I have some more new release news for all of you kiddies.

There are a few things that I am looking forward to this year, this actually comes as a huge relief to me. I had kind of figured that the world had blown its wad in 2007, and society as we know it was bound to come to a grinding halt. Of course I am full of lies, humans as a species are adaptable and we will continue to create shiny new chotchkies to amuse ourselves.

So, here are a couple of things that I’m looking forward to:

When I hear of a band that has played a show with one of my local favorites Shinyville one of the first things that comes to mind is that these guys must be somewhat off their rocker. Luckily, when I heard the debut self titled album by New York based duo Rocket Surgery I was not at all disappointed. To say the very least, Rocket Surgery is a little eclectic.

Rocket Surgery—the album, not the band—with 22 track clocks in at just under 80 minutes which is a mighty feat for most artists. Rocket Surgery has been split in two with a (conceptual) Side A and Side B. The tracks run a wide range styles from rock-a-billy, doo-wop, jam, surf-punk and Floyd inspired space-rock. Though I must clarify that these genres are the starting point for many of the songs, they in no way come close to describing the finished product. With a heavy dose of synth and samples topped off with Joel Kennedy’s unique vocal styling, Rocket Surgery’s sound oozes with candy coated glitch-pop, fresh from Willy Wonka’s diabolic boat ride.

Puscifer, yet another side project by Tool front man Maynard James Keenan, has finally released a full length album, titled V is for Vagina. To be completely honest I had no idea who Puscifer was until I did a thorough background check via Wikipedia. The only time I’d seem the name was while skimming the soundtrack for one of the Underworld movies. From the sounds of it, Maynard is attempting to some kind of word of mouth/street team promotion on this album. This must’ve payed off for him, since the first song off the album, Queen B. debuted at #38 on the billboard modern rock chart.

If you do catch Queen B. on your local radio station you’ll get a fair impression of the entire album. V sounds like a smooth playing rock tribute to old cowboys and sipping whiskey on a lazy Sunday afternoon while watching the sun go down. The subject matter of the album is hardly more varied than the sound. V’s lyrics seem mostly satirical referencing honey pots, pimp hands and bellowing southern preachers.

Puscifer has definitely created a different kind of chill album. It’s easy to pop this one in, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Lordi Lordi, what can you say about Lordi. Are these guys completey nuts or are they just a cheap rip-off of GWAR. Actually Lordi is neither of those things. Lordi is a hard rock maelstrom invading the states. These super beasts hail from Finland where it gets so cold in the winter that you have to climb into elaborate monster costumes just to stay warm.

Seriously though, Lordi is a new import courtesy of the kind folks over at The End Records, and the Arockalypse is what they are reigning down. After making it big in their homeland by winning the Eurovision music contest Lordi brought their act to the world with a summer long stretch with Ozzfest.

Some people can’t seem to get past Lordi’s outlandish monster get ups to really appreciate what they are doing. Lordi is filling this crazy big hole left by some of the original monsters of rock such as Alice Cooper and Ozzie. Their sound has more in common with these grand-daddies of hard rock and hair metal than they do with today’s doom and gloom generation of metal bands.

When I first heard this album I thought to myself, “Sh!t, this is the best album I’ve heard all year!” After a month or so of listening to Traineater I can stick to that opinion. The Book of Knots have created a tribute to the decaying landscape that is the heart of industrial America. The core members of The Book of Knots—Matthias Bossi, Joel Hamilton, Tony Maimone, and Carla Kihlstedt—have teamed up with some amazing talents including Megan Reilly, Mike Watt, and the man himself Tom Waits.

My first impression of Traineater, well first after Holy Sh!t, was that this album is the bastard child of Tom Waits and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I suppose considering who’s involved in the production of Traineater that isn’t exactly a quantum leap of the imagination. What struck me though is how much it deviated from the somber depressive tone of their first self-titled album. Traineater borrows a lot from Waits’ Mule Variations album. They’ve take the dirty booze-hound blues that Waits does so well and mixed it with their own fusion of Post Punk and Classical sensibilities to create something that I’m increasingly beginning to consider Millennial Folk.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really all that thrilled to hear that Billy Corgen, Jimmy Chamberlin, and a couple others were putting out a new Smashing Pumpkins album. This is why I was not entirely broken up when Zeitgeist proved to be a little underwhelming. There are a few things that put me off of Zeitgeist right from the beginning:

• Billy Corgan’s solo album Future Embrace was great IMHO, it moved in a direction that the Pumpkins only touched on in their later albums.
• Two original band members and a couple stand-ins do not make a reunion—especially when the two have already played together in another band.
• The whole thing sounds like a ploy to cash in on the nostalgia of their old fans who have grown into adults with jobs and paychecks to spend.
• Shower curtain capes are fragging lame.

So, onto the album. It starts out with Doomsday Clock, the only thing that stands out about this song is when Billy pulls out a couple lines that start out with “Apocalyptic.” It sounds so cheesy, just saying something is “Apocalyptic” does not give it substance…

Devildriver has released their third album, The Last Kind Words. For those of you who don’t know, Devildriver is the latest project of Dez Fafara former front-man of Nu-Metal/Goth band Coal Chamber. Suffice it to say, Coal Chamber disbanded for reasons too numerous to count. Out of the ashes of that debacle came Devildriver, a no-holds barred grab you by the throat and shake you metal band. From where I’m standing Devildriver is a step in the right direction.

Anyhow, two other albums have come and gone and now Devildriver has done what so many bands struggle for… Their third album actually rocks harder than their first ones. This is aided by the fact that Dez’s vocals are awesome, he sounds like madman off his meds running wild in the streets. Also, the music is playing a bigger part in act three. Pounding lead-ins and plenty of tight guitar solos bring The Last Kind Words to a slightly higher level than most metal these days. Stylistically, this album pays homage to the metal gods of old, reminding me a lot of Pantera and Sepultura.