 TIN
ARMOR – 4-song EP (WhoaOh Records)
Tin Armor’s A Better Place Than I
Have Been may have been the most neglected
CD of 2007, breaching the gap between pop/punk
and indie-rock with smart, earnest, reflective,
and utterly captivating tunes about the joys
and sorrows of entering your 20’s. The
addition of guitarist John Umland (brother of
lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Matt
Umland) adds a little extra texture and depth
to these four new tracks, a satisfying follow-up
to A Better Place’s consistent
excellence. “Hold Me Back,” a bitter
breakup song in which Umland tells his significant
other “you’re acting dumb as dirt
these days,” segues from a quiet anguished
verse to a galloping Jawbreakerish chorus. “The
Roof And The Rod” mixes poetic wordplay
with pensive vocals and features a truly lovely
bridge, while “The State of Things”
opens with an almost Feelies-esque riff, as
Umland looks into his heart to weigh the pros
and cons between settling for a day job and
a pay check or following his muse. Like Lemuria,
another standout band that falls somewhere between
punk and indie, Tin Armor confronts love and
life and let’s us watch as they try to
figure it all out. I suspect it’s going
to be one hell of a ride. – Jim Testa
 SUDDEN
DEATH – Fatal Error (www.suddendeath.org)
Sudden Death – aka Hamburg, NJ-based
comedy/rapper Tom Rockwell – is back with
another album of lo-fi old school beats and
laugh-out-loud lyrics about our modern over-technologized,
underperforming world. Pharmaceuticals, encroaching
middle age, horror flicks, and that awful new
flu bug that’s going around are just a
few of this targets. It helps to get all the
jokes if you’re well-versed in scifi and
computer-geek speak, especially when Rockwell
starts rapping about robots and RAM bytes. The
beats here may not make Timbaland lose any sleep,
but they keep the flow moving and give the album
enough musical depth that you’re likely
to listen to this more than once, unlike a lot
of comedy albums.
Sudden Death has been knocking around since
1990 but unless you’re a faithful listener
of Dr. Demento’s syndicated radio show
(where Rockwell is one of the most requested
acts in the 37-year history of the show,) you’ve
probably never heard of the guy. Well, listen
up, yo; this shit be funny.
 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.)
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