Antichrist Superstar performed its intended purpose -- it made Marilyn Manson internationally famous, a living realization of his fictional "antichrist superstar." He had gained the attention of not only rock fans, but the public at large; however, many critics bestowed their praise not on the former Brian Warner, but on Trent Reznor, Manson's mentor and producer. Surely angered by the attention being focused elsewhere, he decided to break from Reznor and industrial metal with his third album, Mechanical Animals. Taking his image and musical cues from Bowie, Warner reworked Marilyn Manson into a sleek, androgynous space alien named Omega, à la Ziggy Stardust, and constructed a glammy variation of his trademark goth metal. With pal Billy Corgan as an unofficial consultant and Soundgarden producer Michael Beinhorn manning the boards, Manson turns Mechanical Animals into a big, clean rock record -- the kind that stands in direct opposition to the dark, twisted industrial nightmares he painted with his first two albums. It can make for a welcome change of pace, since his glammed-up goth is more tuneful than his clattering industrial cacophony, but it lacks the cartoonish menace that distinguished his prior music. And without that, Marilyn Manson seems a little ordinary, believe it or not -- more like a '90s version of Alice Cooper than ever before. True, Mechanical Animals is the group's most accessible effort, but Manson should have remembered one thing -- demons are never that scary in the light.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

NMA proved that they were well worth waiting for. Thunder and Consolation begins grandly, keeping the keyboards from "White Coats" on "I Love the World," an anthem filled with bittersweet irony and sarcasm. Self-produced, the album never falters, and the single "Stupid Questions" made an impression on American college and modern-rock radio, especially when working visas were granted to the band and they were allowed to tour the U.S. Violin was added by Ed Elain Johnson to further fill out the sound and give it an "Irish Folk" quality on epic songs "Green and Grey," and "Vagabonds." The band uses samples on "225" and "Green and Grey" to further enhance the flavor of the album.© Jason Smith /TiVo

Like its seven studio predecessors, the self-produced Eight is a gripping album that can seriously alter anyone's passive attitudes towards music -- so much so that the extra effort to obtain it seems ridiculous. Eight is a bit of a curve ball after Hopeless Causes and 1998's equally strident Strange Brotherhood, with edgy acoustics and slithering harmonica providing a confrontational temperament right from the staccato bang of the last notes of "Flying Through the Smoke." The shuffling "Someone Like Jesus" is so subdued and ominous, you can feel your heart race in worry like an intruder is in the house. "You Weren't There" is likewise irritated underneath its simple, sparse, repetitive vocal lines. And the LP's most noteworthy track, "Paekakariki," again demonstrates the band's trademark manipulation of multi-moods. One of the most beautiful songs Justin Sullivan has ever recorded, it's a provoking ballad, with a soaring chorus vocal and philosophical words, making special use of a supernatural delay on the a cappella vocal passage. Sweet! Sullivan also sprinkles in four post-punk slammers to keep the adrenaline flowing and to prove his new lineup can rock with any band going. The brisk "Orange Tree Roads" is an immediate stinger, thanks to a dramatic string bed and a drastic chorus. Likewise, "Stranger" and "R&R" are full of Sullivan's rapid-fire delivery, punishing, jagged guitar licks and spit-out lines. The closing "Wipeout" is another vigorous corker with timeless background vocals swelling as the band builds to the album's ultimate conclusion. Electric and loud or acoustic and meditative, we're left with the same: Sullivan's intelligence and humanity, his blend of fury and enthusiasm. Nearly 20 years since NMA's first gig, there is zero sign of fall-off. (P.O. Box 2168, Burnham On Crouch, Essex, CM0 8Qz, England)© Jack Rabid /TiVo

New Model Army albums are uncompromising and jagged. Full of expectancy and dynamics. Yet Strange Brotherhood never really gets off the ground and certainly never soars the way the band did on any of their prior recordings. Almost lacking in passion, the album sprawls with a dissipated energy, all the more surprising given the four years since The Love of Hopeless Causes. Violinist Ed Alleyne Johnson is noticed in his absence. The inclusion of strings and even a brass section never bring the spark necessary to ignite the album. There are moments of drama, angst, and passion. "Killing" threatens, the horns on "Gigabyte Wars" add a welcome flourish, and "What a Wonderful Way to Go" is the type of tune New Model Army is best suited to, a rocking heavy-handed passionate punk-folk stormer. Yet overall, the whole album is worthy yet never outstanding. The 12 songs blend all too easily, and the album passes by without leaving any lasting impression.© Michael M. Murphy /TiVo

