It’s impossible to read something about Rein Sanction without seeing a reference to Dinosaur Jr. So let’s get that out of the way. Yes, the overdriven guitars of Mark Gentry do sound like those of J Mascis. But the comparison really ends there. The music of Rein Sanction is much darker and menacing than anything Mascis created. Where Dinosaur Jr. was essentially a pop band putting forth its songs with monster riffs and Neil Young-inspired wankery (and I mean that as a compliment), Rein Sanction is tapping into the blues in a way, conveying torment through the twisted wail of Gentry’s guitar.

The band’s sophomore effort, Broc’s Cabin, was the first time most heard its music. It’s a short blast of 10 songs in less than 30 minutes, the Florida trio blasting through the tracks as if being chased. The opening one-two shot of “F Train” and “Deep Ellis” is an aural assault, yet undeniably catchy. Gentry’s wailing guitar is the focus — he sings, too, but you’re hard-pressed to figure out what he’s saying, the lyrics essentially acting as a second melody — while his brother, Brannon, on drums, and bassist Ian Chase, drive things forward with a low rumble.

Things vary a bit tempo-wise from there, slowing some with “Creel,” before starting the climb back toward a faster pace on “Limestone.” For the rest of the disc, the songs may differ in terms of their speed, but there is little dynamic shift and no real change in terms of the focus on Gentry’s guitar. That’s fine; the band knows what works and seems loathe to mess with the formula.

While the Dinosaur Jr. comparison comes most easily, it is another SubPop band that perhaps most haunts the proceedings. Broc’s Cabin was released about six months before Nirvana’s Nevermind. It’s reading too much into things, of course, but the cover of this album, from a distance, is like a negative of Nirvana’s Bleach, the black bars replaced by white, the image in the middle a dense blackness replacing the vivid, reversed image at the heart of Bleach‘s cover. Here was another powerful trio whose sound centered on a retiring frontman who compensated with guitar squall. Of course, the flannel-clad revolution that seemed to drag along every other band with loud guitars left Rein Sanction behind. The band issued one more disc, the more accomplished but less-exciting Mariposa, just a year later, then seemed to fade away.

The great thing about these Out of the Shadows write-ups, however, is rediscovery. Rein Sanction still exists, it seems. It issued a limited edition single in 2006, and has a 1996 album, an unreleased 1999 EP and other songs available for purchase on its MySpace page. Gentry has also recorded some solo material. The music sounds a bit more mellow these days, understandable given the 15 years that have passed since Mariposa. Yet whatever it was that drove the band in the first place can still be detected. It’s good to have them back.

MP3: F Train
MP3: Creel

Perhaps it’s a sign that I was old before my time, but I’ve always preferred this duo record from dBs Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey to either of the band’s albums they recorded while Stamey was still in the group. Mavericks is admittedly a smoother, more adult-contemporary affair, but that’s more appealing to me than the cold, brittle sound that the dBs favored on Stands for Decibels and Repercussion.

Not that either is a bad album; far from it. But when I feel like hearing these two, this is the disc I usually grab. Perhaps it’s the lack of challenge that hooks me. All that’s missing is a front porch or a campfire, as these two old bandmates and friends simply swap songs with a whole host of other friends creating a warm, inviting album.

Things start off strong with the catchiest song on the album. “Angels” is a slice of pure pop heaven, no pun intended, as Holsapple takes the lead and Stamey offers sweet harmonies. It sets the tone, at least vocally, for the rest of the album, which plays on the strength of these two voices in a way the dBs rarely did.

They alternate back and forth throughout the course of the album, with Holsapple singing lead on a couple and Stamey taking the next pair of songs. Stamey sings the lone cover, a haunting version of Gene Clark’s Byrds classic “Here Without You.” He also offers the more rocking tunes on the disc, with “I Want to Break Your Heart” and “Lover’s Rock,” while Holsapple’s songs are the more accessible. Things close with one of the strongest cuts, Stamey’s “Haven’t Got the Right (To Treat Me Wrong),” which, according to the liner notes, was the first song recorded for the project, and which features the fantastic guitar work of Dave Schramm.

