CRICKET RUMOR MILL 7/21, HIDEOUT A lot of instrumental albums aim to conjure wide-open spaces, but this local trio’s second self-released CD, Molto, brings to my mind’s eye a cozy room full of recording equipment. The five glistening, melodic tracks, built from layers of percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards, and the occasional trumpet or chimes, unfold gently, carefully, and predictably in an aural equivalent of aromatherapy–sometimes refreshing or relaxing, but sometimes sickly sweet, like the dime-store version of the expensive stuff.
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ARRIVALS 7/22, METRO On their debut, Goodbye New World (Thick), these heroes of the local all-ages scene tear through a goodly chunk of the punk rock textbook: you got your puppy-love power pop, your verses underscored by rumbling one-note bass lines and your rousing anthemic choruses, your mean-killing-machine hardcore, your swaggering and staggering and sneering, your throat fulla snot. The Arrivals’ publicists boast that the band is “out to prove that contemporary punk has more than three chords,” but in fact there are three-chord progressions all over the place here, and some of ’em really get the blood pumping. But none sounds startlingly original. Maybe what the flacks really meant was that ripping off Naked Raygun is currently cooler than ripping off the Ramones. r LEO SIDRAN 7/22, HEARTLAND CAFE The son of jazz musician Ben Sidran, Leo Sidran was born with a silver pen in his hand. Normally I wouldn’t be impressed by the fact that Steve Miller recorded four of his songs in 1993–but Leo was only 15 at the time. So he’s a prodigy, and though he’s traveled the world with his dad, some of the sheltered preciousness of that life still clings to him. His latest record, L. Sid (GoPop), was inspired by a year he spent in Seville: he sings in both English and Spanish, and there’s a tiny bit of flamenco in the sound and the rhythm. But his self-conscious, literate, hothouse-flawless love-story pop, caught somewhere between cocktail smoothness and real sophistication, is lacking a bit in the duende department.
