SOUND BITES

Everyone knows Sloan for their twenty-plus years of cranking out groovy, sometimes sugary doses of nostalgic pop/rock. However, they're well documented lovers of early 80's hardcore as well. Their 2006 album Never Hear The End Of It had the peppy, 72 second HFXNSHC (or, Halifax Nova Scotia Hardcore) hidden at the 24-spot of the sprawling album's 30 tracks. It sped by practically unnoticed on the album, but it now proves to be a formidable harbinger.

If the celebration of Tool's Undertow taught us anything a couple weeks back, it's that the early 90's saw some unexpected smash hits. Perhaps none were more unexpected than that of Pork Soda , Primus' third and (in a landslide) most popular album. Take a moment and attempt to process the fact that Pork Soda was certified platinum. It sold a million copies. Really, though, think about it. How did this happen? How did their frenetic, impossible basslines and gonzo subject matter become so acceptable that a million people bought this record? Make no mistake, Pork Soda is a great album (otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it); it just still kind of baffles me that it caught on with so many listeners, even in a time when listeners were seemingly desperate to colour their musical palettes outside the lines of mainstream acceptance. When you listen to it twenty years later, nothing screams "hit song", not even Mr. Krinkle with its immediately recogniz...

This Saturday is a pretty huge day for a lot of people. Stoners are always stoked for April 20th, as it's pretty much their designated day to blaze. As it happens, this Saturday is also the 20th anniversary of kind of a landmark album that's been enjoyed equally by partakers of the herb and chronic-less music lovers alike. We'll commemorate that album in three days, but today I want to talk about Saturday's main event.

Today, they're known as one of rock's most transcendent bands, one of the very few whose new albums are still events; notoriously methodical and perpetual procrastinators when it comes to the creation their albums, fans have been rabidly anticipating new music from Tool for the better part of the seven years or so since 10,000 Days . But, as often as they've opened our third eyes and given us Holy Gifts, Tool started as inconspicuously as any other early-90's band, building up a small but loyal following around L.A. before eventually catching the ear of labels, signing with Zoo Entertainment and putting out the modest, scrappy EP Opiate in '92. If Opiate served as an introduction, Undertow served as a true arrival. The ragged, loose performances from the EP tightened up, refrains became actual hooks, and Maynard... well, Maynard James Keenan morphed from a singer into an icon. His vocal performances on Undertow help the songs hit that unheard-of, ethereal lev...

Soul Coughing were one of my favourite bands from the 90's; a wacky, oddball, groove-driven marriage of demented spoken word and bombastic free jazz rock, they released three solid slabs of music from 1994 to 1998 before a messy breakup in 2000. Bickering over songwriting credits tore this band apart but good. Mike Doughty, the band's main songwriter of Soul Coughing, traditionally doesn't like people talking about his old band (whose often improvised grooves became the backbone of many a Soul Coughing classic). He's often shown total and utter disdain for his former band in interviews, and has even tweeted urging Soul Coughing fans to give up on it, that he was finished with that band. He was particularly unfriendly in a memoir released last year. A sample: "If someone says they love Soul Coughing, I hear fuck you . Somebody yells out for a Soul Coughing song during a show, it means fuck you ." So, either Doughty's softened his stance, or he'...

Well, here's an odd pair. Stone Sour wraps up their double album House Of Gold & Bones with the release of Part 2 next week. Stream it in its entirety at the band's official website . While overall a little slower and mellower than the first installment, House Of Gold & Bones Part 2 is far darker and furious; it's a nice balance, and it makes for a consistently entertaining listen. House Of Gold & Bones Part 2 is out April 9 on Roadrunner. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, meanwhile, return about four years removed from the polarizing dance-rock of It's Blitz with Mosquito , an album which has to have the worst cover of the year. It just has to. The music on Mosquito won't convert you if you're not on board, and it doesn't measure up to Fever To Tell (hint: nothing they do ever will). But, it's interesting enough, it dials back the synths and dance beats somewhat, and it's presented in a neat video with the band talking it up between tra...