Milestone studio LP number ten for Bradford, England's NMA is their best and most jarring since 1993's The Love of Hopeless Causes, and possibly 1986's blistering The Ghost of Cain. It's a seat-of-the-pants ride through punk-edged rock and cooling breather songs, taking all of Justin Sullivan's long experience and transmitting it into something so fierce but beautiful that it's often breathtaking. Whoever picked Chris Kimsey to produce was on the ball; High recalls the resounding hellfire of his Killing Joke work on 1984's Night Time and 1986's Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. (Think "Eighties" and "Love Like Blood") And these guitars and organs are like a Geordie hollow-body Gretsch attack! Three songs speak volumes for this corker. The British service in Iraq is on Sullivan's mind on the zenith, hellacious closer "Bloodsports." (Note, not Killing Joke's 1980 song "Bloodsport," though great minds think alike.) Yet he's too smart to jump on a soapbox and shout. Much more personally than he did on the directly critical (of the Thatcher administration) "Spirit of the Falklands" in 1984, he puts you into a scared soldier's spinning emotions. This expression of impending doom, fear, death, and pity -- while the rest of the world watches on TV -- is impossible to shake no matter your war views. (The celtic "No Mirror, No Shadow" also hints at back room politics/business surrounding such conflicts.) It's memorably driven by an icy Killing Joke-ish death-star keyboard, two burning guitars, and bruiser Michael Dean's inhuman pummeling on the drums. The opening single, "Wired," is likewise as simple a straight-kicking song as they've done since "Wonderful Way to Go," with Sullivan and new find Marshall Gill trading up-down riffs into one of the Sullivan's trademark soaring, monster choruses. And the rocked-up folk of "All Consuming Fire," with its Peter Hook wandering bassline, is full of tremendous trepidation and pathos. Three other cuts revisit Sullivan's solo masterpiece, 2003's "Navigating by the Stars"; the romantic, dark-night acoustic mediations of "Sky in Your Eyes," "Into the Wind," and "Dawn." And others are in the vein of 2005's Carnival, 2000's Eight, and 1998's Strange Brotherhood: midtempo tribal pop with philosophical pack-behavior explorations. All provide High balance and repertoire with equal passion. In the end, "Bloodsports" alone beats anyone else at present. Its the Who's Tommy-meets-the Clash's "Safe European Home" power is just colossal. But the whole LP is great. That High comes from someone doing it as long as Sullivan and mates have been has made and still makes them a classic band to follow -- then, now, and in the future. This cult band of cult bands is as effective and powerful as they've ever been in an unstoppable history.© Jack Rabid /TiVo

Some qualifying dates for History: The Best of New Model Army are important, because before signing to the EMI label in 1985, New Model Army released three 45s on the indie Quiet and Abstract labels. You'll have to hunt the Internet for those, but all the A-sides of their major-label singles are present and accounted for here. The set kicks off with their debut for EMI, the ferocious "No Rest," whose B-side, "Heroin," incidentally, brought the band an immediate ban. However, that didn't stop the Army from storming into the Top 30 regardless. Not that the triumphant triumvirate cared -- the year may have been 1985, but these Army members were still training from the dog-eared pages of the punk manual, and the occasional ban could only cement their street cred. And the Army had plenty of that, delivered up in their blistering live performances, their sarcastic lyrics (as "Brave New World" evidenced), and their strong political stance -- "51st State" has even more bite today than it did back in 1986. At the time, it was Thatcher's kissing up to Reagan that set the Army frothing, but she proved unstoppable, and perhaps realizing their inevitable defeat, the band marched off the battlefield and joined the "Vagabonds" flooding from the cities into the valleys of "Green and Grey." Yet, New Model Army were occasionally roused to rail again, as on the incendiary "Get Me Out," before begging for their home to return to the "Purity" of old, or at least a "Space" they could call their own. The original vinyl release of this set included a bonus 12" single, comprised of four previously unreleased songs/versions. Unfortunately, the CD reissue dispenses with two of them, adding new impetus to the New Model Army collectors' market. One wishes that a second disc bundling up the B-sides had been added as well, but that wasn't to be, either. Fans will have to settle for this: all the hits from Britain's most legendary post-punk punks.© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo

