with bookcases, knickknacks, furniture and – at the outset of the play – Lisa’s mother, asleep. Stage left is bare, with a video screen high above the floor. Angela Iannone’s stage presence is fascinating – she deftly portrays Lisa Kron ass a magnetic, witty playwright. Ruth Schudson, who has taken on a great many roles over the years, looks absolutely at home onstage, rendering Mrs. Kron’s wizened confidence with comely clarity. The supporting ensemble includes local stage veterans Bo Johnson and Tami Workentin, rising talent Travis A. Knight and relative newcomer Marti Gobel. All performances here are well-executed, but there seems to be something missing, and it isn’t due to any lack of skill on the part of talented director Laura Gordon. There’s a level of cohesion that the script never quite manages to attain. Through its post-modern construction, it directly addresses Well’s lack of cohesion, which grows to become the central conflict of the play. But simply making note of the disconnectedness of scenes doesn’t make them any easier to bear. A lack of cohesion is a lack of cohesion, even if you choose to make it the play’s driving conflict. Kron’s script is clever, but it fails as a piece of meta-theatre on a fundamental level. Throughout the play, each character in the production is revealed to be the actor or actress playing them except Lisa herself, who is never completely revealed to be Angela Iannone. Iannone excels in the role of an artist who is losing track of her statement, but the production is never allowed to acknowledge that a talented actress is playing the role of the playwright. In this respect, every production of Well that doesn’t star the real Lisa Kron in the female lead is limited. Make no mistake – this is a satisfying production, but in a play so narrowly focused on striking the ore of human emotion, the play’s central figure is merely speaking the same lines all the rest of the actors are. It’s a flaw that cuts to the heart of what Kron is trying to say. VS Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s production of Well runs now through August 24 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Cabot Theatre. Tickets can be purchased by calling 414-291-7800 or visit the Chamber Theatre online.
Aug 20th, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff
A portrait is an image of a person
J. Shimon & J. Lindemann, Elise at Work, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 2007. Inkjet pigment print from 8 x 10 transparency, 20 x 16 in. Ed. 2/10 What is wrapped up in a portrait? We see so many each day that we never really stop to think about what the creation of a person’s image encompasses and implies. When you make a portrait, whether it’s a marble bust, a painting, a professional photograph, or a snapshot of a friend, you are capturing the essence of a real, live person: someone that lives and breathes, that works and feels and exists in the world. A portrait is an image of a person. Unmasked & Anonymous: Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture brings this most basic and oft-forgotten aspect of portraiture to the forefront of our consciousness. A portrait is an image of a person. Through works of their own and carefully culled works from the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection of photographs and daguerreotypes, John Shimon and Julie Lindemann (with help from hotshot MAM curator Lisa Hostettler) bring us face to face with all of the ambiguities and inherent contradictions of taking a portrait, an image of a person. While there are many threads of meaning to pluck at, perhaps the central theme is in the exhibition’s title. A portrait is an image, and an image is also the conscious projection of a person. An image is a mask we put on to make ourselves anonymous, to prevent others from knowing us. When faced with a camera, either consciously or unconsciously, we put on a face, a mask, that we think hides us. We smile big, or we glower threateningly, or we smirk, or purse our lips. We stand up straighter, or perhaps slump deeper into a hunch. Regardless of the image we are attempting to project, we are projecting an image, and it is this image the camera captures. James Van Der Zee, Distraction, 1930. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, 9 9/16 x 7 9/16 in. Milwaukee Art Museum Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, Photography by John R. Glembin And yet this mask often reveals as much as it conceals. In “The Hanson Brothers,” for instance, one sibling is slightly in front of the other, and both stare directly into the camera, serious expressions that show how seriously they take this business of sitting for a portrait. This seriousness, their gravitas, is affected, though. It is belied by the playful Hawaiian shirt and Captain Hook mustache of one brother, and by the ironic tilt of an eyebrow and the hint of a smirk at the corner of the other’s mouth. Some of the posturing we do in portraiture is unconscious. We become accustomed to having our likeness taken at young ages, inured to the process by the ritual of school pictures. We learn head up, chin down, eyes on the camera but face tilted slightly away from it. We learn sitting up straight and the acceptable ways to cross our arms and hands and […]
Aug 18th, 2008 by Ryan Findley
DJ Rock Dee
