JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #621.261!

Pushking – The World As We Love It: A Rock And Roll Journey (Armoury) :: Y’know, I gotta be honest with ya when I tell ya that at first listen I didn’t have the faintest idea what this was supposed to be until heard between the lines and subsequently sussed out that these here Pushkings are a long-time Russkie rock band who decided to celebrate their comrade accomplishments by getting a buncha bona fide rock stars to help them re-record their songs—which wouldn’t be no big deal except for the fact that they actually did manage to recruit an all-star roster that includes the likes of Alice Cooper, Paul Stanley, Billy Gibbons, Glenn Hughes, Steve Vai, Steve Stevens, and Dan McCafferty, amongst others. The end result sounds like nothing less than some kinda inadvertent over-wrought progressive rock album the likes of which puts lesser wheezes to shame.

Zodiac Mindwarp And The Love Reaction – Tattooed Beat Messiah (Mercury) :: These days he’s probably known only for co-writing Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein” on Alice Cooper’s 1991 album Hey Stoopid, but this long player from three years earlier shows you in part why Zodiac Mindwarp got that gig. Imagine if you will—if you can—a seriously unhinged hybrid between the booze-bathed shamanism of Jim Morrison; the hook-laden pop of Marc Bolan; the sex-obsessed lyrics of Ted Nugent; the guitar-powered rock of Van Halen; plus the sleaze-sodden style of Lemmy Kilmister, and you might have an idea of what Tattooed Beat Messiah sounds like. If not, then perhaps song titles like “Skull Spark Joker” and “Spasm Gang” and “Holy Gasoline” will do the trick ’cause Zodiac makes Zombie sound like Zsa Zsa.

Stratovarius – Elysium (Armoury) :: Hey, you can trust me when I tell you that nothing says prog rock better this year than the eighteen minute title track that concludes this aurally adventurous album from Finland. From archetypal soaring vocals to prototypical dexterous guitars and synths, this one’s got pretty much everything that you’d want to hear, y’hear?

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Obscura – Omnivium (Relapse) :: This album is your absolute worst nightmare come true—and I mean that in nicest possible way. The ominous Giger’s Alien meets Lovecraft’s Cthulhu front cover and attached booklet just reek of high production values, from the multiple foldouts to the enameled spot printing on every page. In fact, it’s such a much welcomed dose of visual relief in this day and age of aesthetic bankruptcy that artist and designer Orion Landau deserves to win a slew of awards for his work, which looks like nothing less than Roger Dean on a very bad trip. As for the music, it’s a technically adept blend of growling progressive death metal speed thrash that takes the Metallica template best exemplified on Master Of Puppets and then exponentially ups the ante by injecting itself into a radically hyper-proficient realm that’s actually sonically intimidating.

Be seeing you!