Both of these guys have been responsible for some great music, together and apart. I’d argue that Mavericks deserves a spot toward the top of that impressive list.

MP3: Angels
MP3: Haven’t Got the Right

I had no idea that Bill Fox was such an enigma. I first came across Fox when I read a review of his solo debut disc, Shelter From the Smoke, in some magazine. I’ve no recollection of precisely how it was described, but I knew it’s mix of smart pop hooks, garage-fidelity vibe and folk instrumentation would appeal to me. This was 1998, the time before you could just hop on the Internet and order whatever you wanted in a few clicks. The local store didn’t stock the disc, so I kept a lookout for it. Instead, I came across Transit Byzantium, his second solo disc, also issued in 1998. I bought it and liked it a great deal. I later tracked down Shelter From the Smoke, and liked it as well. I kept my eyes open for a follow-up, but it never came.

A few years later, I learned that Scat Records (home to my beloved Guided by Voices first widely distributed disc, Vampire on Titus) was going to reissue the recorded output of Fox’s 1980s band, the Mice. I pulled my reviewer strings and got a promo copy of the disc, For Almost Ever Scooter (which collects the For Almost Ever EP and Scooter LP), which I’ve played a lot since it’s release in 2004. At that time, Scat’s press materials reported that “Bill stopped writing and performing music a few years ago, but has plans to start back up again relatively soon.”

Then I picked up the recent music issue of The Believer, which features an interesting article about Fox. The author fell in love with his music, but couldn’t find anything out about the musician. He contacted former bandmates (including Fox’s brother, Tommy, who drummed for the Mice) and other acquaintances, but the closest he got to Fox was to learn that he was working in Cleveland as a telemarketer and had completely given up music. There are other fairly fascinating details about Fox’s life in the piece, but because Fox made it clear through intermediaries that he didn’t want his life on display on the Internet for all to see, I’ll let you track down the magazine if you care to know (The Believer isn’t making the story available on its web site for the same reason).

It’s a shame that Fox has soured on music, because he’s awfully good at it. On his two solo discs, he offers a total of 36 songs, and nearly all of them are keepers. He evolved from the snotty pop-leaning punk of the Mice to offer a sophisticated sound that is clearly influenced by Bob Dylan (the inside of the CD insert of Transit Byzantium is dominated by a photo of a ticket stub to a 1998 Dylan show) but which features stronger, more immediate pop hooks than can be found in Dylan’s work. Most if not all of this was recorded on a four track, and nearly every sound is played by Fox. Much like Guided by Voices (whose Robert Pollard is reported in the Believer article to be a fan), Fox figured out how to use the four track as almost another instrument, creating dense-sounding songs that stay on the right side of the line between cozy and claustrophobic.

Not all of the tunes are obvious pop songs, though my favorites on the disc are. “I’ll Give It Away” and “Lay You Down” are among the best, each with a great rhythm and solid hooks. He leans a bit more toward the folk end of his sound on some of the songs on this disc as compared with Shelter From the Smoke, but this never devolves into corny campfire singalongs. This is folk in spirit more than sound, the songs so well crafted as to feel like public domain wonders rather than 10-year-old pop tunes recorded in the basement on weekends by a 9-to-5er.

Perhaps Fox really is planning to start playing and performing again, as Scat reported three years ago. If so, that’s great news. If not, at least we have these 36 songs (and the 16 on the Mice reissue) to enjoy.

MP3: I’ll Give It Away
MP3: Lay You Down

Acetone is one in the long line of bands whose reach seemed to be coming into line with their grasp when things came to an end. Sometimes it’s a car crash, sometimes it’s an overdose and sometimes it’s suicide. In the case of Acetone, it’s the last one, the band’s career cut short when bassist and singer Richie Lee took his life in 2001.

That’s a real shame, because Lee’s band had really hit its stride the year before. The band stumbled around for a few years after forming, experimenting with ways to find its own voice amid a wash of top-notch influences, including the Velvet Underground, the Flying Burrito Brothers and various and sundry psychedelic and surf sounds. Things gelled on the 1994 EP I Guess I Would, and then really came together on what would be the band’s last album, York Blvd.

