JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #578.211!

Styrofoam – A Thousand Words (Nettwerk) :: Just what you always wanted: a lightweight bloopy blorp Casio-pop album with a perpetual half-life that’ll never decompose.

Nash The Slash – Decomposing (Cut-Throat vinyl) :: A two-sided series (78) of electro-ambient instrumentals (45) which can be played at any (33) turntable speed (16).

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK – FELONY COUNT ONE: A Thousand Knives Of Fire – The Last Train to Scornsville (Small Stone) :: Ah gots tuh be honest with yuh: I ain’t never heerd no Small Stone record that I didn’t like ’cause this here Deetroit label don’t put nuthin’ out but elpee after elpee of nonstop, purebred, fuzz-infested, primo heavy, thudaholic, crungefyin’, pudknockin’, hog-straddlin’, pool cue-wieldin’, booze-belchin’, weed-snortin’, speed-freakin’, hard-humpin’, babe-ballin’ music. In other words: Small Stone is the greatest rock ’n’ roll record company in America and this album is on Small Stone so you just know that it’s got the gooshin’ gonad goods splattered all over it. Bonus points for dividing their album into two sides. Extra points awarded for having a feelthy title track that makes bands like Blue Cheer and Kyuss sound like Simon & Gofunkle yo’self.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK – FELONY COUNT TWO: Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned – South Side Of The Moon (Small Stone) :: It’s obviously a given that I like this record, but lemme tell ya why the gol-durned South done gone ’n’ rise again. Y’see, unlike the above-noted disc of the long Knives with its sludge-slammin’ sound, these Dixie rebs play faster ’n’ cleaner behind a growl-gnarlin’ voice that sounds as if it wuz freshly dug up from some Civil War battlefield. Points deducted for having the bad sense to play too many heavy love ballads (ref: “Daughter Of The Moon”) ’cause heavy love ballads, no matter how heavy, are still ballads—and ah hates ballads. Points reinstated with for having the good senses to follow up the heavy love ballads with tracks like the butane-blisterin’ behind-squirtin’ “Black Cat Road.” Oh, yassss!

Be seeing you!