This self titled debut is possibly one of the worst records that I’ve heard in a long time. Everything about this album is hackneyed and unoriginal. There is nothing redeeming to be found on any track. I don’t normally dismiss an artist outright based on one release but I’m quite happy to do so in this case.

In re-releasing the Washington, DC band's single full-length effort,Polyvinyl brings back a morsel of guitar-laden goodness that's stilltasty 10 years later. I for one am damn glad they did.

This collection of the Leeds, England band's Rough Trade singles andmore  showcases a hard-edged and unique sound that's more thanworth digging out of out-of-print oblivion.

Whenthe previously obscure scores were widely released on CD by MotelRecords and Crippled Dick Hot Wax in 1995 as the compilation Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party,its newfound popularity was in large part responsible for thesubsequent wealth of ‘60s and ‘70s European B-movie soundtracks to bereissued. 

One of the inevitabilities of putting together best-of year-end listsis that there’s always one or two albums that don’t make it on theresimply because it didn’t surface until it was too late. Volcano!, ayoung band from Chicago, make music akin to a nervous fit of rage andare a perfect example of such an unfortunate circumstance.

Minotaur Shock’s second album (third if you count the compilation of previous EPs and related tracks) is an above average album that slips into self indulgence a little too often. Luckily the album is redeemed by having a strong smile inducing effect thanks to a lot of cheery and buoyant tracks.

With the exception of his 2001 collaboration with Noto and a 12" in 2003, the otherwise prolific Mika Vainio has kept his most respected moniker all but dormant for roughly eight years. Yet 2005 served as a year of resurrection for Ø, with a vinyl reissue of the classic Metri and this curious collection of material recorded during the interim.

Well, the end of 2005 came and went and we unfortunately couldn't coordinate a big hoopla this year for the Brainwashed Year-End Readers' Poll.  However, with the new system, we've organized what has been the most popular articles from our site to arrange some kind of a list.  Of course, it will differ from everybody else's, but then again, we gotta be us!

NormallyI'd be suspicious of something like the Lady Sovereign phenomenon—thehype machine, the registered trademark, the inevitable references tothe name that's on everyone's lips (M.I.A.)—it all feels like a setup, and it probably is. But something about "the white midget" justmakes me want to get stupid and bounce, and I think that's clearly thepoint.

Noise is an acquired taste requiring an open mind and maybe a little background information. I've never known anyone to hear one noise group and instantly fall in love with the genre. Phil Blankenship's noise project is out to make that fact doubly true. Night of the Bloody Tapes is noise for noise extremists. Its fuzzed out, unrelenting, damaged presentation is confrontational and angry. The attack simply never stops on this record.

This will either sound like attractively sweet pop or derivative reminiscence depending on who is listening. I tend to think 90% of the material is total crap and, at times, I can sing the songs Ariel Pink is copying from because his material is so obviously dependent on its influences. It'd be easier to outright hate this record if the songs weren't catchy at times.

A rerelease and reworking of long out-of-print album, this two-CD set was worth the wait. The second CD, Sideways, a remix of the first CD, 1998's Underarms. Underarms itself is a reworking of The Hope Blister's ...Smile's OKalbum. Trying to describe this album is like looking into two mirrorsfacing each other: the music echoes and comes back to itself, rather likemirrors reflecting the same image into each other for eternity.

Some drones have a spark—a life between the waves of sound that act as a portal to another dimension—others are merely lazy ways of making an album, flat and dull slabs of sound. This reissue of Ambience belongs to the former group of drones: it glitters and shines like the lightning that graces the artwork.

Theartwork and title might be all cute nonsense and adolescent fun, butthe music that comes with it could only be born from a demented mind.Todd Drootin's music has been called "beatpunk," whatever that means,and his live shows are said to be fairly insane. In truth, he makessome pretty crazy melodic electronic music layered with snapping beatsand dreams of three headed monsters. It can be catchy as hell, but attimes it also sounds a little too familiar.

This introductory four track CD-R is the first not-so rotten fruitfrom the newly minted side project from one half of Newcastle uponTyne’s Tears of Abraham. Mein Kinder might freely embrace the tag of‘dark ambient soundscapes’ but the music here is far darker, deeper andbetter than the limitations of that genre suggest.

Thrones is better known as the work of Joe Preston, the man of a thousand bands (Earth, The Melvins, Sunn O))), High on Fire, etc) and of limited edition releases. This is a (thankfully unlimited) collection of various singles, rarities and unreleased material from about the last ten years on one handy disc. It is one oddball collection to say the least.

As I write this it has been seven years to the day since the passing ofBryn Jones.  Several labels diligently continue to release andpreserve his music but in recent years Soleilmoon is at the forefrontof packaging presentation.  From the metal tin of Arrabbox tothe oversized folder of Alms for Iraq to the fur covering of Re-mixsVolume 1 & 2 to the silk pouch of Syrinjia.  And now this.  

Without a single weak track, Make has gone down as one of the most fun albums of 2005 that I missed. As GD Luxxe, Gerhard Potuznik offers up everything from sexy, hot beats to pounding, throbbing punk full of blazing guitars and explosive arrangements that blow up in the most intense and lovingly orchestrated ways possible.

4AD's recent release of this Cocteau Twins retrospective finally does this pioneering band's back catalog justice. From the comprehensive track selection to beautifully-designed v23 art printed on a soft, textured paper with vellum overlay, this is the collection that Cocteau Twins fans have been waiting for.

After more than a year of lying low following the release of 2004's bewildering They Were Wrong, So We Drowned,Liars return with this provocatively packaged single, a taster fortheir forthcoming full-length.  Though I had hoped that Hemphill,Andrew and Gross might have decided to drop some of the abrasive,self-consciously artsy gestures that made their last album such anunsatisfyingly turgid mess, unfortunately It Fit When I Was A Kid shows that the band is travelling even further down the same rabbit hole, apparently intent on alienating everyone.