On it, the trio, which includes guitarist Mark Lightcap and drummer Steve Hadley, seemed to nicely synthesize all of those sounds into a cohesive, original whole. Mixing the laid-back vibe of California cosmic music with the phased psychedelia of the Velvet Underground and the rich harmonies of the Beach Boys, the band was able to effect a disinterested cool that was surprisingly sophisticated in its structure. Songs like “Wonderful World” and “Like I Told You” had solid hooks and were among the most propulsive things the band had done, while slower tracks like “Things Are Gonna Be Alright” simply swaggered along with a studied nonchalance.

The band was earning notice with the disc, but this clearly wasn’t what Lee wanted or needed. Things stopped completely with his death, and the band has quietly slipped off the radar. But there are signs and Hadley and Lightcap are ready to revisit the past. There is now an Acetone MySpace site, and the pair have posted some rarities, as well as some Lightcap solo work, on the page. That’s great news, because while Lee will be missed, Lightcap-led songs like “Things Are Gonna Be Alright” and “Like I Told You” were clear standouts on York Blvd., and it’s clear he has something worth sharing.

It’s easy for bands with a lower profile like this to completely fade away after they stop recording and performing. But in the case of Acetone, that would be a true loss.

MP3: Wonderful World
MP3: Like I Told You

I bought Kate Jacobs‘ debut disc years ago not because of anything I’d heard about her, as I recall, but because Dave Schramm played all of the guitars and produced the disc. At the time, I was a nut for Schramm’s music. In addition to his own group, the Schramms, he’d also been an early member of Yo La Tengo (those great leads on Ride the Tiger are mostly his, not Ira’s) and played with Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey on their tour in support of the duo record, Mavericks.

So, when I saw that he was involved with this disc — and saw that it was on Bar/None, which at least at the time was a trademark of quality — I picked it up. And while I still appreciate Schramm’s tasteful guitar and production here, it is Jacobs’ songs that keeps me coming back.

Jacobs, who now has four CDs to her name spread over the past 14 years, has a sweet, almost girlish voice, and her songs contain a similar sweetness that is leavened by Schramm’s slightly darker guitar work. It’s a sound that is deceptive. Though you might think at first that it is slight, the depth of Jacobs’ writing and the emotion with which she conveys it give these songs some bite. Consider her a more earthy Mary Chapin-Carpenter, a less-ragged Lucinda Williams or a considerably less twangy Iris DeMent.

Things start quickly with the title track, Schramm’s guitar setting the tone and Jacobs following right behind with one of the best melodies on the disc. With clever wordplay she depicts a bad relationship and averrs that the calm comes after, not before. “Deep Talk” is another satisfying blend of Schramm’s tasteful playing and Jacobs’ wily ways with a melody. Over the course of a generous 15 tracks, things don’t change much stylistically, but there is a uniform quality to these tunes that makes the whole disc a compelling, warm listen.

For some reason I never ventured beyond this disc in Jacobs’ catalog. Revisiting The Calm Comes After and finding it as good as ever, however, makes me want to further investigate. All of Jacobs’ discs have earned rave reviews, including her most recent, 2004′s You Call That Dark, which again featured guitar and production from Schramm.

MP3: The Calm Comes After
MP3: One Good Night

I’ve been on a bit of a Nick Lowe kick lately thanks to the release of his great new disc, At My Age (more on that coming soon, I’m sure). That led me to seek out live recordings, which led to the discover of a great 1982 show co-headlined by Lowe and Paul Carrack. The two lead a band of frequent collaborators, trading off lead vocals as each highlights songs from their respective recent albums. While I’m convinced Lowe is one of the most under-appreciated singer-songwriters of the past 30 years, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Carrack stand toe-to-toe with the Jesus of Cool.

That, finally getting to the point, let me to pull out my old copy of Carrack’s solo disc, Suburban Voodoo. Though it was just the second disc under his name, he was no newcomer. He fronted the pub rock band Ace, penning and singing one of the few hits from that movement, “How Long.” He later joined Squeeze, offering lead vocals on that group’s biggest hit, “Tempted.” I didn’t know until doing a little research for this post that he also did time in Roxy Music.

