The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 15, 1996 - 11 iJ.ECORDS Continued from Page 9 Archers of Loaf All the Nations Airports Alias/Elektra ***I "All the Nations Airports" Archers of Loaf's Alias/Elektra debut, finds the fhapel Hill, N.C., indie rock quartet experimenting further with blasting uitars, irreverent lyrics and catchy, up- Mtenpo songs, yet also displays more ture playing and songwriting. Strangled by the Stereo Wire" com- 'a3nces the album, a 1:46 dirge contain- 7ng the Archers' usual bouncy rhythms d singer Eric Bachmann's raspy growl. he song, with grotesque lyrics about being strangled by a stereo wire, segues ely into "All the Nations Airports," bose dueling guitar shards, produced Sy-Bachmann and Eric Johnson, under- "ecre Bachmann's funny depictions of rport scenes. "Invalids collide with ter- rist scum," shouts Bachmann before rni-crooning, "the pilots are drunk." T= Assassination on X-Mas Eve" egins with a high-pitched guitar effect, a Tom Morello of Rage Against the tachine, before the song kicks into ear and tells the tale of Santa Claus W ing murdered, complete with a cho- rus of "Assassination shocks the nation!" "Vocal Shrapnel," the most joyous, poppy song on "All the Nations Airports" showcases Bachmann's and Johnson's sweetest guitar tones, while Bachmann makes fun of singers on the radio (including himself): "The lazy voice / Is making noise / The reason's crap /Vocal shrapnel." "Bones of Her Hands" and "Form nd File" also venture down similar paths, with fast-paced, quirky, guitar- driven sounds reminiscent of the band's 1993 indie hits "Wrong" and "Web in Front;' off of its debut, "Icky Mettle." Unlike the excellent but entirely speedy "Icky Mettle" "All the Nations Airports" features a more balanced and slower facet of the Archers' oeuvre. "Scenic Pastures" has extremely pretty uitar playing by Johnson and achmann, and drummer Mark Price's tom-tom fills click nicely with bassist 'Matt Gentling's low-end rumbles. "'Chumming the Ocean" and the album- concluding instrumental, "Bombs Away" both contain quiet and beautiful piano lines, while "Acromegaly" pos- sesses an almost fiddle-like guitar sound emanating from Bachmann's instrument. "All the Nations Airports" is a solid 'and more diverse effort from Archers of Soaf, with the familiar, up-tempo pop- ock songs blending smoothly into and out of more sad and poignant tunes. If you are an Archers fan, "Airports" is a must for your collection, and if you haven't checked the exciting and ener- getic band out yet, this album is a good starting point. -Aaron Rennie J Krush Meiso ,, ony P*** Born and bred in the Orient, DJ Krush is out to place Japan on the hip- hop community map. Krush deserves -some props. "Meiso" is a mostly vocal-less, rap-less exhibition of Krush's mixing, scratching and turning 4bilities. The creations which leapt "from his turntable onto this 14-cut ilbum show that Krush's head is deeply grounded in hip-hop culture. However, throughout many of his songs, Krush includes a variety of sounds unique to his homeland. These symbols show Krush's unwillingness to sacrifice his heritage to fit some -stereotypical persona of "tha real" in -iip-hop culture. Krush knows and 1hows that Japanese culture and American hip-hop need not be seen as eternally distinct. They can compli- ment each other; Krush makes this happen with "Meiso." Bringing lyricism to some of Krush's musical works are the Roots' Black Thought & Malik B on the title track and Guru and Big Shug ("Most Wanted Man"). C.L. Smooth (now Pete Rock- less) does the best job of bringing (rush's music alive on the CD's first tut, "Only the Strong Survive." DJ Krush is up against some very difficult odds. He is out to show that hip-hop has grown too massive and has reached audiences too far away on the globe to be seen as belonging sole- ly to African Americans. There are many people in many different coun- tries seeking to join the hip-hop com- munity and bringing out even more of Sts heretofore unseen potential. To ignore their attempts or sideline their works as marginal is to disrespect all that the spirit of hip hop stands for: Inclusion, experimentation and the ability to find the spirit of commonal- itv in that which may. at first glance. Belle's gimmicky failure goes 'Down' Archers shoot a potent loaf. mouth, sporting black glasses, two tat- toos and an extended middle finger, McNarland's music displays little trace of a hard edge. Instead of the loud vocal assault the cover leads you to expect, McNarland's vocal style is surprisingly delicate and sweet. Her melodious voice is the album's biggest asset. The disc opens with "Stormy;" a slightly original, slightly derivative piece. McNarland layers her Sarah McLachlan-esque vocals atop an intriguing, slow bass tremolo and subtle drum beats, pushing her voice into the spotlight. The problem here is that whenever the instrumentation speeds up, her light soprano crooning turns into a throaty, irritating whine. Her more mellow songs, like the