Adele's 21 works best for Crying 16-year-olds.

 When non-music enthusiasts hear the name Adele they usually exclaim, “Oh I love her!” Then you ask them what their favorite song was by her and they all say 'Chasing Pavements'. Granted, this song is very good, and very catchy. Considering that was the song that brought her into the collective of America's mind, most people should know her for this song. But will Adele Adkins from little ol' North London be able to move on from this hit and not be a one hit wonder?

Well in her new album, “21”, Adele already has hits like her song, 'Rolling in the Deep' climbing up the Billboard charts. There are good and bad points to this album though and it's about half and half so we'll start with the bad.

Bad:

Like in her last album, Adele has some songs that keep a simple background mix with boring riffs and beats. It's almost like you could erase the background music from the song all together and you wouldn't tell much of a difference. In some of the songs, all you can pay attention to is the background and you can't even really listen to the lyrics. This really washes the lyrics away and makes them forgettable to say the least. In a couple songs, it's like Adele heard from her producer that she has to hold back her voice, and almost chain it up. Compared to the last album, she used to be all over the place with her vocals. Up, down and all around the scale she went without holding notes very long, sort of like Christina Aguilera. This album doesn't have that though, which comes with a mature feeling that the album has. But holding back her vocals was not a good move and when she actually lets them go, that's when the album soars.

Good:

This album does have a more mature feeling to it. She definitely gives it an older, more distinguished feeling that has just the right hint of jazziness to it. At times her voice is reminiscent of Aretha Franklin and blows you away as it floats through the notes. When you get caught up in one of the songs, it won't let you go, and you won't be able to just stop listening. She really tries to spice up the background music. While sometimes it doesn't work out right, she is doing what she needs to to grow as an artist, and it's good to see she's going somewhere. She also uses different background instruments that make it more creative, even giving one song a sort of country twang. Most of all, when Adele sits at the piano and sings out, s*** starts going down in a good way. That is probably the best part about this album.

Footnotes

This is a sad album. Adele just got her heart broken and you can really tell it here. The mature feel really mixes with the heartbreak well so if you're looking for some songs to cry your eyes out to, then look no further.

If you liked the last album, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to like this one. Adele changes a lot in this album and it's a totally different animal than the last one.

Finally, the best songs on this album are: 'I'll Be Waiting', 'One and Only', 'Rolling in the Deep', and 'Take it all'. I rate it overall a 6 out of 10, but it has a couple of 10's on it though. Don't buy the whole album, but definitely pick up some of the songs on it.

Album Review: Jupiter One - Sunshower

Indie rock is a curious thing when so many of its perpetrators practice a genre that doesn't sound like actual rock--a movement that all too often thinks that awesome, horns-throwing music should be restrained, perhaps made more subtle, because to do otherwise would destroy any image of being cool, which might as well be all that matters to the band. Let's be frank, we've seen a scores of "serious" indie rockers ever since the recording studio was democratized: young musicians in skinny jeans trying to look nonchalant while pretending to go wild. That kind of half-hearted disinterest only succeeds when the music itself is credible.

Jupiter One is not ready to (or simply not good at) pulling off this delicate balancing act with Sunshower, released in the third quarter of 2009. The band's photo in the liner notes gives off that "Oh yeah, we're all just chilling with our instruments; you wanna take a photo? Nah, we don't mind..." vibe, as does, unfortunately, their music. The record starts out well enough, striking up cosmic riffs and revving up the intro with the falsetto "ahhhs" that made the Flaming Lips famous. Turning down the spacey knob a notch, the band does its best VHS Or Beta impression for the verse before switching into the symphony-sprinkled chorus lite, full-flavored without overexerting itself. The average listener would expect roughly the same kind of rock for the other 10 songs. Oh, how you are led to believe this notion! After this flashy starter, the band throws you into "Lights Go Out," a credible body mover that dances through its rhythms, alternating between post-punk's fastest riffs and the most bombastic chords Interpol could think of. K Ishibashi meanwhile croons like he's auditioning for a spot in Bloc Party, and all feels right. So, hey, that style is nailed down. Why not switch up things next song?

