Dead Chic The Bells And The Fists

This was one of several mysterious albums released in limited batches in Germany by the Pyramid label in the mid-'70s and apparently sold mostly through art galleries and other unconventional retail sources. After 1974 the major labels were no longer interested in creative Krautrock and so Pyramid undertook to keep the spirit of this genre alive for another few years. These artists and records were so unknown that when they started being reissued on CD, many people thought they were a hoax. The Nazgul were one of the high points, once one gets past their peculiar fixation with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Canada's Falcons play original instrumental rock and roll inspired by The Shadows and The Ventures. Formed in 1992 by Vancouver guitarist Mike Beddoes, The Falcons have recorded five albums, toured in Europe and Canada’s Yukon, showcased in Japan, and helped revive the instro rock genre worldwide…

Who's ready to boogie with a little Brent-era Grateful Dead from the Gateway to the West? DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 47 features the complete unreleased show from Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO, 12/9/79 and you're going to need stamina because this one is high energy from start to finish.

It was only a matter of time before some sort of introduction to American audiences came about, especially following the band's successful tour of the States, so Rykodisc did the honors with this excellent compilation - if there's one thing anyone needs to get from the duo, it's unquestionably this. While there's no chronological order to the collection, and the sequencing and arrangement from the original albums are unfortunately if inevitably lost, the choice of songs to feature is completely spot on. The biggest gap is the lack of anything from the self-titled debut and the Garden of the Arcane Delights EP, including the track the collection takes its title from. As such songs would jarringly stand out sonically from the rest, though, it's an understandable omission…

The guitar experimentation of Adrian Belew and Rob Fetters is top-notch on this record, but the material itself is not. Belew and his backing group of Cincinnati, Ohio-based musicians tend to sound like many other bands. On the first track, "Aches and Pains," the Bears literally break out all the bells and whistles, as those items are incorporated into what seems to be a second-rate Squeeze song. Belew and Fetters do manage to polish up some of the rough spots, however, on songs like "Robobo's Beef," which transforms a distorted electric guitar into what sounds like an electric violin helmed by Jean-Luc Ponty's evil twin brother. The album doesn't lack diversity, as heard on tracks ranging from lullabyes ("Little Blue River") to fusion worldbeat ("Rabbit Manor"), but it does lack fully developed writing. The record is a mixed palette with bits of music that could have made up a beautiful canvas if they were carefully thought out.