NTERTAINME aeditor@gmail.com won’t come out until March 6. Before I continue, I would also like to admit that this is the first review I am doing for the Other Press that isn’t motivated by as strong personal urge to advertise great music that I think isn’t getting enough publicity. The album gets off to a running start with the charac- teristic Placebo rocker, “Meds,” which features back-up vocals by Alison Mosshart of the Kills. The second track, “Infra-red” slows things down to jogging speed, and then track number three, “Drag” kicks things into high-gear. Unfortunately, like a sprinter in a marathon race, the album begins a long process of sputtering out. The songs take a detour from the post-alternative guitar-rock that Placebo excels at, into the land of keyboards, restrained tempos, and creative engineering. The results are mixed, but the band has made great strides ahead of the consis- tently awkward attempts at sounding more like Radiohead that rear their ugly heads on their previous album, 2003’s Sleeping With Ghosts. The latter half of the album should have been cut and the other songs should have been released as an EP. Sadly, the latter half of the album con- tains both of the singles, two tired, uninspired sounding cially if, and I’ve got a strong feeling about this, the videos consist of Placebo playing their instruments under flashing lights for the length of the songs. Perhaps the worst part of Meds is—and this depresses me a lot—is a song called “Broken Promise,” featuring none other than the incomparable Micheal Stipe. The song starts off with a dismal piano line, complemented by Stipe’s hushed voice, and just as the tension is starting to build, a generic Placebo rocker is pasted over the whole thing. For the rest of the song, Stipe’s singing is drowned out by Brian Molko’s inferior vocal stylings. God only knows why Stipe agreed to do the song. Maybe it’s because David Bowie did a song with them...but damn, that only raises more questions. I’m going to stop thinking about this before my head explodes. All in all, Meds isn’t a terrible album; in fact, there are specs of real brilliance. The only problem is that that bril- liance is so splattered and mediated by long tracts of medi- ocrity. Also, Molko’s whiny voice is sometimes effective and sometimes tiring, much like Placebo’s lyrics, which sometimes have real artistic merit and are sometimes downright trite. become a really great band. Pink Mountaintops: Axis Of Evol Chelsea Mushaluk, OP Contributor y ¢ ONK & & MOUNTAINTORS ‘es oF , ee # » pa ox @ LA S fy Stephen McBean is a busy, busy man. Besides being the former frontman for Jerk With a Bomb, he fronts Black Mountain (which is the full JWAB band), and is also singer/guitarist/frontman for Pink Mountaintops, which is his solo material with some or all of the members of JWAB/Black Mountain backing him up. Got that? Me nei- ther. Fortunately, both Black Mountain and Jerk With A Bomb rocked. As did Pink Mountaintops’ first album. So to continue the tradition of rocking, McBean is about to release another Pink Mountaintops record. Pink Mountaintops’ 2004 self-titled record was about sex, there’s no two ways around that. It wasn’t about the Barry White, deep voice, “ooh baby,” romance on a bearskin rug-type sex either. It was all about the fast, dirty, sex-drugs-rock-and-roll-type sex. Somehow, they made it sound so pretty. Their second effort, Axis of Evol, is less about the sex and more about the rock. On the whole, it’s pretty similar to Black Mountain. This is to be expected, I suppose, and it’s not a bad thing. In fact, there’s more musical experimentation with Axis of Evol/ than with Black Mountain or Jerk With a Bomb, and it turned out pretty well. The album opener, “Comas,” is all Lou Reed. It’s mini- mal and haunting and, admittedly, kind of a slow opener. However, this is redeemed by the time we get to song two. “Cold Criminals” is pure Loaded-era Velvet Underground with a touch of early Rolling Stones for good measure. And it’s awesome. “Slaves” sounds like it was cut from the Black Mountain album, and at 8:48, it’s far too long. A minor misstep, but if it didn’t have a hint of psych-rock it wouldn’t be Pink Mountaintops. I won’t talk about all the songs, though I could, because they’re all worth talking about, and there are only seven of them. But the rest of the album really is worth discovering. “Lord, Let Us Shine” is one such song, It’s the only song on the album that is far removed from McBean’s other work. I had to listen to it twice to decide what I thought about it. With its drum loop, it sounds like a Beck-esque Jesus And Mary Chain. Yes, it’s true. Cross Ode/ay with Psycho Candy, and you have “Lord, Let Us Shine.” It’s catchy and fun, and it seems that Pink Mountaintops are moving away from straight-up rock and roll. It works, athough hearing McBean use “la la la” in a song over an electronic drumbeat takes some getting used to. Axis of Evol is definitely classic Pink Mountaintops (and Black Mountain, and...you get the idea), and Stephen McBean, despite his side projects and solo projects, man- ages to release consistently good records. One last note: look at the cover of Axis of Evol. Now look at the cover of Stephen Malkmus’ Face the Truth. Repeat. Yes, they’re remarkably similar (in a good way, of course. They're both cute). Axis of Evol is a solid follow-up to Pink Mountaintops, well worth checking out. And also check out Pink Mountaintops live, on February 8 at the Red Room, with Dead Meadow and Blood Meridian.