And so, "Flaming Arrow" presents an almost whimsical folk rock ballad about arson, and this is where the album missteps for the first time. Everything from this point loses the luster exerted so amiably . "Made in a Day" is "Lights Go Out" lite, adding organ hums and violin whines to what should be indie rock with dance pop sensibilities; instead, we get something cutesy and not so much sung as pled. Deciding to confuse us, next we get "Anna," which jumps in with power pop chords that Boston once rejected. As the first verse bridges into the chorus, the band brings in an industrial-sized vat of kitsch and slathers on the early 80s glam rock, complete with organ swirl and Beach Boys-style cries backing up the punchy rhythm.

And then the band just gives up. We're treated to dance duds nothing like the first half, like "Simple Stones," which is too laid back to sound interested and sounds like elevator muzak for 20-something kids from New York. "High Plains Drifter Finds the Oracle at Delphi" plods along at a maddening pace but tries to make up for it by just slathering on cheese on the melody, alternately tickling the listener with sitar, strings, glockenspiel, woodwinds, and a smooth pop, licked by some strange abomination that sounds like Barry White without soul. The rest of the album wouldn't be worth mentioning if not for "Come On," which carries a faux new wave sound in the name of The Killers without giving up its soft harmonic riffs and roaring chorus blasts, supplemented with "you can't be seriously that dramatic" strings.

The resulting collection of songs sounds about as fractured as a cyclist trying to pedal frantically at 50 miles an hour through a sea of bricks. Sure, you get some solid indie rock that takes cues from respectable new wave and nearly-dance pop; at the same time you get some schmaltzy power pop that Julian Casablancas thankfully chose not to throw into his classic rock-tinged solo album released not too long ago--and I haven't yet mentioned the bizarre folk rock ditties. Why are they there? Why? Why?

There's no good answer. It all sounds like a bad impression of an indie rock band too much in love with itself and whatever it can do. Yes, Jupiter One apparently feels justified in joining together whatever music it comes up with, even if the song choices match up like they were all thrown together at random. The band's got some knack for pop--the first few songs bear that out--but when not in top shape the music is lazy. Seriously, the last half of the record sounds like breakfast for hipsters--its too full of itself to care about the music.

Why? It's just that good.

No. It isn't.

Album Review: The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

I'm surprised Warner Bros. let this album see the light of day--who listened to this and decided that, despite its complete and utter disregard for Top 40 polish, Auto-Tune shine, and concise songwriting, this was music that would make the record label lots of money? Wayne Coyne and co. have never cared much for convention, sure, but Embryonic takes the band completely out of their familiar environment and gives us an idea of what Can might have sounded like if they found out they liked the sound of Vivian Girls.

On one hand, we have the sound of The Flaming Lips that is familiar to anyone who's heard any of their work after 1997. Punchy drumloops propel all manner of synthesizers and guitars through striking, beautifully rendered chords, as well as Wayne Coyne's own strangely in-tune voice. And with their carefully perfected bag of tools, the band shows off their artistic mastery of their instruments, sailing through tender slowness akin to The Soft Bulletin and rocking out like they'd only started touring yesterday in support of Clouds Taste Metallic.

And yet, there's this new side of The Flaming Lips that we haven't seen before--their experimental side. Avant garde? Maybe. It's arguable that Embryonic is that motivated to be so abstract when so much of the album focuses on melodic and rhythmic elements, as opposed to pure noise or arrhythmic pieces. Time signatures? Check. Key signature? Check. Melody? Check. The real avant garde masters would be offended. Lightning Bolt wouldn't let Embryonic into the same room as their material. Even listeners new to any Flaming Lips work at all would be able to tell that there are recurring elements that might constitute their repertoire--the drum loops, the voice (of Wayne Coyne), the slow, throbbing brainwave-stimulating synth loops, the dreamy atmosphere. If you were hoping that the band would venture into Throbbing Gristle sounds, you would be wrong. This is definitely tonal.

The result is the musical equivalent of half and half: half old material, half new modes of expressing that old material. Part of me feels like I'm simply hearing the sappy parts of The Soft Bulletin fed through a guitar amplifier. Is that a bad thing? If you don't mind lo-fi, you won't mind the new modus operandi. If you demand that classic Flaming Lips audial polish, this record will both appeal to you and annoy you to death. You will hear echoes of previous album At War with the Mystics (think "The Sound of Failure/It's Dark... Is It Always this Dark??") and some more. Get ready for pinging delays with deep reverb ("Powerless"), what may be called way too much vocoder saturation ("The Impulse"), freakouts! ("Silver Trembling Hands," "Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast," "Scorpio Sword"), some random dude doing some poetry recital or something like that ("Sagittarius Silver Announcement"), glitch-style rhythmic noise ("Convinced of the Hex," "Worm Mountain"), and just about every freaky trick in Wayne Coyne's playbook.

