CD reviews

Goblin Cock
Come with Me if You Want to Live!
(Robcore)
•6.5•
Goes well with: Tool, arguments about Sabbath

When metal experienced a mainstream revival in 2005, Goblin Cock’s debut, Bagged and Boarded, was there to skewer all things dark, scabrous and secretly geeky. Tossing the unmistakable melodies and muted guitars of confessed nerd and genre fan Rob Crow into an abyss of low-end fuzz, Bagged succeeded because of its juxtapositions, not despite them.

The follow-up doesn’t match the novelty of its predecessor, even if it has its moments. Crow fans will be pleased with the Elvin lyric sheet, and the mid-album duo of “Ode to Billy Jack” and “Beneath the Valley of the Island of Misfit Toys” sounds brutal enough to have longhairs everywhere throwing devil horns. It’s just unfortunate that the premise has worn thin.

Considering the number of metal bands treading the thin line between parody and tribute (The Sword, 3 Inches of Blood), it takes either complete devotion to the lifestyle (High on Fire) or an incredible display of technical prowess (Mastodon) to merit more than a few spins and a shrug. Come with Me feels inert, especially coming from an artist who’s rarely lacking in original ideas. Where the debut felt like a clever change of pace, this follow-up too often just sounds like Pinback with distortion and minor-key riffing. There may be nothing inherently wrong with that, but there’s not much to get worked up about, either.
—Todd Kroviak

Q-Tip
The Renaissance
(Universal Motown)
*7.5*
Goes well with: The party depicted on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s I Want You

For me, hip-hop officially died in 1999, although its body has never been found. Tupac and Biggie were already dead, Will Smith had a No. 1 hit with “Wild, Wild West” and Q-Tip, the once-esteemed leader of the seminal A Tribe Called Quest, released Amplified, his debut solo album. It was a monumental disappointment in every way. Not only did it feature the nasally rapper in a fur coat on the cover and an ill-advised pairing with Korn, but barring its only bright spot, “Vivrant Thing,” Amplified lacked any and all of the lyrical and production prowess that made Tribe so great.

It’s a decade later and Q-Tip is giving it a second try.

The Renaissance isn’t going to bring hip-hop back to life, but it certainly gives the genre a good shot of mouth-to-mouth. The lyrics and production values are back in the neighborhood of Tribe status, and it’s a full upgrade in guest spots, swapping Korn and Busta Rhymes for Raphael Saadiq and D’Angelo. The songs range from hip-hop to pop to soul and back, and despite a few forgettable tracks, songs six through nine are as good a stretch as any he’s ever done. If Q-Tip can build on this effort for next time, he just might save hip-hop yet.
—Scott McDonald

Six Organs of Admittance
RTZ
(Drag City)
*7.5*
Goes well with: Super-8 cameras, architectural salvage, Animal Collective

After 10 albums, artists begin to fall into a groove. At that point, they’ve thoroughly experimented and reinvented themselves several times, or they’ve found something that works and continue to make albums investigating their own small piece of the musical landscape.

Six Organs of Admittance is the rare band that embraces progression without necessarily reinventing their sound, exemplified by the traditional song structures that blossomed on their tenth album, 2007’s Shelter from the Ash. But Ben Chasny and Co. aren’t hesitant to embrace their difficult past, and this compilation of rare tracks spanning from 1999 to 2003 shows how the band has evolved from its stoic, bleak sketches toward the more accessible leanings of its recent work. The tracks here are mostly vacant, interspersed with rising acoustic guitars and ensemble chanting, marked by long periods of psychedelic meandering. These five lengthy excursions bear resemblance to fellow depth-plumbers Silver Mt. Zion, whose experimentation has also made for interesting listening.
Possibly due to its piecemeal construction, RTZ doesn’t captivate like similarly inclined acts Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Devendra Banhart (who tapped SOA for his new-folk compilation Golden Apples of the Sun). Six Organs are talented artists, and this is beautiful music, but RTZ is more a soundtrack for an experience than the experience itself.
—David Tow