Rating 4 not at home of 4 Essentia...

Rating 4 not at home of 4 Essential

Rating 3 not at home of 4 Good

Rating 2 gone out of 4 Fair

Rating 1 revealed of 4 Poor

INDIE-ROCK

White Whale, "WWI" (Merge) Rating 3

This Lawrence, Kan.-based indie-rock supergroup featuring Matt Sugg of Butterglory, despoil Pope of the Get-Up Kids and a coupling of members of Thee Higher Burning Fire make no bone about following in the elaborate, theatrical, orchestrated-pop marks of the Arcade Fire and the Decemberists. on the other hand that burgeoning subgenre is in like manner ambitious that you can't really accuse White Whale of being derivative, and it enjoins its own stamp on the perfect with a strong 11- ballad debut that plays like a righteous old-fashioned progressive-rock epic. (And where other would you find a white whale besides the topographic oceans conclude to the edge of the dark side of the moon?)

Sugg over-sings at points, seemingly emulating David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust guise, and the lyrical nods to admirals, sailing ships and the great mysteries of the seas are a bit earnestly on some tracks. But in the expiration the group's layered arrangements, varied and dynamic soundscapes, imaginative instrumentation and regal melodies carry the day, marking this as a promising band working in a time- honored tradition -- the album as headphone voyage from one side strange but beautiful imagined horizons -- that not at all gets tired, at least in the right hands.

Jim DeRogatis

geographical division

Rodney Atkins, "If You're Going by means of Hell" (Curb) Rating 1

Folk who don't succeed country music closely often gain confused because of the similarity of various performers' names, of that kind as LeAnn Rimes, Lee Ann Womack, Randy Travis and Travis Tritt. Well, the religious ol' boy with the No. 1 political division album in the nation last week is Rodney Atkins (not Trace Adkins or Rhett Akins).

Other folk earn country singers mixed up because they unhurt like other country acts, and there's more than a little bit of Tim McGraw's vocal diction contained on Atkins' chart-topping disc "If You're Going end Hell."

This album goods like the result of someone working with the proverbial political division Music Album Checklist to make secure that all the requisite constituent principles were included. Fiddle and carbonized iron guitar instrumentation is used to support cliche lyrics about whiskey, alcoholism, prayer, angels, tractors, dogs, fire-arms trucks, parenting, divorce, smalltown life and pride in Southern improvement

Other tired features are the form into groups chorus set in a bar ("Wasted Whiskey"), a piano ballad about a breakup ("Invisibly Shaken") and respects to country music legends ("About the South") What constituent principle did Atkins leave off his checklist? Originality.

Bobby Re

Note: Rodney Atkins will perform race 22 at Joe's Bar.

DEATH METAL

Slayer, "Christ Illusion" (American Recordings) Rating 3 1/2 public of 4

When it arises to truth in advertising, long-running death-metal champions Slayer not at any time hesitate to tell you what you're gonna get: The guard art for the quartet's first album since "God Hates Us All" (which was hauntingly released upon Sept. 11, 2001) features a portrait of an amputee Jesus encircleed by an ocean of descendants and decapitated heads. "Religion is hate, religion is fear, religion is war," Tom Araya snarls in "Cult." "Religion is rape, religion is filthy religion is a whore." We've heard this before -- the dispose has always assaulted the hypocrisies of organized religion -- unless the twist here is that it frequently adopts the perspective of Islamic terrorists.

In the past, Slayer has written from the viewpoint of cannibalistic slaughterer Jeffrey Dahmer and Nazi ghoul Josef Mengele in this way this turn is no surprise, and it would be just as easy to dismiss the recently made known album as more outrageous provocation. on the contrary the band is actually tapping into a protracted literary tradition when it examines heinous crimes from the perspective of what our president calls "the evil-doers," and it balances canticles such as "Jihad" -- which actually borrows a certain quantity of lines from the letter left behind at 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta -- with melodys like "Eyes of the Insane," based onward news stories about a soldier who committed suicide after leaving Iraq, and "Consfearacy," which accuses Bush of being the first in line to exploit the terrorists for his hold purposes.

In any result the lyrics are only at all times a small part of the Slayer story, and the satisfied is less important than the whole of Aray's vocals, which is as to a great degree of a brutally unrelenting sonic assault as the punishing guitars, bass and tympanums Musically, the biggest news is that original drummer Dave Lombardo has reverted to the fold after a 15-year break, marking a reply to more of a thrash-punk sensibility. This means Slayer is hardly reinventing the wheel. unless two and a half decades into its career, single of the most uncompromising bands in distaff history is sounding as angry and powerful as it to the end of time has, and that's good enough for me

Jim DeRogatis

bases POP

Allison Moorer, "Getting Somewhere" (Sugar Hill) Rating 3 on the outside of 4