In a way, Embryonic is the natural evolution of The Flaming Lips. Their earliest albums were noisy, wretched, and wild. Then the band matured and smoothed out the edges. Then they found nostalgia for their youth and merged their two worlds. We are at that last point. And as I listen to the songs again and again, I realize how much this style suits the band--so weird, but so beautiful. It's like The Album Leaf got drunk with TV on the Radio. Even as Wayne Coyne croons high and slow in "If" and a lazy bass strums along and all manner of amplification and synthesizer crash together for static jam "Worm Mountain," the twin paths are never more apparent. If you're left wondering why the hell The Flaming Lips would bother to do something so different, the answer is that it's really the same thing they've always done. Perhaps we're in familiar territory after all. But with The Flaming Lips, who can tell?

Album Review: Dappled Cities - Zounds

It's been a while since Dappled Cities Fly dropped the last word of their group name to become Dappled Cities--I guess the band just wasn't fly enough. (Cue intro music to CSI: Miami.) It's been longer still since I first heard the few ringing strums of their debut, A Smile, fitted with all the meat of indie rock and the jangly sound of twee. But make no mistake--their newest effort, Zounds, is a beast of a different mythology.

Dappled Cities offers a full, rich album, lined with pastiche and filled out with big, bombastic detail. The band makes no apologies about jumping into that muddy area between electropop and indie rock that so many bands have explored--terrain charted by Of Montreal, Cut Copy, and innumerable artists. Zounds makes a conscious effort to fill every second of every song with sound; where there is no instrument playing, there is an echo of one. "It does not matter if something belonged there in the first place--there must be a something," this album says to me.

Zounds is as artistic as it is a serious indie album, defying ownership both by pretentious hipsters and pop aficionados. The word itself is both an interjection and a summation of the wild sounds the band produces. One only has to look at the cover of Zounds to realize how scatterbrained the music is. The photograph that comprises most of the cover's real estate portrays a band in a room, sprinkled with confetti, filled with the strangest of objects-- a ladder, the trunk of a tree, a large balloon in the shape of a 3, a piñata, several photographs, and several sets of hands playing a keyboard on the floor.

It all serves to give context to the music ensconced within the disc--this is art. True enough, the mix of buzzing, whirring, gurgling, and thumping that starts the recording with "Hold Your Back" establishes the new and improved Dappled Cities as an Of-Montreal-cum-Animal-Collective-cum-Shins amalgamation that just wants to blow your mind, not with wacky exuberance or springy lyrics but with a complete tonal invention, combing through the lessons alternative music learned in the last 20 years and making notes about each of them. Each song is a synthesizer-driven indie rock song, dressed in the trimmings of that wholesome indie style--multi-instrumental, full, busy but not fabricated. I feel like Animal Collective grew became pensive, decided to slow down, and determined to find joy in life.

The listener at every turn is led, never quite able to determine the course of each tune. The album revels in the cerebral, each tune not quite the same and made of different inspirations. The listener is mislead through each song not by the style of the music but as a matter of course--who would expect the infectious danceable "Miniature Alas" to be preceded by a bizarre spoken word ditty? Zounds is an album that completes every idea--whether it's the moody "Wooden Ships" bursting into a baritone chorus suddenly or the punchy delivery of the chorus on "The Price," nearly every creative choice by the band feels natural and purposeful--"It should have always been like this," I feel. Even if many sections of the song feel like A, B, and back again, there's always a subtle (or major) tweak produced to bring the old idea to new life.

It's easy to tell that the band is having too much fun with the album. Their grandiose patchwork of multi-instrumental chaos and graceful--sometimes over-ambitious or ambiguous--lyrics will strand careless or uncaring listeners in a sea of confusion. The density of Zounds lends it weight that will wear out an audience expecting easy listening. While by no means does the music turn into noise, there is little doubt that songs like "Apart" must be experienced, not simply heard, to be understood. The steady march of lurching indie rock (Wolf Parade style) accompanying the nearly falsetto vocals can leave the unaware audience in a haze of ill feeling. The defiant "Stepshadows" plays like a funeral dirge for a chase scene in a 1990s Western, self-satisfied by its own certainty.

