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Read and produced by Lachlan Fletcher.

Stories written by Emily Brass and Gareth Sloan.

Drowning Pool
Drowning Pool
eleven Seven

So Drowning Pool released an album recently called Drowning Pool.  No? You don't remember them?  They were that band who had that "Bodies" song in 2001 and then their lead singer died.  Oh, yeah, now you kind of remember right?  Well, they have a new album now.  Believe it or not its their fourth album, the third after the death of their first lead singer (whose name is/was Dave Williams).

After Dave died they decided to get a new singer named Jason Jones, who I guess was qualified because as a former tattoo artist, he was either standing around the band when they decided to look for someone new, or he gave them a bunch of tattoos and rather than pay him they offered him a spot in the band.  Either way he left and then the lead singer of Soil, Ryan McCombs, who looked around at his band and saw they weren't doing anything, decided that he could sing for them.

This is Ryan's second album with the group, so naturally its probably some great leap forward with the band since they've been touring and writing music together.  I'd love to tell you that this is the case, but I really couldn't convince myself that I wanted to go and find the last album and listen to it to compare it to this one.  I just couldn't convince myself that I'd done anything bad enough to warrant such a punishment.  But what's the current album like?

To be honest, this album is even less than memorable, much like the band itself.  As I write this, I'm four songs in and I haven't really noticed that anything has changed.  All the songs sound like rip offs of Soil songs, which is like saying, "Hey, let's pick a band to sound like, but not someone good, that?s too obvious.  Let's go for someone who no one will notice if we rip off.  Hey Ryan, what's that band you're in?  Soil?  Great, we're going to sound like you guys now."

The album is only 39 minutes long, and therefore is longer than a full episode of Say Yes to the Dress on TLC.  Speaking of which, that's just one of the many shows that grab my attention more than this album.  Granted, pretty much every show on TLC throws me into an almost incomprehensible anger, but the reason for both is the same.  The reason I feel such anger at any show on TLC is that I see no reason why it exists.  I mean, who needs to make a show called Extreme Poodles or Toddlers and Tiaras?  It's the same thing with a new Drowning Pool album.  Sure, you can make it, but why would you want to?  The only difference is that on TLC, I become angry because of the stupidity of the whole thing.  For the Drowning Pool album, I don't feel anything, that?s how bland and uninteresting it is.

Still though, in both cases the person that really loses is the consumer of these media.  That time in front of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant is never going to come back, just like the 39 minutes that I had to sit through of this boring hard rock.  I demand retribution.  I propose that Drowning Pool watch a day of TLC programming and TLC programmers listen to a day's worth of this Drowning Pool album.  By the time it's over, both sets of them will either died of boredom, become so brain damaged that they won't be able to hurt anyone any more, or will have taken their own lives in a futile attempt to stop the pain.  Though this seems cruel, I think it would be best for all mankind, and isn't that a small price to pay?

(Andrew Wieler)

Holy Fuck
Latin

Holy Fuck, now here's a band that constantly draws flack over its name... Not necessarily because it's obscene, but because people always feel they fail to live up to their mind-blowing promise. Well with the recent release of their new album Latin the flame wars are sure to heat up once again. Why? Because if Latin is anything, it's simply OK.

Holy Fuck is a hard band to pin down, they fall into an odd space between electronic and rock music (the same place my house keys probably disappear to too). However rather than combining the more aggressive traits of each they opt for the more minimal side of each. In the end the product sounds somewhere between shoe gaze and efficient german techno... If Helvetica Oblique had a sound this would be it. It is most adventurous with "Red Lights" (which combines genres well) and "Sht Mtn" (which has some tasty and fuzzy guitar parts).

So will Latin cause you to exclaim in shock and surprise? I doubt it, but it's also not bad enough to be, well... bad. Listen to the whole album and you it might find it blurs together, but if you like white space and straight lines this will go nicely with your morning espresso.

(Gareth Sloan)

Sleigh Bells
Treats

The duo that makes up M.I.A. proteges Sleigh Bells come from very diverse backgrounds: guitarist/sonic architect Derek Miller used to play guitar in notable hardcore band Poison The Well during their most productive years and singer Alexis Krauss was part of pop outfit Rubyglue. The year-old duo joined forces to create Sleigh Bells, a band categorized as... Noise pop. And no, that's not a typo. The band's sound is equal parts My Bloody Valentine and La Roux (and bands of its ilk) – overcharged electro beats, meaty guitars and soaring, reverbed vocals. The sum of the parts, however, are way better than the resulting whole: Treats is a half-hour ride of empty, basic pop music and sonic screeches, disposable and forgettable bits of musicality that are entirely interchangeable. It's hard to deny the record's ability to get folks up and dancing with its many percussive elements, though most would be hard-pressed to tell which song they were dancing to.

(Brian Hastie)

Other than the sound of too many mosquitoes and black flies, all should be quiet on most fronts in Canada. Sadly one of our fronts is Afghanistan, so there will be trouble to report on the whole season long. For example today a Rolling Stone interview with the NATO Commander, Stanley McChrystal was released and all hell broke loose. Read for yourself, but essentially the General displays a poor sense of judgement, gets drunk on Bud Light Lime, and then spills his guts to the reporter and it's not pretty. Viscera, entrails, the works!

 That directly concerns and affects Canadians serving over there and their families at this end. There's to be an offensive sometime this summer in the Kandahar region, the Taliban heartland, where most Canadian are stationed and the four-star General is the chief strategist... for now. He's been summoned to the White House and word is he's already offered his resignation. I'm with Keith Olbermann when he tells Obama not to accept. It's too easy a way out of a very tough spot that McChrystal helped to create.

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It'll be interesting to see which route Obama chooses.

As for the goings on here in Canada, well, the G-8 and G-20 summits are on the way and with all the mad spending that has gone on so far you won't be surprised that money was found to buy water canons (water projection systems are the official name!). What democracy can function without water canons?

Rest assured that even though Parliament is off for three months somewhere, somehow Iggy will be putting his foot in it.

Word from the Globe and Mail says Harper not looking to a fall election, but Jack Layton is.

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Thank you for your understanding.