I’m not sure how that last little bit fits into his career, but everything else is of a piece. Carrack is the quintessential pub rocker, his music a smart mix of vintage rock and soul with a little country flavoring in spots. He has found the most success when he or those he works with have used his pipes to full effectiveness, harnessing his soulful croon in the pursuit of organic pop bliss. He falters when things get too slick and syrupy. No worry here with Lowe in the producer’s chair — they don’t call him Basher for nothing. He keeps things lean and mean on Suburban Voodoo, creating a slightly more radio-friendly, R’n'B flavored version of the kinds of albums he himself was releasing at the time (Labour of Lust, The Abominable Showman) that leans heavily on the standard guitar-bass-drums-keyboards setup.

Carrack contributes a few compositions to the album, as does Lowe, while his old bosses in Squeeze, Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook, penned the very Squeeze-sounding “Out of Touch.” At its best the disc captures a perfect blend between Carrack’s sweet vocals and his band’s pub-ready groove. “Lesson in Love” and “I’m in Love” are both winners (not to be confused with the closer “I Found Love”), while “I Need You” was a deserved Top 40 hit that approximated the tempo and feel of Squeeze’s “Tempted.”

The singer went on to see his greatest success with the supergroup of sorts Mike + the Mechanics led by Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford. The group’s first hit, “Silent Running,” is really the only among its radio tracks that bears listening two decades later, Carrack’s impassioned vocal able to overcome the dated electronic instrumentation. He continues to release solo albums, though he does so with limited success (stateside anyway). He has a self-released greatest hits disc where track 7 of 20 is the last big hit he had here, Mike +the Mechanics’ “Living Years,” so somebody must still be buying his records (or he’s very loosely adhering to the definition of a hit).

If I had unlimited resources, I’d try to pull a Rick Rubin/Joe Henry sort of thing and put Carrack back in the studio with the Suburban Voodoo band (or any pub rock/Rockpile-related combo), a batch of great songs from folks like Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Elvis Costello and Carrack himself, and see what we could do. The guy has always seemed on the cusp of doing something great, and until my lottery number comes up, Suburban Voodoo is likely to be the closest he’ll get.

MP3: I Need You
MP3: I’m In Love

Much as was the case with the Byrds tribute Time Between written up the last time out, The Bridge was a disc purchased not because I was into the artist being feted, but because I really liked a few of the bands paying tribute. In this case, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and, most importantly, Soul Asylum contributed tracks. Only later would I value the disc for the fact that it offered alternate looks at songs by someone who had become a hero of mine: Neil Young.

The disc, issued in 1989 like Time Between, had a more altruistic goal than its brethren in the tribute CD racks. Proceeds from the disc went to support the Bridge School, which, according to its web site, is “an educational program dedicated to ensuring that children with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities through the use of augmentative & alternative means of communication and assistive technology applications.” Young holds an annual benefit concert to raise money for the school, and this disc, released just three years after Young started that series of shows, piggybacked on the name and idea.

Of course, the name of the disc also is a not-so-subtle reference to the bridge between Young and the younger artists who contributed tracks. There is a clear line between most of the acts here and Young’s work, from the guitar squall of Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. to the naked melancholy of Nick Cave and early Flaming Lips.

The disc starts strong with one of the last truly decent thing Soul Asylum ever did. “Barstool Blues” is a fitting choice, and it sounds like it came right off the band’s best album, Hang Time. It’s ragged charms are a sad reminder of what was once a great band. From there, Victoria Williams warbles her way through “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” and Wayne Coyne of the F’lips, well, he warbles his way through “After the Goldrush.” Nikki Sudden, Loop, Bongwater, Pyschic TV and B.A.L.L. all offer predictably good, trippy versions of Young classics as well.

The stand-outs, in addition to Soul Asylum, are Cave, who makes “Helpless” his own, the Pixies, whose “Winterlong” is among their best songs, and Sonic Youth, who remake Trans’ strange “Computer Age” into a swirling wash of guitar fury that is further evidence that the band was at the height of its powers around the time of Daydream Nation.

The disc’s lineup today seems odd, as most tribute albums do in hindsight, but for what it was, it ably marked Young’s influence and captured many great alternative bands at their crest. With today’s reliance on superstar-filled, gimmicky tributes, this, Time Between and a few other peers actually felt like tributes, a way of saying thanks from one generation to another.