Photo by Erin Landry We just received the heartbreaking news that DJ Rock Dee — 88.9 Radio Milwaukee on-air host, all-around DJ-about-town, consummate family man and hugely loving force in the community — died on Friday. He was 40 years old. Rock Dee was one of the first true personalities I met when I moved to Milwaukee. We worked together at Guitar Center in Brookfield, where I was the door girl, the first and last line of shrink defense. It was a job I’d done in Detroit for two years at one of the biggest Guitar Centers in the region, a hub for the city’s estimable population of hip-hop producers and performers. In Milwaukee, the store was small and patronized mostly by sweaty teenage shredders. I didn’t know anyone, and Brookfield was a haul. It was lonely, disillusioning and nowhere near as fun with a college degree and rent to pay as it was when I was an amorous 20-year-old. But from the get-go, Rock Dee, a diminutive bundle of dynamite, was explosively welcoming, greeting me every shift with a huge smile, a booming greeting and often a big hug. He called me “the pretty pitbull,” going out of his way to tell our coworkers that it was impossible to get anything past me. As a coworker he was helpful, patient, and warm; he was always moving, talking, selling, shouting, connecting with people, just brimming over with energy and positivity and soul. There was a wisdom and a confidence in everything he did, and his love of life, his zeal for it, was evident in every gesture, every holler, every reassuring grin. He was truly, more than anyone I have ever encountered, larger than life. It was a great joy over a year later to hear his voice in the morning on Radio Milwaukee, full of that same positivity and kinetic energy, more exciting than a giant cup of coffee. In VITAL’s October 2007 Music Issue, we ran a profile of Rock Dee in an article called “Know Your DJ.” When we asked him about his worst night as a DJ ever, he said, “God bless – none yet.” It sums up, I think, the grace and the gratefulness and the positive energy he lived by. It’s always painful to let people go, especially before their time, but it is a comfort to know that he lived large, he lived well and he brought so much joy and happiness to the lives of his family and friends and the countless listeners who listened to his radio show and saw him perform. He will be hugely missed. VS A benefit for Rock Dee’s family will be held at the Wherehouse, 818 S. Water St., on Sunday, August 17, from 1 pm to close. De La Buena, The Rusty P’s, Cache, Fever Marlene and dozens of DJs will perform. More information available at the 88.9 Radio Milwaukee Soundboard. This Wednesday, August 6, a memorial for Rock Dee will be held at Bradford […]
Aug 5th, 2008 by Amy Elliott
Photographs by John Heymann
At a Moment’s Notice: Photographs by John Heymann Charles Allis Museum August 6 – September 21 Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 6, 5:30 – 8:30 pm John Heymann, “Lantern, Antelope Canyon, Arizona.” 1999. What a month for admirers of fine photography! The Milwaukee Art Museum unveils a major exhibition August 14 – Unmasked and Anonymous – with a run until November 30. Now through September 28, 100 prints by Stephen Shore will be at the Haggerty Museum of Art, and if that isn’t enough, John Heymann’s show of photographs opens August 6 at the Charles Allis Museum and runs until September 21 as part of their on-going Wisconsin Masters Series. I met with Heymann, who was in town to oversee the installation of his photographs, but the email information he forwarded gave me a generous preview: born in 1947 in our town, he graduated from UW-Madison in 1970 with a degree in comparative literature, intending to shape a career as a poet. A course in photography at UW-Milwaukee set him on a new path. It’s wasn’t long before he departed for Boston to begin an internship with a weekly politically-oriented newspaper. Basically, he learned his craft by hanging out with other photographers, looking at the work of established photographers, and (perhaps most importantly) by “taking photographs every day for years.” Teaching photography in the Boston Community Schools and at shelters for homeless teens heightened his interest in his chosen profession. He keeps that interest fresh by meeting for critiques with two groups of photographers. Decades have passed since his student days. Would the “poet” in him speak through the 50 photographs at the Charles Allis? I already knew that he admired the work of photographers Bresson, Weston, Lange, Winogrand and Friedlander, plus other photographers he knows personally. Heymann’s work has been published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Downbeat Magazine, and various other media venues. He’s certainly not just another chap roaming about with a camera. John Heymann, “Shadows on a Building, New York City.” 1986. John Heymann is as cool and crisp as his elegant photographs. He came in out of the heat of a blast furnace day and walked me through the Great Hall and floor two where his work is displayed. Friendly and open, he talked about his abstractions – none more lovely than the outstanding “Boatjacks,” a lush color slice of a Maine boatyard. It reminded me of a masterful painting by Klimt. He told me he often studies paintings and extracts from them what he wishes to express in his photographs. Indeed, several of his black and white minimalist depictions recalled paintings of Motherwell or Kline, but are distinctly Heymann. On floor two, an 8” x 12” black and white photograph of a skylight blew me away. On Sunday, you can hear him talk about his work (yes, it is poetic) during a gallery walk-around at 2 pm. It will begin in the Great Hall on the first floor, where his larger abstractions are […]