Thought and creativity went into this collection of songs, but it might be more difficult for the listener to ascertain what exactly the band was thinking. You are guaranteed a sonic canvas that only years of artistic endeavors will paint. After all, Daft Punk didn't write Discovery in a day.

Album Review: The Luxury - In the Wake of What Won't Change

Back when I reviewed albums for 91.3 KXCI Tucson ("real people, real radio"), I had the luck to stumble upon Boston-based britpop group The Luxury's debut album, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. A piece of emotive, sharply cornered pop/rock that was remarkably recorded in singer/producer Jason Dunn's apartment/bedroom (I can't remember which). The band back then (2006? 2007?) showed great promise in their songwriting, even if they couldn't afford studio time.

Now that 2009 has borne our universe most of the way through the fruits of her many months--when September is the month--I admit I'm a little surprised to find that The Luxury have followed me to Tempe, sending a CD to The Blaze. Well, this is my chance to follow their progress.

As it turns out, The Luxury have been busy, finishing first in a Boston-area band battle and recording their second album with the free studio time they won. For the large part, In the Wake of What Won't Change is bigger, more elaborate, and an improvement on what the band probably wanted to make on their first effort. Gone are the rough edges of their first record; their sophomore work hones in on the type of anthemic, alt-influenced britpop that defined the band's debut. In the Wake has two "sides" (but you don't have to flip over the disc), both with short, abstract "intros," which feels like self-indulgent bloat until you realize that the first side is definitely different from the second.

"Getaway Car," which starts the record proper after the first intro, steps nimbly over the beat, bouncing on the usual rock band standard plus an arpeggiating synth. I compliment "Take It Back" for the way it mixes throwbacks to classic rock with studio trickery, at once both heavy and soft. The first side even comes to resemble power pop at times. The Luxury does some of the best harmonies I've heard from recent bands, especially on "'Til Your Last Year" and "The Mirror Fogs."

The second side, begun by "El Jefe Y Su Burro (intro)," represents The Luxury's foray into production indulgence. I can't imagine what could have inspired the band to find not one, but two trumpeters for the aforementioned track and its follow-up, "Straitjacket," which sounds like David Terry of Aqueduct ditched the synthesizers and got major studio backing. While I am biased against extravagant arrangements without cause, I cannot deny that the trumpet blares and Jason Dunn's ridiculous energy make my foot tap hopelessly. The rest of the side finds the five-member band building U2-style anthems, heard best on "Sing for the Last Train" and "Closer."

It is also on the second side that the band makes a big misstep--criticizing President George W. Bush. My political views aside, I remember the last KASC Music Director, Owen, remarking that that no one wants to hear outdated political commentary in song form (or something like that--sorry, Owen). And yet, "012009" (referring to January 20, 2009, when Bush left office) spends three minutes to this very subject. Songs like this one, with thinly-veiled lyrics about a specific person, can quickly date a band or mark a group's amateurishness.

Misguided political statements aside, The Luxury has made an album that should get them national attention (should being the key word). If you can make it past track 11, The Luxury are a band that you need to hear. In the Wake of What Won't Change has carved out the space between power britpop and big indie rock and filled it. I just hope that these guys can resist the allure of overproduction so common to mainstream rock and pop.

Album Review: Years - Years

I consider myself one of a lucky few, and not just because of how pretentious I am--I listened to Years far ahead of its scheduled release date of May 5th. But I am redundant. Watch as I posture breathlessly about this indie-cum-experimental-cum-Dntel (because Jimmy Tamborello takes a category for himself) "masterwork." I promise to call it a masterwork at one point.

When I was debating whether or not to pick up this CD by Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think multi-instrumentalist Ohad Benchetrit, I was worried. Ohad never really made himself known to me, and I knew Do Make Say Think's reputation--slow movements, high crescendos, sometimes dull. Was I ready for an intelligent snoozefest?

I wasn't, which was fortunate, since Years is no sleep inducer. It's a magical, emotional post-rock masterwork. BSS and Do Make Say Think fans look elsewhere; this is not Ibi Dreams of Pavement or Almost Crimes, nor is it even related to Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord Is Dead. Years is a guitar plucked and kneaded by nimble hands, in parts chopped up and down with a staccato knife and others angelic like a swan. This is a tome of sense and sense decayed, of times past and present.