MP3: Soul Asylum – Barstool Blues
MP3: Sonic Youth – Computer Age

My music tastes as I exited high school and entered college in the late 1980s were fairly myopic. Sure, I was listening to the same mainstream radio stations as my friends at the same time I was venturing beyond that safe cocoon to explore what at the time was known as “college rock,” but in those forays into the unknown I was limited by what I could learn from friends, the few magazines on the subject and MTV’s “120 Minutes.” I was passionate about a few artists, however, and that devotion helped to exponentially enhance my education.

R.E.M. was among the first bands that hooked me, and I bought up (or taped from friends) everything I could find. I made wise choices, for the most part, taping the tepid Full Time Men album from a friend (that being Peter Buck’s collaboration with the Fleshtones) and purchasing the Byrds tribute album Time Between. In that case, a purchase was a no-brainer, for it featured Buck backing Robyn Hitchcock, an artist whose Globe of Frogs album (or rather, store-bought cassette) had been played so much that the lettering had been rubbed off the tape. Dinosaur Jr. also had become an important band in my life, and its inclusion on the disc certainly didn’t hurt. That I didn’t know much about the other groups on the disc didn’t matter; this was enough to justify the purchase of what, in 1990, was one of my first CDs.

So, 17 years later, what do I have? A disc with some great Byrds covers, some dross and the first appearance in my collection of what went on to be some favorite bands. Of particular note are the Chills (“Draft Morning”), Thin White Rope (“Everybody Has Been Burned” and “I Knew I’d Want You”) and Richard Thompson (joined here by Clive Gregson and Christine Collister on “Here Without You” and “Hickory Wind”). All contribute great versions of songs, though only Thin White Rope’s performance was enough at the time to make me explore further, leading to purchase of a cassette of The Ruby Sea. The disc also feautures several bands I’ve not heard from again, like the Moffs, the Mock Turtles, the Primevals and Static. Apparently, UK label Imaginary Records used the disc to promote some of its own, lesser-known artists. The disc was issued in the U.S. by Communion.

The bands I did know turned in some nice versions of Byrds tunes as well. Hitchcock and Buck, performing as Nigel and the Crosses, do a gorgeous version of “Wild Mountain Thyme,” while Miracle Legion (whose Me and Mr. Ray was just beginning to hook me) offered suitably wacky versions of “Mr. Spaceman and “All the Things.” Only Dinosaur Jr. left me somewhat cold. The band played a great, fuzzed-out version of “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” with Lou Barlow on lead vocals, but the whole thing is marred by the presence of “Artie Sinatra,” who speak-sings over Barlow in a voice that makes Neil Hamburger sound like, well, the real Sinatra. They do the same thing with “Lotta Love” on the contemporaneous Neil Young tribute, The Bridge (next week’s Out of the Shadows pick). I remember laughing about it at the time, but now I wish I could strip that goofy vocal away from what is a pretty rocking cover. (Trivia: apparently Sinatra is the face in the sun on the cover of the band’s first album).

Both the Byrds and Young tributes were among the first wave of such releases (along with similar, indie-centric tributes to the Kinks, Syd Barrett and Captain Beefheart). The idea, of course, was to interest younger fans in the work of bands that influenced current favorites. As the late critic Robert Palmer wrote in a New York Times review of several of them, “At their best, the tribute albums offer a satisfying sense of emotional connection as well, linking younger bands and audiences with the works of their predecessors at a level that runs deeper than mere competence.” I first heard most of the songs on Time Between in these versions, long before I’d heard the Byrds originals. I’ve since become a huge fan of that band’s first five or six albums (a read through Ric Menck‘s 33 1/3 book about The Notorious Byrd Brothers is what led me to dig this out in the first place) and while it’s clear the trajectory of the evolution of my music taste would have led me there sooner rather than later, I know this disc certainly nudged me in that direction.

MP3: Dinosaur Jr. – I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better
MP3: Thin White Rope – Everybody Has Been Burned
MP3: Miracle Legion – Mr. Spaceman

Next week: The Bridge – a Tribute to Neil Young