MODEY LEMON
Thunder and Lightning
(Birdman)
At this stage of the game, friends, garage punk is the Taco Bell of modern music, and the omnipresent two-piece du jour is yet another rearrangement of the beans and reconstituted mad cow material. But the drive-thru stays open late, and the full- color, window-clinging signage announcing the latest Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Wing Gordita Crunch Pocket can be alluringespecially when you’re hungry and halfway to hungover. But when you bite into Thunder and Lightning‘s first track, “Crows,” you know instantly that you’ve fallen for the same old fast-food trick. The blues-rock guitar riffs and spastic slop solos are so recycled and familiar that I bet singer/guitarist Phil Boyd’s Telecaster can probably play them while they’re both sleeping. The bottom end (all bass drum and manic mush; ain’t no bass guitar in this chalupa) recalls an early Who record on 45 instead of 33but, again, given the, uh, “wealth” of mini-bands that can say the same, that’s like saying the Mexi-Fries taste like Tater Tots. Like the latest on the Bell’s fresh sheets, Pittsburgh’s two-piece has a twistBoyd manages to also manipulate a Moog. On the track “Ants in My Hands,” the third instrument (along with a weird modulation of Boyd’s already coarse vocals) almost obliterates the rest of the track, which really is a pity considering it’s got the disc’s least-boring beat. Fans of Immortal Lee County Killers and the Coachwhips might like this stuff. The rest of you should run for the border. LAURA CASSIDY
Modey Lemon play Sunset Tavern with Vells and New Fangs at 9 p.m. Sat., Jan. 10. $7.
RONALD ISLEY/BURT BACHARACH
Here I Am: Isley Meets Bacharach
(Dreamworks)
However corny his made-for-video “Mr. Biggs” alter ego, Ron Isley has remained a hero into the new century. It was a momentary shock to hear him crooning about how “shit’s ’bout to change now” on the Wu’s “Back in the Game,” but then the memory of his call on “bullshit going down” (on “Fight the Power”in 1975!) kicked in. Earlier this year, an Isley Brothers (Ron and younger sibling Ernie) disc largely helmed by R. Kelly went to No. 1, surprising only the likes of those who similarly slept on the box-office power of the Kings of Comedy a half-decade ago. This summit with classic pop writer/arranger Bacharach provides Isley’s biggest surprise yet. Here I Am is no Natalie Cole-style last-resort “tribute,” and Isley, 63, and Bacharach, 75, are working musicians who couldn’t give a damn about lounge irony, either. Instead, both men meet over 11 timeless songs from the Bacharach/Hal David ’60s catalog, plus a couple of new ringers co-written by Bacharach and Tonio K. Isley’s wounded “Make It Easy on Yourself” draws tears, while the little-known “In Between the Heartaches” makes clear how even a lot of pain can pass under the bridge without doing final damage. And the pair’s slowed-down “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” treats the lyric as a secret torch masterwork. RICKEY WRIGHT
VARIOUS ARTISTS
600% Dynamite!
(Soul Jazz, U.K.)
Has any form of pop music been compiled more frequently than reggae? There’s a logic to that, of courseJamaica has the highest per capita output of pop music on the planet, most of it (still) on 7-inch singles, which is why from the six issues of Trojan’s late-’60s/early-’70s Tighten Up to Greensleeves’ current Ragga Ragga Ragga! series (whose 2003 edition was one of my top 10 albums of the year), the V/A section of Tower’s reggae section typically has more going on than its filed-by-name counterpart. But if you want to sample the spectrum, from ska to roots, dub to dancehall, rocksteady to ragga, the logical next step after Mango’s still definitive Tougher Than Tough box set is London label Soul Jazz’s Dynamite! series, now in its sixth volume, which shrewdly treats Jamaican music as a continuum whose interconnections are plain to hear when the parts are laid end to end. 600% Dynamite! is the lowest-key volume of the series since the first; it’s heavier on mellow vocal cuts and midtempo ballads than usual. But it’s still highly playable, its smart achronological sequencing effortlessly jumping from the present (Alozade and Hollow Point’s cover of Barrington Levy’s “Under Mi Sensi,” the original of which is on 400%) to mid-’80s dancehall (Tenor Saw’s “Golden Hen”) to early-’70s roots classics (Dennis Brown’s “Westbound Train,” Yabby You’s “Conquering Lion”). All of it fits without feeling forced. MICHAELANGELO MATOS
