CD Reviews

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kill Bill Vol. 1: Original Soundtrack
(A Band Apart/Maverick/WMG Soundtracks)

Some film critics saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 as a self- indulgent exercise in genre-film rehash. But Quentin Tarantino's ode to Nixon-age action cinema's first forays outside white-boy America glides like a martial arts version of the Avalanches' Since I Left You, and the soundtrack is just as exhaustive a collage of its muses. Everything from dramatic chase-scene funk (Isaac Hayes' "Run Faye Run") to the suspense-thriller stabs of '60s psychological horror (Bernard Herrmann's "Twisted Nerve") to the lonely Morricone-isms of spaghetti Westerns (Luis Bacalov's "The Grand Duel") is thrown in to satisfyingly cohesive effect. Toyomasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity," originally featured in Junji Sakamoto's 2000 film Shin Jingi Naki Tatakai and appropriated as the music for the Kill Bill trailers, answers the disturbing musical question, "What if Ronnie James Dio wrote a blaxploitation instrumental and it ruled?" But this wouldn't be a Tarantino soundtrack if pop didn't pervade. Charlie Feathers' Memphis stomper "That Certain Female" and the Cramped "Woo Hoo" from the all-female Japanese rock band the 5.6.7.8.'s prove that rockabilly is a universal language, while Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" echoes with more tragic beauty than you'd expect from either Nancy or the song's composer, Sonny Bono. Collectors' note: Start raiding the $2 12-inch bin at your local used LP store now, since Tarantino's inclusion of Santa Esmeralda's Euro-Latin version of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is set to make semiforgotten disco singles as retro-fetish fashionable as rare funk 45s used to beand if not disco, then maybe Zamfir LPs. NATE PATRIN

"Artistic maturity" is an important peculiarity for new artists to learn how to fake, and on their 2002 debut, Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz, a rare introductory album that was thoughtful lyrically and reassuringly well- defined sonically, Kentucky's Nappy Roots were already shockingly good at it. Instant lyrical erudition makes sophomore ante-upping tricky business, though, and aside from a few overt political touches (and prerequisite second album complaints of newfound fame), Wooden Leather mostly covers the same "mature" topics as before. Innovation, then, is reserved for the production, abandoning the folky consistency of their first record for a scattershot blast of faux bhangra, margariney nu-soul, galloping crunk anthems, one-man genre Kayne West (showing surprising range on "These Walls"), and reprehensibly wack (and mercifully brief) heavy metal. Sometimes Wooden Leather begins to feel like a jumpy compilation of the sextet's always unique verses stuck on other producers' songs, but when the hit-and-miss approach hits, it hits hard. The awesome tweaked sonics of hillbilly-android sex jam "Twang" rides on one of the year's most gripping beats, and the flawless "Nappy Roots Day" has a hooky melancholy perfect for their pop-fame philosophizing. Unfortunately, this forced eclecticism also brings well-intentioned missteps like the typically huge Lil' Jon track "Whatcha Gonna Do," where these earthy MCs just seem uncomfortable. But the group still sounds best when returning toand considerably improving uponthe style of its first LP. On "Roun' the Globe" and the beautifully weary "Sick & Tired," and with the glorious return of singer Anthony Hamilton (of "Po' Folks" chorus fame) for "Push On," they earn their comfortable maturity. ETHAN PADGETT

Is Bubba Sparxxx the most humble MC in hip-hop history? It's tempting to write this development off as shtick. But on Deliverance, Sparxxx ditches the low-rent playa raps of his 2001 debut, Dark Days, Bright Nights, for aw-shucks country-bumpkin charm and homespun wisdom, like A Hip-Hop Prairie Home Companion. Keenly aware of his own flaws, Bubba never uses them to set up a dis or boast. Maybe the perils of one-hit wonderdom (Dark Days' "Ugly" seemed like a blip) snapped him back to reality. Or maybe he's just growing up. Unlike Eminem, that doesn't mean producing his own songs; this is good, because it means no "Sing for the Moment." This is bad, because it means that Bubba is often upstaged by producer and paterfamilias Timbaland. Except that's good for us, because at least a third of this record is the most astounding hip-hop you'll hear this year that will still play for the Source crowd. Timbaland's beats whittle a kind of vaudeville bounce, halfway between the Apollo and the Grand Ole Opry. "Jimmy Mathis" rolls out Daft Punk harmonica over trash-can beats; "Comin' Round" sounds like an Alan Lomax field recording spruced up with sibilant synth brass. It all comes together on the title track: processed guitar strum like Shek'spere Briggs with dirt under his nails, skyscraping strings, door-knocker beat, and little peals of electric blues guitar that rise up just as the song is fading out. It's one of the best singles of the year, a better comeback song than Bubba had any right to expect, and if he disappears now, then no one's learned nothin' nohow. JESS HARVELL

The boys got their album titles backward. The first time around, the Strokes sure as shit set the Room on Fire; the silver-spoonin' N.Y.C. "art" "punk" quintet put their collective Parliament out on America's nipple, drafting agreeable Velvet Underground/Wire facsimiles for an audience in dire need of rock heroes who didn't count Faith No More as a primary influence. Today, we're trumpeting the Strokes' sophomore effort as among the year's most anticipated and important albums, knowing full well they won't resurface as aliens (Radiohead), smash out of their strictly delineated box before we lock the lid (Eminem), or advance their art by retreating to the barest essentials (White Stripes). Is This It is right. Nikolai Fraiture's bass is still an irregular pitter-pat pushing Nick Valensi's and Albert Hammond Jr.'s dueling-blade guitar figures into fine, live-wire pop ("Reptilia," "Automatic Stop") that's unremarkable mainly because the formula is so familiar via It's "The Modern Age" and "Someday." The band excels at devising the most basic, repetitive, lockstep riffs for Julian Casablancas to prettily bray over, but aside from the crafty solos that dominate "You Talk Way Too Much" and "The End Has No End," Room generally doesn't, well, rock. Occasionally they'll surprise with a deft waltz like "Under Control," and despite the derision about their posturing and upbringings Buddyhead.com had the best: "four-car garage band"the Strokes are in no danger of devolving from "group" to "lifestyle." Yet, little of this is of any magnitude. Faith No More, ironically, said it best: "What is it? It's it." ANDREW BONAZELLI