gen- tle acoustic "I Won't Stay" are pleasing to the ear if you focus on her gorgeous vibrato and ignore her I-wanna-be-a- bad-girl growls. The constant back-and- forth from wanna-be punk to almost folk is not as surprising as it is confusing. Her third song, "Cry or Cum," is the best example. The deeply personal nature of the song, about the pain of domestic abuse, is spoiled when the pace picks up with a few guttural growls and rough guitar licks. It does induce some foot tapping, but it ruins the real tragic beauty and message of the song. The one song that does effectively bridge the gap between her folk and punk aspirations is "Mr. 5 Minutes." Singing to a lover about wanting just five more minutes of sexual fulfillment, McNarland lets loose her urgent, whis- pery vocals, leading into a loud, electric guitar-inspired orgasm of musical ecstasy. "Mr. 5 Minutes" is the one song where her wails make sense. "Sour Pie" may not be perfect, but McNarland's luscious sound is enough reason to listen. With the entire album lasting just under 26 minutes, you can afford to sit down and have a slice. It just might surprise you. - Stephanie Jo Klein Jennifer Belle Going Down Riverhead Books * "Going Down" is the story of a young woman wishing to be an actor, struggling to attend NYU and financing it all as a call girl. The novel follows Bennington Bloom through a rambling series of somewhat promising misadventures that quickly lead to nowhere. She starts as a high-class call-girl, then gradually slips down a slope to less prestigious work. As she gets sucked in further, her prostitution begins to interfere, unhappily, with her normal, other life. Filled with numerous sub- plots, Belle makes a fair attempt at exposing the entirety of her character's life, rather than simply focusing on the tabloid-esquep professional sex. The premise of this, Belle's first novel, is at least mildly intriguing, and as the story develops, it is rarely dull. The anecdotes and chapters are all quite short, generally refusing to wallow in the novelty of any one situation. As such mild praise infers, this is a dismal failure of a novel. The heroine is incredibly undeveloped and incoherent, yet she is the most intricate of all the characters. The rest are stiff gimmicks, so tritely and incompletely characterized that it is difficult to imagine them as anything but the product of one episodic situation. "Gimmick" is the most apt way to describe Belle's work. Every character is a superficial mannequin put on "stage" to make some contrived joke or another, generally at the expense of any sense of realism developed earlier. And never, not even once, is the humor of Belle's characters worth the absolute shattering of her attempted fictional-dream. The jokes are invariably unfunny and unclever. Taken together, the cardboard characters and corny humor are enough to ruin "Going Down." But it gets worse. Much worse. The story goes nowhere. The heroine starts out look- ing for a means to support herself and fulfill her desire to act. Along the way, the plot and characterization become so mud- dled that the novel ends with her going out to dinner with some random man she meets in the subway. Nothing is resolved, certainly, but neither is anything really confronted. Bennington is as shallow a major character as the others are minor characters. There is no development or exploration of the labyrinth of her psyche (or at least, the psy- che one would imagine a girl her age, thrown into a life of such problems and quirky devel- opments, to possess). Instead, she merely flits around through trauma after trauma. The only way we know she even notices her surroundings is that she sometimes breaks out in random spurts of tears or nausea. This may be the worst part of the novel. If Bennington finds herself in a sad situation, the author seems to automatically turn on "the tears" or "the vomiting." In both cases, it has the feel of an automatic, inef- fectual device that exacerbates Belle's absolute ineptitude as a psychologist of her characters and as a novelist. She makes no impact on the emotions or conscience of the reader at all. Her novel has more in common with a marathon of bad tele- vision comedies than anything resembling art. Perhaps her next attempt at novel-writing will be more fecund, but this first one is easy to dismiss as vacuous and utterly unimpor- tant. - James Wilson 71 te Healt P an Hus t e? Before you join a new health plan or HMO, think about the choices you'll be left with. Will your doctors be top-of-the-line, and close to home? Can they help you deliver a healthy baby...in the hospital of your choice? What options will you have for children's specialty care, emergency services or even cancer treatment? Don't be left out of quality health care. Choose one of the many health plans now accepted by the U-M Health System. You'll win access to world-class medical care and day-to-day health services at any of 30 easy-to-find health centers. Now that's something you can really feel ood ahout