"Only place I know" is the first single off Svedberg & The Hillside Stranglers' upcoming album "City serenade", due out March 28 via . The vocals don't do much for me, but I dig the band and the arrangement. RIYL Boy Omega, Isolation Years.
Galaxy SafariGalaxy Safari's latest ups the yeeaaah quotient and sands off all the rough edges to give you a polished arena-rock turd. I thought their last album was pretty decent despite a few missteps; this one is almost nothing but once you get past the first couple tunes. Hard to believe at this point that some of these dudes used to be in legit hardcore acts, but I guess we just have different ideas about what it means to grow old gracefully. As for me, I'm just stoked that in a few weeks I'll be spending my 33rd birthday recording 4-track demo tunes with my punk band in someone's basement. Likewise, I'm also stoked that I never have to listen to this ever again.
- Avi Roig
Galaxy SafariThe type of music that Sweden's Galaxy Safari play can often fall into the abyss of boredom that only a handful of bands have successfully managed to escape. Big players like Queens Of The Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Unida and, to a lesser extent, Liberty 37 and Galactic Cowboys are all referenced here in one way or another and show that Galaxy Safari are adept at mimicking their outer influences and stamping their own initials on the outcome. However, an essential aspect that's quite often lost on a great number of bands attempting to follow this path is the concept of tempo variation and this is also a problem on "Star of the masquerade". The vast majority of songs on here follow the mid-upbeat tempo characteristic of this genre and it unfortunately detracts from an otherwise pleasing album. It's not so much that the album isn't enjoyable, rather it loses its potential impact by failing to address the need for variation in this area. Sure, tracks like opener "Save me" and "Far too long" kick the speed up a tad, but that's not exactly what it's about. It's about more divergence within the songs and without it we have an album that is disappointingly generic in feel and quickly tiring. It also, however, shows a band with the potential to pull a great recording out of the bag if they knuckle down and take some time to be creative instead of going for the quick fix.
- John Norby
