 HUNCHBACK
- Pray For Scars (Don Giovanni Records)
One of the most popular of the new generation
of New Brunswick underground bands, Hunchback's
demented caterwauling (is "meth-rock"
a genre?) has been inciting moshpit acrobatics
in basements and clubs all over the area for
a while now. Songs like "The Bells, Bells"
(an utterly insane 8 1/2 minute noise rock freakout,
Edgar Allan Poe on LSD meets the Unsane in Ed
Gein's basement,) "Pray For Scars,"
and "Bad Houses" recall the days when
bands like Born Against and Rorshach were ripping
up the Lower East Side with screaming vocals
and clobbering riffs. What came as a pleasant
but unexpected surprise to me were the change-of-pace
songs like "Inside Out" (with drummer
Miranda invoking Patti Smith's grooving post-punk
trance-rock,) the grungy acoustic jangle of
"The Ugliest Angel," or the spooky
spine-tingling cover of Christina Aguilera's
"Beautiful," with Michael Gerald of
noise-rock pioneers Killdozer on vocals. (Talk
about passing the torch!) Pray For Scars is
the perfect soundtrack the next time you need
to break a lease or drive your parents insane.
Play LOUD. – Jim Testa
 JULIE
OCEAN - Long Gone & Nearly There (Transit
Of Venus)
Fans of good old American power-pop
will embrace this Washington, DC combo's debut
full-length, a cornucopia of jangly guitars,
giddy backup vocals, and big happy hooks. Singer/guitarists
Jim Spellman and Terry Banks spent time in shoegaze-popsters
Velocity Girl and twee-pop innovators Glo-Worm
respectively, while the rest of the band hails
from the artsy wing of D.C. post-hardcore scene
(Swiz, Severin, Sweetbelly Freakdown, Glo-Worm.)
Given those indier-than-thou roots, you'd expect
the band's surfy sugarcoated pop tunes to be
delivered with at least a hint of affectation
or ironic distance; but if it's there, I'm not
hearing it. There's a bit of Beatles pastiche
to be sure, and bubblegum backup vocals that
recall the Weezer of "Buddy Holly"
or mid-Nineties era Superdrag; "#1 Song"
has the anthemic shoulda-been-a-monster-hit
vibe of classic Raspberries. But there's no
jive, no fooling around, no "look at me"
guitar solos or monster drums clogging up the
bandwidth - just catchy, clever, extremely hummable
power-pop, coming from four guys who have all
been through the indie rock wringer, and come
out the other side happily sounding like kids
again. (Long Gone & Nearly There
will be released on May 13; catch a sample at
myspace.com/julieoceandc.)
 MISS
TK & THE REVENGE - "No Biters"
EP (myspace.com/misstk) This Asbury Park retro-pop
act certainly comes with a pedigree: Miss TK
- aka Tannis Kristanjson - played in the post-punk
NJ group Zero Zero with her husband Ari Katz,
who just happened to sing in a little band called
Lifetime once upon a time (and now plays drums
for The Revenge.) With vampy sex kitten vocals,
fizzy New-Wave synths, and burlesque bump-da-bump
drums, these four songs fall somewhere in between
the deadpan chic of the Waitresses, the campy
Casio-pop of Helen Love, Blondie's disco moments,
and the flouncy new-wave groove of the Bangles.
The title track really plays up the band's kitschy
80's fixation, while "Nano Bot Rock"
and "Nano You Don't" have more of
a modern dance groove. You can already hear
Miss TK & The Revenge in a racy TV commercial
that features a lot of bumping and grinding:
Today, Clearasil; tomorrow, the world? It's
about time someone from Jersey did something
to bring sexy back. Miss TK might even make
punk a threat again.
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