Track Listing: Judas Iscariot, Two Trains Comin’, The Devil His Due, Sin Eater, When The Circus Comes To Town, Automatic Jack, St. James Infirmary Blues, Be There Tonight, I’ll Take The Bottle, Baron Samedi, Up Jumped The Devil, It’s All In The Same Nightmare.

Former front man of Sister Machine Gun, Chris Randall, gives us his first solo album in The Devil His Due and it sounds nothing like his old band’s work. Randall finds a much more blues oriented voice on this album and while his website points out the “obvious homage to the alternative blues of Nick Cave and Tom Waits,” those are big shoes he struggles to fill.

As a whole, the album plays well. Tracks flow together and there is a definite cohesion to it, but Randall ultimately fails to make this a great album and simply stops at good. The instrumentation is stripped down and gritty at times, but I but the listener is left waiting for a payoff with some vocal swagger and that never comes. Perhaps his next album will find him more settled into his new voice and ready to really knock us dead.

For more information, check out the Sister Machine Gun website or Chris Randall’s MySpace page.

Track Listing: Pie, Ignorance, Heathen, Lies, Fall Apart, W3, Part, Break, Deadly Sally, Wtf, Axe, Billions for the War, Fooled.

Those looking for a little pre-packaged rebellion Marilyn Manson style will feel very much at home with Austin, Texas band, Lucid Dementia. Their catchy tunes make the album listenable, but the real attraction is female vocalist Holly. The songs she takes lead on like “Ignorance” stand out more than the now cliché vocal patterns and voice filters employed by front man Sheldon that are a pretty clear throwback to early Nine Inch Nails. Repetitive vocal phrases like “ignorance is the root of all hatred” help the songs stay with you, but also come off as a bit preachy from a band that spends so much time talking about all the reasons they seem to hate, well... everyone.

Overall, this is a great listen for angry teens drenched in angst and looking for something to be angry along side of. The Marilyn Manson type theatrics and catchy beats will keep the nostalgic teen that never grew up in you feeling right at home.

For more information, check out the Lucid Dementia website or their MySpace page.

Track Listing: Stinging the Robots, Evolutionary Culdesac, Falsely Distrurbed, Infancy of Human Reason, The Art of Chaos, Money is God, Monsters in the Black House, No Worries in the Urn, Police in the Kitchen, Slaves for the Billionaires.

Robert Ziino characterizes himself as an experimental musician – not experimental like those other guys might characterize it, but really experimental. His music focuses on analog synth patterns that have a very lo-fi flavour to them and generally form dissonant patterns that do not carry a cohesive tune. A drum machine on most tracks is the only thing that gives these tracks any semblance of structure. While the CD is listenable and interesting at times, it lacks the finesse of more seasoned artists like The Residents and can become a bit distracted at times.

For more information, check out The Experimental Artists website.

Track Listing: Theme for “The Rage”, Injecting the Formula, In the Forest Deep, Dr. V’s Lab, Feeding Time, Don’t Go In There, Uncle Ben Montage, Crash Aftermath, Uncle Ben Under the Winnebago, The Waterfall, Birds of Prey, Meet Dr. V, Kiss the Monkey, Dr V’s Theme, Surrounded, Breakthrough, Showdown in the Lab, Gor, Final Confrontation with Dr V.

I’ve never been the type of person to rifle through a CD collection and pull out a movie soundtrack saying, “I wanna listen to this!” With that in mind, I put this into my CD-ROM drive with caution. Midnight Syndicate does an excellent job of capturing the most eerie and sinister sounding aspects of string instruments without going over the top. While this wouldn’t hold a top position in my CD collection, I would definitely like to recognize it as a well orchestrated and composed body of work. Edward Douglas, who composed the score for these tracks, shows that he clearly understands what a good horror movie should sound like.

For more information, check out The Midnight Syndicate website or their Myspace page.

Track Listing: 24 FPS, This Winter, Chiaroscuro, Necromance, Papillon, Memento Mori, The Reformation, Cardiac Thanatosis, Dust, The Grand Imperial Cirque De L’Enfer, The Wicked One.

Imagine Rogue from Crüxshadows singing a bunch of Voltaire songs and you’d get a pretty good idea what this album sounds like. There are strong rock and roll elements involved, but a liberal helping of Vaudville as well. The guitars often verge on glam and are very upfront in the mix.

For more information, check out À Rebours website.

Track Listing: Love is Dead, Walking on Air, She’s In Parties.

Kerli’s female pop style will appeal to those looking for more of the same. The Island records recording artist mixes one part Amy Winehouse, one part Beyonce, two parts standard pop and rock influence. There’s nothing new here, but she does it pretty well. The cover of Bauhaus’ “She’s In Parties” was unexpected and seems a bit out of place, but there’s not much room for error on a 3 song sampler disc. Her full length debut is scheduled for release July 8.

For more information, check out Kerli’s Myspace page.