Sonic Cyanide

1. Lush, "Superblast!" (4AD/Reprise).
2. Nina Gordon, "Straight Outta Compton" (MP3, www.ninagordon.com).
3. Growing, "Primitive Associations/Great Mass Above" (Kranky).
4. System of a Down, "Cigaro" (Sony).
5. Caninus, "Human Rawhide" (War Torn).
6. Hatebeak, "God of Empty Nest" (Reptilian).
7. American Hi-Fi, "Hell Yeah!" (Maverick).
8. Khanate, "Pieces of Quiet" (Southern Lord).
9. Dalmatians, "Get Get Retarded" (Imputor).

When I'm not blowing your mind writing 1,800-word essays about the shitty new Helmet album, I spend most of my time at the Weekly compiling Seven Nights. It's basically clerical work, not unlike the 8 zillion temp jobs I had before this one. Main difference: I'm not compelled to drop a monitor on my head every three seconds here. Since I'm fortunate enough to finally have a job I actually like, I feel obligated to pay homage to the bad old days; hence, I soundtrack the Seven Nights assembly line with the sonic equivalent of suicide. The preceding track list is not all crapola, mind you, just an obnoxious double helix of the glorious and atrocious that gets my masochistic lost soul through the slow days.

1. As a born-again dreampop dork, I recently bought this band's Lovelife for $2.50. Oops. That was the one where they got perky in a sad effort to ride the receding Britpop wave. Then I caught the older, much better "Superblast!" video on VH1—all demure harmonies and haunting guitar wash—and dropped $6 on Spooky. Shocker—it happens to be the only truly exceptional track on the album. So I'm going to listen to the fucker until I get my $8.50 worth. I'm approaching spin 1,000.

2. The former Veruca Salt frontvixen, a little too obsessed with Jewel's "funny" phase, does a solo, arpeggioed, tongue-way-too-far-in-cheek version of the N.W.A. classic. Believe it or not, this crap slays compared to the many other painful '80s renditions on her site, including Skid Row's "18 and Life" and Phil Collins' "One More Night."

3. This Olympia duo bows at Earth's doom-drone altar. "Primitive" is the sound of the forest waking up for breakfast, force-feeding itself the entirety of nature, then barfing it out.

4. Advance leak from the Armenian nü-metal spazzes, who somehow have as much bogus "saviors of metal" cred as Tool. Alternating hooks: "My cock is much bigger than yours" and "My shit stinks much better than yours." It gets worse. Not Jay-Z/Linkin Park mash-up worse, but close.

5–6. The former is grindcore fronted by a pit bull; the latter is death metal fronted by a parrot. This would be a new nadir for organic matter if both tracks weren't better than 95 percent of what's on Headbangers Ball these days.

7. Remember the alt-novelty hotties who bit Heavy Metal Parking Lot for their "Flavor of the Weak" video? "Hell Yeah!" is more of the same, with a touch of, um, Maroon 5. As with Gordon (who, with AHF frontman Stacy Jones, was way cooler in Veruca), I don't know— or care—if they're kidding.

8. Scrape-your-face-off-core. More on these pain merchants when their new Hydra Head album drops this summer.

9. Local avant-tard art-punk. Most painful Casio-wauling possibly ever. They could open for Caninus on the "Arf You Fucking Kidding Me?" world tour. That said, at least they're entertainingly irritating, the perfect cyanide cherry on top for this bunch.

abonazelli@seattleweekly.com

Andrew Bonazelli is a staff writer at Seattle Weekly.