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Ray Condo and His Ricochets Door to Door Maniac (Joaquin Records) Ray Condo and his merry cowboys are back again with another heaping helping of honky tonk. Drawing solely from the repertoires of others, Condo tackles these forgotten masterpieces with panache and class, be they Billie Holiday's "Tell Me More" or Arthur Crudup's "Shout, Sister, Shout." The lead and steel guitarists prove to be Ray's aces in the hole, able to switch from Django Reinhardt's gypsy stylings to straight-ahead, reverb-drenched hillbilly rock. 8/10 (Johnson Cummins) at Le Swimming, Friday, May 15, 10pm, $5.
And so the number two son also rises. Sean gets by with a little help from his friends, i.e. the Beasties' label and his girlfriend, Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda. It's largely sweet, shy folk pop over laidback beats, with touches of stoner raunch, tweaky 'tronics and Braziliana. Nice enough, but nothing to write home to Yoko about (cooler than anything Julian ever did, though). 7/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) Bad Religion No Substance (Atlantic) With the exception of their horrid dabbling in Styx and Journey's territory on 1986's Into the Unknown, Bad Religion's cookie-cutter punk remains as predictable as ever. Vocalist Greg Gaffin's thesaurus can still be found tucked under his arm and guitarist Brian Baker, once of Minor Threat, continues to walk his leads safely on a leash. Eighty-six aside, they've never released a real stinker, but Bad Religion continue to regurgitate themselves with each album and are slowly losing inspiration in the process. 5/10 (Johnson Cummins) Various Magnetic Blue (Interchill)
With one foot in the U.K. and the other firmly planted in Montreal, the body of Interchill Records floats above the earth, extracting dreamy tunes from eclectronic musicians stationed within our atmosphere. Expanding from the all-Canadian ethic of their first release, this compilation features artists with a parallel vision of what it means to sit back and enjoy quality music. We are now one step closer to global chillage. 8.5/10 (Spunky Balboa)
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Sean Lennon Into the Sun (Grand Royal/EMI)