If Broken Social Scene is baroque pop, then Years is baroque post-rock. All the most eccentric aspects of BSS are pulled together and introduced with new elements. All semblance of pop normalcy goes out the window when you hear album opener "Kids Toy Love Affair," a nearly neurotic orchestral combination that start starts with airborne woodwinds and flighty guitar strings pressed in punches. But even this serene yet puzzling arrangement is injected with a symphony of horns and nervous violins. The elements crowd together and crow with tension and the illusion of resolve. For an album opener, its as out there as "Clap Your Hands!" on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but here it makes as much sense for totally different reason--this is the song that sails away from the port and tells you that your journey will not be in the standard format.

Years escapes most definitions of music, so it must be content to be called post-rock. It's not acoustic, although much of the album makes use of decidedly un-electric guitars. "Binary Blues" is You Forgot It In People it it was produced by Dntel coming hot off of Life Is Full of Possibilities, and "Are You Unloved?" The Glow, Part 2 the same way. Other parts veer off into wild, unexpected nooks and crannies, like the heartbreakingly subtle "Hey Cancer...Fuck You!" as it captures all the mood swings and chaos of a catastrophe even as the rhythm never deviates from its prescribed path. The fugues of "September 5. October 21. 2007" and "44" are about as experimental as an artist can swing without veering into crazy country.

On the other hand, Years quotes classic Broken Social Scene and proceeds to demonstrate why those hipster Canadians are so damn popular. "The Major Lift" is almost certainly inspired by "Canada vs. America" from their E.P. To Be You and Me, with its frantic horn calls and indecisive strings fractured by hi-hat stutters stolen from The Flashbulb, who's looked for them in his sock drawer twice by now. And I'd be damned if the horns (again with the horns!) that soliloquize in "Are You Unloved?" didn't take a leaf out of Feel Good Lost. "A Thousand times a Day (Someone Is Flying)" probably learned how to put that tremolo on its guitars by listening to "It's All Gonna Break."

Maybe I'm just seeing Broken Social Scene in Years where there is none. But some of the cues and references are spot-on, and in a collection of music as diverse and tangent as Years, it can't be just a coincidence. I refuse to believe it. And you know what? I'm happy with that. Years is loaded with emotion and nostalgia, and it'll be a delight both for fans of Broken Social Scene and people who obsessively listen to... well... I'm not sure. How does on classify the human heart set to music?

Album Review: Bishop Allen - Grrr...

Bishop Allen makes that kind of indie pop that's chirpy and adorable. Not eccentric enough to be comparable to Architecture in Helsinki or Belle and Sebastian (and certainly not as populous either with only two steady band members--seven other musicians assist the duo), Bishop is Allen is kind of like a tropical version of The New Pornographers à la Challengers.

If there's anything one can be sure of, it's that Grrr... by Bisop Allen sounds organic. The atmosphere is minimal, with every instrument ringing out in its own little space. It's reassuring to know that catchy indie pop can sound professionally recorded without becoming (too much). The background chorus on "Shanghaied" sounds fun and passionate, and listening to them I realized what Bishop Allen is about. They're that kind of indie band, the happy-go-lucky, always cheery, a little bit cheeky, taking The New Pornographers (and with them all the adventurous parts) and cranking the cute factor up to 11. Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who front the band, could not have planned it any other way. They make no effort to remove themselves from the record, on every track leaving imprints of themselves--Justin Rice's vocal impurities (not enough to be called gravelly but audibly dirtier than James Mercer's), the distant clicking of drumsticks in opener "Dimmer", the hum of the guitar amp in "Oklahoma." This is art that was crafted out of love. The problem is that it sounds soulless.

Wait, what? How can a love-inspired collection of cute little bits be just the opposite? What is this madness I write? Is Jell-o now cake? Is George W. Bush a Hindu? Am I a teacup, short and stout?

Fear not. Bishop Allen is a band that justifies the existence of the likes of Times New Viking and Women, bands that despite such clean production are listenable because the emotions they produce don't sound like they were produced in a clean room. It strikes me as I hear the "distortion guitar" on the song "South China Moon." It produces none of the feedback expected and none of the impact it should. I don't slight just the production values. It's the realization that music is fun to listen to, and that's really it. The lyrics are passable and so wrapped up in the intricacies of relationships that they never involve me. Lovely phrases bounce around here and there, but I wish they meant something.

