Various
New Blood: The New Rock and Roll Vol. 3 (Artrocker/Fusion III)
One of the best comps to come out in years. All of the cream of the underground rock scene make appearances—the Bellrays, Hot Snakes, Hellacopters, Pretty Girls Make Graves, the Detroit Cobras and tons more, including some new up-and-comers like Forcis and Terrashima. Compiled by folks from the U.K.’s Artrocker club and collective, this is some sweet shit. Every band here are masters of unabashed rock ’n’ roll, but just the Sweatmaster and the Paybacks tracks alone will have you bowing down and worshipping. With 25 songs that all kick mucho ass and not a dud in the bunch, if you want to see what’s happening in the rock ’n’ roll underground, or are just tired of treading water in the punk-rock retro scene, this is the tits! 9/10 (Johnson Cummins)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Greendale (Reprise/Warner)
Always good to see Young back in the saddle with Crazy Horse, even if guitarist Frank Sampedro sat out this deliberately stripped-down set. Maybe that’s why the Horse’s dank, rough-hewn riffage and hook-smithery seem a little subdued—nothing here punches like a “Powderfinger.” Greendale’s something of an accidental concept album, a “musical novel” set in the eponymous sleepy lil’ California hamlet. Over the course of 10 tunes, Young’s plaintive, nasal warble weaves a tale about family, protest, art, money, murder, media and the Devil himself—smalltown Americana that swats at the demons of days gone by while putting off the facing the future. 7.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Andrew WK
The Wolf (Island/Universal)
The beast is back, kicking off his second album with the same saccharine keyboard attacks, caveman choirs and aerobic rocking we grew to love last year. “Long Live the Party” picks up where I Get Wet left off, the rabid growling and overwhelming “classical” synths in place, but the disc loses some of its fire as the tempo slows and the hedonist anthems and muscular affirmations turn to ballads in the key of Meat Loaf. Luckily, the intensity doesn’t slack for long and knees-up lunacy like “Make Sex” (Adam Ant overdosing on steroids?) shows that you can’t keep this powerhouse down. 7/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

The Raveonettes
Chain Gang of Love (Columbia/Sony)
All songs in B-flat major, under three minutes long. It’s a fun challenge, and a less restrictive template than their fellow Danes’ Dogme ’95, but the experiment wields its weight, regardless. Singer/bassist Sune Rose Wagner and singer Sharin Foo mix the naïve melodies and vanilla lyrics of early rock ’n’ roll with the lo-fi fuzz, random screech and occasional profanity of early Jesus and Mary Chain, their droning duets touched by the wand of former Blondie/Go-Gos producer Richard Gottehrer. At 33 minutes, the album is mercifully short and sweet, with a handful of highlights popping out over the din. 7/10 (Lorraine Carpenter) With Stellastarr at Café Campus, Fri., Sept. 12, 7:30pm, $13

The Neptunes
Clones (StarTrak/BMG)
Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams have been running the music business with a clever little sham that disguises technically superior pop productions as simple yet unavoidably contagious lo-fi gems. Clones comes at a time when the Neptunes are almost consistently sitting pretty at the top of the charts, opting to produce tracks for just about everyone, and galvanizing their wide-reaching appeal for some time to come. Outstanding appearances from Jadakiss, Supercat, Dirt McGirt (aka ODB), Nas and the Clipse make up for lacklustre performances from Busta, Ludacris and Nelly, who seem to be returning favours on Platinum records. Look out for Rosco P. Coldchain too, who seems poised to make a move. 7.5/10 (Scott C)

Various
La Mish Mash (independent)
You may know the funky breaks side of local DJ Bliss from the Grill weekly he does with T’Cha at Blizzarts. Here’s another side of Bliss, the electro disco and keyboard kool he plies at the Chemistry nights. That the mix is smooth and invigourating is a given. Bliss gets further points, though, for programming a wild grab-bag of big beat, new disco, synth pop and snappy drum & bass. A party-starting pro, he understands that a DJ’s job is to balance the tunes you know, the ones you need to know (dig The Flying Kylies’ mash-up “Can’t Get Money Out of My Head”) and the ones you thought you knew (Bis covering Joy Division, JJ Perry & Air’s “Cosmic Bird”). Mish-mashin’ mission accomplished! 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) CD launch at Chemistry at Blizzarts, Sat., Sept. 13, 10pm

Various
Refuel Vol. 1 (Fossil Fuel)
The creative juices and multiple aliases of Eric Vani and Trevor Walker combine with like-minded musicians to unveil the first volume of Refuel, compiling various Canadian sounds that range from breaks to house to dub. From B.A.W.’s “Nubeings” to Legion of Green Men’s “Ambrosia Rising,” the ethereal reverberations collected here fall unusually short of making any solid soulful connections, choosing instead to hover magically in an inoffensive ambient limbo. With Refuel charting internationally, and harbouring contributions from Fred Everything and Miguel Graça, we can only hope that the following chapters in the refuel saga can refine the Canadian sound they’re eagerly trying to represent. 7/10 (Scott C) CD launch at Rent, with Rise Ashen, Miguel Graça and Mike Casali, at B-Bops, Tues., Sept. 16, 9pm