NMA proved that they were well worth waiting for. Thunder and Consolation begins grandly, keeping the keyboards from "White Coats" on "I Love the World," an anthem filled with bittersweet irony and sarcasm. Self-produced, the album never falters, and the single "Stupid Questions" made an impression on American college and modern-rock radio, especially when working visas were granted to the band and they were allowed to tour the U.S. Violin was added by Ed Elain Johnson to further fill out the sound and give it an "Irish Folk" quality on epic songs "Green and Grey," and "Vagabonds." The band uses samples on "225" and "Green and Grey" to further enhance the flavor of the album.© Jason Smith /TiVo

Changing bassists (adding Jason "Moose" Harris), but not the bass sound, NMA's next release, The Ghost of Cain, trades a little of its reverb for a MOR album which sold poorly in America. In Great Britan and Germany, however, the band realized a cult following. The sound was further expanded with the addition of Mark Feltham's harmonica on "Poison Street" and "Ballad." "Poison Steet" was released as a 12-inch dance remix and made a dent into that market. "Heroes," another song about the differences between generations is the highlight of the album.© Jason Smith /TiVo

Sacrificing the experimental post-punk doodling that worked so well within defined songs on the first LP Vengeance strangely enough works here for this incredible band that won't hear any malarkey about how bad second LPs are supposed to be. A more direct approach works wonders, rendering every song a possible single, every one a flaming, emotion-wracked foray into human thoughts, customs, and politics. And Slade the Leveler's got some unparalleled British lyrics for this kind of statement-oriented music and tremendous songwriting on side one. "There is no rest for the wicked ones," he sings, like a saddened preacher, a sentiment you see again on the terrific "Drag It Down," like a guy standing at the edge of a pointless fray wondering why human beings are always so stupid. But he's also capable of great empathy for the times in England as they are in the 2010s, when so many young people are struggling economically, as "Young, Gifted and Skint" makes clear. Don't miss "Grandmother's Footsteps" and "Ambition," too; you won't hear busier bass playing on a hotfoot U.K. post-punk rock record this year. The evidence here is that New Model Army are getting even better when you might have expected the usual decline, suggesting that Slade is an artist with great ideas you can't exhaust, and all three members have the talent to make it something other than regurgitation.© Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover /TiVo

Coming off his excellent 2022 album Time on Earth, which found the singer/songwriter in an especially reflective mood, Pete Astor celebrated his 40th year as a recording artist by gathering the same group of musicians, selecting songs from throughout his career, and recording them in a stripped-down and intimate fashion. Astor's band (Ian Button on drums, Neil Scott on guitar, Andy Lewis on bass, and Sean Read on keys and production) prove once again to have an almost telepathic way of backing him, which brings out added shadings to his songs and allows his plain-spoken, honest, and true vocals to cut extra deep. All the facets of Astor's long career are touched on, from the early jangle pop of the Loft and the swaggering indie rock of the Weather Prophets to his tender solo recordings from the '90s and his electronic work made under the name the Wisdom of Harry. Each one is shorn of jangle, grandeur, or electronic textures and delivered with restraint, mostly built around acoustic guitar with Scott's electric guitar swooping in with gentle tremolo and the rest of the group giving off very loose first-take vibes. It's quite similar to Yo La Tengo's Fakebook, only without the covers. Most of Astor's best-known songs are studiously avoided in favor of some of his hidden gems, though there's a lovely, laid-back version of "She Comes from the Rain," which was one of the Weather Prophets' best songs. The rest of the record may dig a little deeper, but the excavation is definitely worthwhile -- Astor sounds suitably invested in presenting these nuggets in a different way. His vocal on a song like "Emblem," where he imbues it with wisdom and emotion that exceed that of the original is proof that this album isn't just a musician marking time, he's seeking -- and finding -- new dimensions to old songs with the result being an album that's absolutely a treat for longtime fans of Astor's work and a great starting point for anyone who wants to get a basic idea of what he's all about.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