I have no doubt that Bishop Allen is a band whose members love what they do, but I wish they would make more than a pretty picture.

Album Review: The Long Lost - The Long Lost

I wanted to like this album. I really did. I sincerely tried. But the more I listened, the more I knew that this was not going to happen. Singer LauraDarlington, wife to would-be partner-in-crime Alfred Darlington, failed to convince me that their record is truly worthwhile.

One could say I knew it would be like this from the start. This album, 14 songs and 45 minutes long, started out interesting and never strayed the course. Unfortunately, they don't try hard to capture you, unless you think completely dopeyelectro-acoustic folk songs about love deserves your undivided attention. From the very first song, I felt Ms. Darlington's voice too inaccessible for subject matter that should close to heart. She sings soprano from a mountaintop, her whispery airs flowing around a guitar rhythm. Sometimes a drummer brushes his kit in the background. It's all very fine, but I can't feel a connection anywhere on the CD. The misses always muses from a distance. Her voice is there, but the atmosphere is so soft and relaxed that it's easy to slip out of listening. You would have to be perfectly engaged to keep our attention focused. And while it is indeed my job to listen to each and every CD that comes my way, even I found myself distracted after a time.

As I listened over and over again to understand the album, I found myself fascinated by the artistic choices the duo made. It's difficult to not call The Long Lost pretentious when their idiosyncratic rhythm and melody choices make appreciating their craft frustrating. Nothing illustrates this better than "Amiss," the second song. At first I'm led to believe that achirpy little ditty is about to happen. Then Laura's vocals come in, everything sounds syncopated and it's driving me insane. Call me a stickler for convention, but it grates on my nerves when you set up the beat and the lead instrument or lead vocal in contrast to each other. It doesn't feel right. Even more aggravating is when beautiful, great songs like "Sibilance," with all the elements in perfect balance, are broken up by off-target music; it's right after "Amiss."

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that The Long Lost is too long. Normally I would not fault 14 songs on a disc, but for the slow pace of this album, things don't work the same. Listening to the whole thing in one go requires great patience and a large volume of caffeine. This was to be expected, as the press release that came with the CD made clear that was a singer-songwriter's album, not an electronic one--Alfread Darlington's other (or at least one of them) project is Daedelus, which is distinctly electronica. "Ballroom Dance Club" is the only song that really uses electronic elements, with a mixed result.

Overall, I am not greatly impressed. I had a hard time getting over the premise of the album--acoustic folk songs slower than a geologic process withdisinterested , simplistic vocals to match. Admittedly, folk isn't my forte. My expectations of the CD were wrongly placed because the marketing misled me. Even then, I adjusted my criticism for this review. The album isn't boring, perse . To the casual listener and passerby, it will be. The average college student would probably not like the drawling "Siren Song," which sounds like it would be at home in a 1940's intellectual drama. I can only cite a couple songs that are remotely radio-worthy: "Sibilance" and "Finders Keepers." These hardly make up for the other 12 tunes. I asked myself, Do I want to bore my listeners? The answer was, No, not really.

Devil at the Wheel - Crud

Despite the name of the band Crud is surprisingly good. Devil at the Wheel is the debut effort of Detriot band Crud. I took one look at the grindhouse like cover of the album and knew it would at least be an interesting listen. Crud describes themselves as, "super-charged fetish rock", it would be hard to argue that position. Devil at the Wheel starts strong with Reality with pounding drums and guitar work and the album doesn't let go from there.

The sound of Crud has a White Zombie like feel to the sound but with far less talk of death and the living dead. The lyrics of Vin E. have a distortied sound most of the album giving it a interesting if not unique sound to it, add the backing vocals of Danielle Arsenault and you have a combonation of strong power, with steamy and sexy. The song titles all have a grindhouse sound to them from Meat Detonation, and Murder is Fun to the title track Devil at the Wheel.

If you truely want an idea of what Devil at the Wheel is like I give you this. I feel it is what a grindhouse film would sound like if it was made into music instead of film. So in the end I'll give Crud a 4.5 out of 5 for their debut album.

Devil at the Wheel is currently availble in and was released by Heavy Hitter INC.
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