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Of Montreal The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy (Kindercore/Elephant 6) Oh dear. Our grand city's name has been appropriated by one Kevin Barnes (who once had his heart broken here), for yet another of those Athens, Ga.-based, Elephant 6-collective, pre-war, trumpet-totin', kazoo-playin' exercises in pure naïveté ("Happy Yellow Bumblebee"!). This has gotta be one of indie rock's final cul-de-sacs. At the very least, Barnes doesn't bury his desire to be childlike in cynicism and distortion. 5/10 (Chris Yurkiw) At Le Cirque with Ladybug Transistor and Pest 5000, Saturday, Oct. 17 Little Rabbits Yeah! (Barclay/PolyGram) It's like this: a quintet of Serge Gainsbourg's illegitimate love children ditch Gay Puh-ree for a joyride down Route 66. James Dean! Coca Cola! Mythic America through a grainy Instamatic! Swanky Euro gogo-pop meets sweaty Yank distorto-delica for a grinding transatlantic groove and bilingual snickers. Conceived in France, made in the USA Uncle Serge pulled this kind of shit all the time. He woulda loved these funny bunnies. 8.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) Neotropic Mr. Brubaker's Strawberry Alarm Clock (N-tone/Outside) Neotropic frontwoman Riz Maslin's latest disc starts off sounding like the original Strawberry Alarm Clock, all spaced-out distortion and sampledelica à la LSD-25. But then it gradually moves towards the dark experimental breakbeat sound that came through on his first disc. Weird, abstract, but frankly none too original. 6.5/10 (Krista) Cypress Hill IV (Ruffhouse/Columbia)
"Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb," whines the all-too-familiar nasal flow of B-Real, now a seasoned veteran after four albums and many hits in the hip hop game. The Hill is back, Sen Dog and all, smokin' that special type of homegrown that has become their trademark sound. Muggs is in fine form, but goes a little overboard with some up tempo tracks. No real surprises here, except for roster addition Baron Ricks, who drops more than one memorable verse. If you own all the Cypress albums, chalk up another and push up your lighter. 7/10 (Scott C)
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