DON CABALLERO 11/27, LOUNGE AX Reports of this high-density band’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Perhaps it was roused from its short but much-boohooed slumber by the tedious din of all the god-awfully serious instrumental lurch-wank bands that seethed up in its absence. At any rate, this year’s What Burns Never Returns (Touch and Go) takes all the little boys by the hand and shows ’em how it’s done: move in fast and fearless, state your (instrumental) case with violent highs and inaudible lows, and get the fuck out.
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MARKY RAMONE & THE INTRUDERS 11/27, EMPTY Bottle This quartet, stripped to essentials even by Ramones standards, is led by drummer Marky Ramone (ne Marc Bell) and fronted by a Joey soundalike who goes by the name of “Skinny Bones.” The leather-jacket poses and song titles (“I Wants My Beer,” “Anxiety,” “Telephone Love”) on its eponymously titled album (from Thirsty Ear) don’t lie–the Intruders have that more or less classic sound down pat. But even direct bloodlines can’t make it seem special again.
NUMBER ONE CUP 12/3, Empty Bottle When Number One Cup guitarist and vocalist Seth Cohen broke his neck just after the band’s new People People Why Are We Fighting? (Flydaddy) came out in October, friends and acquaintances pitched in to make sure the band got its CD-release party anyway: in front of an elaborate boxing backdrop, each of a dozen local acts set forth an enthusiastic, if underrehearsed or overlubricated, cover of one of the album’s songs. In one way, it’ll almost be anticlimactic to hear the band play its own tunes; in another, it’ll be a relief–and not just for Cohen, who has been in an unwieldy brace for weeks. The album exhibits a nice inescapable density that many of the tributeers couldn’t put over–some cuts sound like they might’ve been recorded by Steve Albini in a freight elevator.