Akufen
“Hawaiian Wodka Party” 12” (Musique Risquée)
One look at the cover art and it’s obvious that Montreal’s Musique Risquée is not your average minimal techno label. Instead of angular geometry or blurry, abstract photography, Akufen’s “Hawaiian Wodka Party” single is sort of like looking into the demented mind of a Russian sailor who has been adrift in the arctic for months and has nothing left to drink but gasoline, shoe polish and some sort of expired nasal decongestant. The music is just as playful. Montreal click-house star Akufen provides four solid tracks of fun, upbeat, swingin’ tech-house that thumbs its nose at pretentious peers while keeping the dancefloor bouncing. 8/10 (Raf Katigbak) With Vincent Lemieux at Soirée Risquée 7 at O Patro Vys, Sat., Sept. 12, 10pm

Tomas Jirku
Bleak 1999 (No Type)
After two killer albums of dubbed out throbbing glitch techno on Substractif and Force Inc., Jirku returns to No Type and drops an unexpectedly darker ambient record where beats are secondary to atmosphere. While this doesn’t sound anything like his up-tempo Sequins album, Jirku maintains the moodiness that has always been his strong suit. That said, there are no real surprises on here. The music is purposefully underprocessed and the instrumentation is, well, bleak, often lacking in emotional depth. While it may be a good exercise in restraint for Jirku, for the listener, it doesn’t offer much more than decent background music. 6.5/10 (Raf Katigbak)

Laibach
WAT (Mute/Fusion III)
Hey, look who’s back! Everyone’s favourite Slovenian doom-disco pseudo-fascists! The war-feverish world’s caught up with Laibach’s gory end-time prognostications of the last two decades, and Laibach repay the favour by making their sound a touch more accessible. Provided you want access to grim, at times Wagnerian batcave thumpers and ruthless totalitarian chic, that is. Not much singing here—no Beatles covers, this time. The vocalist (nameless, as are all of Laibach’s drones) simply growls his apocalyptic sermons in a voice that could only result from gargling battery acid and the blood of unbaptized infants. Sample titles: “Now You Will Pay,” the friendly “Tanz Mit Laibach” and simply “Achtung!” Fuck, these guys are funny. 7/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Alexander O’Neal
Saga of a Married Man (Eagle)
Back in the ’80s, Alexander O’Neal was among the most successful of a stable of artists produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, that included Janet Jackson, the S.O.S. Band and sometimes O’Neal duet partner Cherrelle. Backed by Jam and Lewis’s lush instrumentation, O’Neal had a string of hits, including “All True Man,” “Fake” and “Innocent.” Though his deep baritone has lost none of its resonance, he’s just not able to recapture the musical drama that was so much a part of his best work on this one, even on the supposedly dramatic title track. Maybe it’s the production, or the writing, but this saga needs a serious overhaul before the next chapter unfolds. 6/10 (Gerard Dee)

Various
Martin Scorsese Presents the Best of the Blues (UTV/Universal)
These are selected songs taken from the five-CD box set that appeared along with the PBS documentary of the same name. Whittled down to only 21 songs here, this comp covers a lot of ground, touching on every era of the blues—Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker and so on. Fucking amazing even if they did include the incredibly tepid Robert Cray, but it would’ve been even cooler if they touched on the punk-blues sounds of Immortal Lee County Killers or The Soledad Brothers. If you’re are looking for an excuse to finally get cable, this series would be it. 8.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)

Tal Farlow
Complete 1956 Private Recordings (Definitive/Fusion III)
Any recording by this guitarist is worth owning but those with Eddie Costa on piano (and Vinnie Burke on bass) are priceless. The eight tracks heard on this two-disc set were recorded in the relaxed atmosphere of the 71st Street apartment of NYC jazz enthusiast Ed Fuerst. The influential guitarist relishes in the churning “Tristanoish” playing of Costa and the steady bass playing of Burke. The material, all in extended form, includes “Jordu” and “Opus de Funk” as well as Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays” and “All the Things You Are.” Gene Williams, who once sang with the Thornhill band, was also one of my favourite bartenders when Charlie’s Tavern was the spot on 52nd Street, and he drops by to sing “Out of Nowhere.” A must for guitar fanciers! 10/10 (Len Dobbin)

Mini CD Reviews

Nancy Harrow Winter Dreams (Artists House) Singers Harrow and Grady Tate heard on a dozen original songs inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 8.5 (LD)

Various A Tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Shout Sister Shout (Stony Plain) Once again, the tribute doesn’t hold a candle to the original versions, but nice stuff for the completists. 8 (JC)

Various Open Up and Say… @<%_|^[!] (Tigerbeat6) 24 more reasons why San Fran’s Tigerbeat6 is one of the most eclectic, interesting and fun labels out there right now. 8 (RK)

Nobody Pacific Drift (Ubiquity/Outside) L.A. crate-digger passes on the raw funk and grabs at ’60s sunshine psych-pop, going so far as to cover the Monkees and the Zombies. Hippie hop, anyone? 7 (RB)

Some Girls Feel It (Koch) Stripped-down indie pop with Juliana Hatfield and two lady friends, tight but casual tunes to bob your head by and a couple of numbers fit for cutting rugs. 7 (LC)

Maceo Parker Made by Maceo (What Are) Sorry Mace, but this funk ain’t fit for a dog. Respect and all praise due, but pass the peas, as they used to say. 5 (SC)

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