They sat on these 22 LP outtakes, demos, and live recordings of unknown songs all the past decade? Why!? OK, then, releasing a two-CD compendium with all the lyrics and leader Justin Sullivan's notes in the booklet is the right way to go. And, like their typically amazing 1994 import, B-Sides and Abandoned Tracks, Lost Songs is as much a must-have as their better, proper LPs. So far removed from some malnourished, cobbled-out-of-stray-dogs cash-in, each of these epics is fully realized and ponderous (all new save for a reworked, savory remix of Strange Brotherhood's "Over the Wire" and "Song to the Men of England"). They're as full as ever of Sullivan's hyper-intelligent, no-bullsh*t, profoundly human observations and post-punk, tuneful gifts. The whole buzz underneath the fabulous chugger "Southwest" (a rare B-side from "Wonderful Way to Go"), with its cogent chorus hook of, "I'd drown your violence in a sea of blood!," is the sort of amazingly powerful stuff Sullivan seems to have coming out of pockets in his jacket! And no two songs are cut from the same mold, yet it always sounds so recognizable. Witness the instant classic "Far Better Thing," bizarrely left off 1990's Impurity, when any other band would have made it their emphasis single! Or the, ominous, bare "Rainy Night 65." Or the live jump of "BD7." If you've not already bought a copy of 2000's Eight, 1998's Strange Brotherhood, or 1993's The Love of Hopeless Causes, you're better off starting there (if not the first three hot LPs, 1984-1986). But really, you could start with just about anything with NMA's name on it. And fan-considering collections such as this are an assist.© Jack Rabid /TiVo

Any day that brings a new NMA album "is a good day." Not only because Justin Sullivan's Bradford, England band has released only 11 proper albums in 29 years (four '80s, three '90s, four 2000s), but because his/their quality control is so ludicrously high. Since 1983's debut "Bittersweet" single, every disc has merited deep appreciation. Never pinned down song to song, let alone album to album or decade to decade, they explore a cornucopia of historic rock influence, yet their albums don't feel like shuffle play. Indeed, wiry, taut, post-punk juggernauts full of slow-burning intensity such as "States Radio," "Arm Yourselves and Run," "Disappeared," and "Bad Harvest" rumble astride darkly beautiful, poignant mood-folk, such as the rollicking "Autumn," bluesy "God Save Me," somber closing "North Star," and Sullivan's 2003 solo Navigating by the Stars masterpiece, "Ocean Rising." Meanwhile, Sullivan spills his philosophical, intelligent veins in a way rarely experienced. Like 2007’s sensational High, Today is extraordinary -- again.© Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover /TiVo

Anyone who's seen New Model Army live knows the fierce conviction of their studio work is not only matched but often surpassed on stages. And finally, 18 years in, comes this ultimate document. The double-CD ...& Nobody Else blows their previous live album (1991's Raw Melody Men) out of water like a whale slurps plankton. You can't help but notice the immediate excitement in this flawless recording, so faithful you can all but see the banks of speakers, amps, and drums, an overhanging balcony, and the cheering, occasionally singing crowd. The set choices also reflect a classic band that's nevertheless in its most interesting, inspired period. They're even more remarkable now, having opened up their style so much on The Love of Hopeless Causes and Strange Brotherhood. Both these records are favored over oldies during this two-hour expedition, with spice added from the carefully chosen, often risk-taking older material. You also notice the amazing pacing this group has. Most bands couldn't last two hours and 26 songs over two sets without wearing, but NMA continually change tacks. They typically raise the atmosphere to a fever pitch, only to soothe the worried soul with soul-searching ballads. Through it all, ace songwriter Justin Sullivan sings like a man who's out to change your life, not just entertain you -- a tour de force of conviction that never wavers over such a long duration. And the rest of the band remains a fervent yet supple machine.The sad thing about this release is that NMA's following is mostly in Continental Europe, where this Strange Brotherhood tour was recorded. But those fans the band made from its frequent U.S. tours '85-'94 must have this -- and anyone else who cares about frickin' modern rock in an alive context, too!© Jack Rabid /TiVo