Aug 5th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Spotted at Warped Tour
On August 1, I find myself heading to the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. Ah, the Warped Tour, where good old fashioned rebelliousness meets capitalism at its worst: overpriced food, water, and t-shirts. I am chaperoning my 14 year old goth/emo/punk rock sister and her friends. “Just make sure they don’t get in trouble.” My Ma tells me. “You know how teenagers are.” Sure, Ma. I know. Kinda. If there is anything that makes me feel like an old, old 30 year old, it’s the Warped Tour. The median age here must be 16, and the only people older than me here must be Pennywise. I feel like someone trying to be a hip dad, or like a creepy middle aged man who’s really into Britney Spears. Wait, did I say “middle aged”?! What if I die at 60? I could be having a mid life crisis! Maybe now is the time to hang out with the youngsters and see what they’re up to . 1:24 PM My sister Marg and I arrive at the gates of the Marcus Amphitheater grounds. I immediately feel like a crotchety old man when I express my disgust for the incredible amount of flyers littering the ground. Most of them are from Turner Hall Ballroom and the Rave (with those annoying two drink minimum tickets stapled to the flyers); it looks like a semi-truck full of these flyers has exploded, blanketing the ground. The litter inside the gates is just as bad and gets worse as the day wears on. Warped Tour is all about swag, and most of it ends up on the ground. It may be the punk rock thing to make a mess, but shit, someone’s got to pick it up. I see a couple of interesting handmade t-shirts while waiting in line to buy a pair of $37 (!) tickets. Two girls wear shirts that say “I kiss emo boys” and one guy has a shirt that says “Sober Man: Protector of car keys, defender of lost memories.” 2:00 PM Marg meets up with her friends, who are on a half-crazed shopping high, toting bags stuffed with the latest thing. Marg wants to venture off with them, so I decide to go check out gothabilly band The Horrorpops at the Hurley.com stage. I end up at the Hurley stage instead of the Hurley.com stage, where The Devil Wears Prada is starting their set. The group should not be confused with the book/Meryl Streep movie of the same name. They also do not dig the dark lord as they are a Christian thrash act. They sound pretty silly to me, so I wander around another 15 minutes before I finally find the Hurley.com stage, inside the Amphitheater. I catch the last half of the Horrorpops set and it is really good. 2:30 PM I run into Marg and her friends and Marg points out two young women, dressed almost identically, each with dozens of rainbow-colored beaded […]
Aug 4th, 2008 by Tea Krulos
20×20
Photos by Dane Haman Jon Mueller, co-manager of Pecha Kucha in Milwaukee. pecha kucha (n) /puh-CHAH-kuh-chah/ Japanese origin. 1. the art of conversation; 2. noisy chatter; 3. coming August 26 to Milwaukee. Imagine if before facing the auditorium on your big presentation day, you could – without inhibition or shutting your office door – swig from that desk-drawer bourbon flask? Exchange auditorium for watering hole, bourbon swig for beer break and big presentation for a brief one, and what’s left is even better: Pecha Kucha Night (PKN), an idea devised by two Tokyo-based European architects in 2003 that gives the projector + presenter + audience equation a novel twist. Though liquid courage is encouraged, PKN is not about the booze; it’s an opportunity to meet, show ideas to the public, and network — with rules. In other words, “productive socializing,” says Jon Mueller, who teams up with 800-CEO-READ (8cr) colleague Kate Mytty to manage Milwaukee’s only official Pecha Kucha franchise. MEET A bulk bookseller 25 years in the business and division of local independent shop Harry W. Schwartz, 8cr “works directly with business authors to help them customize books, organize events, and write about the current and best ideas in business thought.” Clearly much more than merchant, they also print reviews and essays in their quarterly magazine and feature manifestos for change from diverse, yet optimistic, perspectives on their culturally conscious ChangeThis website. “8cr follows business thought and how it changes people’s lives, and Pecha Kucha follows people’s ideas in action,” says Mueller. “There is really a fine line between the two.” Logically, 8cr and PKN aligned, and Milwaukee is now among a worldwide network of 129 (and growing) participating cities. “The amount of work that’s involved would turn many people away from organizing it,” says Mueller, “but we think it’s an important thing to do and we have a lot of fun with it.” SHOW Trademarked and copyrighted by inventive founding architectural firm Klein Dytham, the Pecha Kucha format requires that all slideshows displayed are a standard “20×20” — 20 slides, programmed to automatically advance after 20 seconds on screen — a style that keeps both the speaker and the audience alert and captivated. Synchronizing flow