RANTS & RAMBLINGS

We at the Java Hole wanted to express our deepest sympathies to the victims of last nights heinous crimes. Our employees instantly recognized them for what they bought in our store, so we knew who they were and we know that they were our kind of people. May the ones who passed find peace, and to the survivors, we hope for a speedy recovery. We're pulling for you, Annie and Laurie!

The crew has been blasting this in the shop for three straight days, and if I hear the intro to "Dragula" one more time before the weekend, someone is getting fired.

That said, Zombie Live is a masterclass in how to capture stadium-sized, industrial-metal trash-glam on tape. Rob Zombie knows exactly what his audience wants, and he delivers it with maximum volume. John 5's live guitar tone on the classic White Zombie tracks like "Thunder Kiss '65" and "More Human Than Human" is thick enough to choke on, and the rhythm section sounds like a pile-driver hitting concrete. It's loud, it's theatrical, it's completely unpretentious, and it makes you want to drive a monster truck through a grocery store.

It's the perfect soundtrack for a midnight drive through the cornfields, especially right now when the whole town is on edge.

THE VERDICT: Essential listening for the misfits. Grab the physical CD, put it in your car stereo, and turn it up until the speakers start to smoke.

A cartoon band has no business making a death metal album this genuinely punishing. Brendon Small is a certified maniac on the fretboard. Yeah, it's a comedy project from Adult Swim, but Gene Hoglan's drumming on this thing will cave your skull in. It's fast, ridiculous, and louder than God. We've already gone through two boxes of the CDs because the local metalhead kids are buying them up like candy.

THE VERDICT: SPIN IT UNTIL THE NEEDLE BREAKS.

As the name implies, this love metal album is heavy on the doom. It reads like poetry, but plays like Sabbath before it crashes into melancholic heartache with occasional punk undertones. The girls love Valo, but I'll stick with the first half before it degrades into modern ballads and pining desperation.

THE VERDICT: Get it for your girlfriend.

I was pleased to see that nearly three-quarters of respondents rejected the notion that there is such a thing as too many records.

This is the first survey result in months that didn't cause me immediate psychological damage.

Congratulations.

Billy Corgan resurrected the Smashing Pumpkins name after years away, but without the original lineup. This is the ultimate betrayal to the band's core audience who only ever cared about them because they were raw and seething with angst. Billy's got such an ego these days that he thinks he can throw away everything that made him famous to begin with, opting for perfection when it's never been about that. It's a sterile, over-compressed corporate cash-grab hiding under the corpse of a great 90s alternative band.

THE VERDICT: MAKE UP YOUR OWN DAMN MIND.

While the rest of the music industry is busy drowning in ProTools and synthetic pop garbage, Jack White went into a studio in Nashville and recorded a rock album on a 16-track analog tape machine. And it sounds incredible.

The title track is built on a dirty, squealing, garage-punk riff that sounds like his guitar amplifier is physically tearing itself apart. There's no artificial polishing here—just raw drums, screeching plastic keyboards, and a guy screaming into an old microphone. It's got a completely unhinged energy that you just can't manufacture on a computer screen.

THE VERDICT: A mandatory spin for the turntable. This is proof that you don't need a million-dollar digital budget to make a record that slaps you right across the face. Grab the vinyl copy off our front display.

Rumor has it that this may be their final studio album, but they sure as shit loaded it with raw, distorted, analog garage rock. That's what you call going out with a bang.

I had some kid walk into the shop yesterday, hold up his little plastic fruit-branded telephone, and ask me if I had an album "on MP3."

Let me lay this out for you digital parasites one more time: The Java Hole does not deal in invisible data. We deal in iron, plastic, and magnetics. If you can't drop it on a platter or jam it into a deck with a pencil, it doesn't exist in this building. You're paying twelve bucks for a compressed, hollowed-out data stream that sounds like it was recorded through a tin can underwater. You are voluntarily castrating your own ears because you're too damn lazy to flip a record over.

Next person who asks me for a digital download code gets their device thrown into the grease trap behind the kitchen. Support the artists or go listen to the highway traffic. It's free and has better dynamic range than your iPod.

This record sounds like it was recorded in a scrap yard during a heatwave, and I mean that as the highest possible praise. Josh Homme threw out the catchy hooks and replaced them with jagged, robotic, dirty desert riffs that sound downright mean. It's uneasy listening for a sterile pop crowd. Put this on when you want to drive too fast or kick a hole through your drywall.

THE VERDICT: THE TRUSH IS REAL.

Look, Ozzy Osbourne is a required curriculum if you want to set foot in my store, but I'm going to be straight with you about Black Rain.

Zakk Wylde's guitar tone is heavier than a tank collapsing through a bridge, and his riffs on "I Don't Wanna Stop" and "Not Going Away" are absolutely massive. But whoever decided to let Kevin Churko over-produce and pitch-correct Ozzy's vocals needs to be banned from a mixing console for life. Ozzy shouldn't sound like a digital robot; he's a rock and roll caveman, and his voice is supposed to have some gravel, some age, and some dirt on it. When they clean him up this much, it robs the music of its soul.

It's a frustrating record. The music hits hard, but the corporate studio polish almost ruins the soup.

THE VERDICT: It's worth checking out for Zakk's fretwork alone, but don't expect No More Tears or Diary of a Madman. Flip through the used bin for it next month.