to a fixed timetable is a challenge that is comfortably limiting. “The simplicity is what makes it really effective,” says Mueller. Do the math and that’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds a pop in PowerPoint heaven. But this brevity “can still become an eternity in the wrong hands,” explains Mueller. “Someone basically giving a six-minute commercial, using nothing but charts and graphs, or other typical business type mumblings, doesn’t do much good in any setting,” Brady Street’s stylish Hi Hat Garage included. “I immediately thought the Garage would be perfect,” says Mueller of the space where PKN #1 was held in June of this year. The space offers A/V equipment, a capacity for 160, and an ambiance that most hotel conference rooms lack. The bar’s owner, Scott Johnson, whom Mueller has known personally […]
Aug 1st, 2008 by Amber Herzog
I want to believe
A couple of weekends ago I painted my back landing. When I bought my house in early 2001 almost every wall was a flat white – supposedly to attract buyers – and I’ve been meaning to remedy this ever since. But time does have a way of slipping into the future and over the ensuing years my interior has devolved from boring to shabby through the hard wear only a young family can deliver. I was finally motivated to start with the hall by the relatively narrow scope of the project, seven years of little handprints that would no longer wash off and the unexpected acquisition of a cute storage cabinet rescued from my neighbors’ curb. In a fit of largesse, I also bought curtains, rugs and hanging shelves. Forty labor hours and a hundred bucks later I had the sweetest little entryway you can imagine – charming, really, in robin’s egg blue against dark wood, white and brushed stainless accessories showing off my vintage coffee pot collection to perfection. Most people enter my home through the back door, so it’s a great first impression. But now when you walk through to the kitchen, its flaws are immediately evident. Ugly, faded wallpaper peels from more than one corner, the cabinet bases are chipped, the ceiling fan is grotesque and the top of the fridge doubles as cereal box storage. The table and chairs are all wrong and there’s nowhere to put everything away. Frankly, the whole thing is a disaster and it’s making me crazy. Meanwhile, the kitchen continues to be the center of our home, piles of papers and crowded counters be damned. The peeling paper, dust in the corners and imperfect linoleum don’t seem to deter everyone from gathering there, leaving the typically tidy (and much more attractive) living room to gather dust. I’ve tried pointing out the kitchen’s flaws, but no one else seems concerned, suggesting that some well-chosen color would fix it right up. I’m less optimistic: it’s not as simple as throwing down a coat of paint when you have the organizational issues innate to an 83-year-old kitchen – a tiny, counter-less mess with (somehow) three doorways and two windows, plus ancient, energy-sucking appliances. To make any true functional improvements would cost at least a thousand bucks. And that wouldn’t even get me a dishwasher. I feel stuck. I recently opened a home equity line of credit to have my roof fixed, and there’s still plenty left to borrow on, but I’m worried about the payments. I’m not as over-extended as some people, but my apple cart could certainly tip over with a stroke or two of severely bad luck. In other words, I’m just like you, your neighbor and just about everyone else: I’m anxious about what’s still to come and have no idea how bad it’s really going to get. For now, at least, Milwaukee doesn’t have it as bad as many other cities. There’s little comfort there, I know, but at least […]
Aug 1st, 2008 by Jon Anne Willow
The Faint
Despite Omaha boys The Faint’s efforts to shock on 2004’s unsubtle Wet from Birth – an overzealous, not-so-scientific take on biology – it was the popularity of a subsequent internet game (allowing haters to drop-kick the dance-punk five piece — for points!) that landed them on the cultural radar. Though the boys have shown strong stomachs in past releases in regards to, say, bodily secretions (“Fish in Womb” satisfies the gross quota here), their fifth full-length’s opener “Get Seduced” draws a clear line of disgust at tabloid mania, where “hot lights” are cast on celebrity hook-ups and cellulite snapshots can turn a pretty penny. Steady single “The Geeks Were Right,” Chopsticks-esque “Mirror Error” and mechanical “A Battle Hymn for Children” concentrate on similar culture-obsessed ground. The first imagines a world dominated by pasty-legged eggheads; the second contemplates face trading (Travolta v. Cage, anyone?); the last satirizes American children’s sense of privilege and their unrestricted access to violent playthings. After beating a few dead horses, The Faint think cross-section and bring focus to relationships and memories. Transforming a tree stump and a 12-foot-plank into a one-way transport to an alternate universe, tightly coiled “Fulcrum and Lever” draws flashbacks to terrifying 80s claymation short Inside Out Boy. “Psycho” (“Forget the words I said/I was not myself/I never really thought you were psycho“) enlists a rock bass-and-drums backbeat to create one pleasurably guilty spree – so guilty, in fact, methinks The Faint doth protest, but still check perezhilton.com as regularly we do.
Aug 1st, 2008 by Amber Herzog
Heartbeat City
Photos by Erin Landry “If you were standing in this spot 150 years ago, you might have been run over by a train.” On a cul-de-sac on the Hank Aaron State Trail – fish leaping in the Menomonee River below, the breeze carrying the scent of summer wildflowers – this interpretive sign is hard to swallow. Before its industrialization, the Menomonee Valley was a natural wild rice marsh, an almost inconceivable place to build industry. “It’s like building on oatmeal,” says Corey Zetts, Project Director for the Menomonee Valley Partners. The land was so swampy that the first rail tracks Byron Kilbourn laid sunk into the marsh overnight. But engineering and ingenuity persevered, and Kilbourn’s Milwaukee & Waukesha Railroad spent years filling the valley with earth and timber to firm up the ground. By the Civil War, the Milwaukee Road had turned the city into an agricultural and industrial powerhouse. In 1895, the Falk Corporation was established in the Valley after Herman Falk’s failing family brewery, built in the Valley in 1856, burned down. Together, Falk, the Milwaukee Road and the dozens of other breweries, stockyards, mills, packing plants and factories in the Menomonee Valley would become Milwaukee’s heart center for almost a hundred years, supplying thousands of jobs to a growing metropolis and bringing citizens from all sides of the city together in labor. But by the time sprawl and technology began to suck the wind out of the Valley’s sails after WWII, what was once a thriving channel of wilderness and wildlife was left polluted, smelly and blighted. There are stories in the Valley that exist beyond the industry triumphant/industry defeated dialectic. Natural history, of course, goes so far back as to render human history irrelevant. In Miller Park’s lot is a wall of 400 million-year-old rock – a Silurian reef, actually, dating from before the time the city was above water. And a huge part of the Valley’s story is a narrative largely omitted from our national history: the site of Miller Park was a gathering place for native tribes, who would meet during the rice harvest. At the top of that hill, the limbs of a tree are bent to point the way to the marsh. The word “Menomonee” means wild rice; when Potawatomi Bingo Casino, in 1991, chose the Menomonee Valley as the site of their development, they were choosing to return to the ancestral homeland. “The history is incredible,” says Melissa Cook, manager of the Hank Aaron State Trail, which cuts through the Valley like a vein. Her mother’s family lived on 39th and Michigan in Merrill Park; her relatives worked for Falk and the Milwaukee Road. The neighborhoods surrounding the Valley were built by investors in the railroad shops; today, they are some of the most diverse and densely populated districts in the state. The Menomonee Valley – “borrowed” from its native residents and the natural order – provided the backbone for Milwaukee’s livelihood. Now, after more than 20 years of vision, planning […]
Aug 1st, 2008 by Amy Elliott
The Melvins
The Melvins have done it again, folks. If you’re already an admirer of this legendary experimental band, which has spawned many a Cobain in its two and a half decades, this is a masterful return to the rock. If you aren’t a fanatic, but enjoy any percentage of the underground metal, alternative, hard rock, noise, punk, hardcore, post-core, ambient or art-wave bands inspired by these eternal originators, this recording is the perfect initiation to the fraternity of Melvinites. Nude With Boots is easily up there with their incredible early ‘90s string of Bullhead, Houdini, and Stoner Witch. Since that holy trinity, the band’s creativity has spread past all previous horizons (read above), but here the emphasis is on nothing but riff and impact. Lead track “The Kicking Machine” is a Zep-boogie riff with a buzz-throated vocal melody (that’s right, melody) that’s downright catchy (that’s right, catchy). Dale Cover’s drums are monstrous throughout, per usual. But he especially shines here with some nice footwork that keeps the beat firmly at the boundary of the pocket. After this opening salvo, they steer us into the noise-scape they do so well for a few songs. But they get in and get out seamlessly, and once they light into the title track, things are back at a locomotive sound and pace, slamming it all home.
Aug 1st, 2008 by Troy Butero
