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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 4, 2008

Updated:

HARVEY MILK:
LIFE ... THE BEST GAME IN TOWN
(HYDRA HEAD) **½

Referencing The Velvet Underground, The Beatles and "Looney Tunes" on an album that also features a Fear cover guarantees that Harvey Milk isn't your usual bunch of metal ghouls feeding on Black Sabbath's corpse.

Actually, Ozzy and Co. sound positively tuneful compared to cuts such as "Decades," an elephantine, armored slug of a number, oozing toxic slime as it slowly mows you down.

Furious riffing and snail's pace tempos sometime suggest Tool colliding with art-damaged punks Flipper. The speedy "Barn Burner," though, more than lives up to its title. The aforementioned "Looney Tunes" theme closes the album. What's not to love?

Download this: "Good Bye Blues"

Curtis Ross

IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE:
THE 3RD WORLD
(VIPER) ***½

Immortal Technique is the angry rapper that could, should and would.

For those not in the loop, Tech is an underground hip-hop sensation who is mad at the world. He has an issue with injustice, poverty and government.

Interestingly, his anger fuels his drive. Although Tech delivers on "3rd World," his revolutionary message can get repetitive at times. Lyrically, he's blunt, explicit and comical at times. The end result is gritty, polished and well produced.

His strongest tracks include the commentary of "Reverse Pimpology," retrospective "Mistakes" and the love song, "Crimes of the Heart."

"The 3rd World" is part mix tape, part traditional album, so you get some skits and sound bites. Serious props go to DJ Green Lantern whose assistance set the tone.

Download This: "Reverse Pimpology"

Sarah Hoye

RODNEY CROWELL:
SEX & GASOLINE
(WORK SONG) ***

Rodney Crowell was doing Americana before there was a label for raw, rhythmic, direct and honest music. Since his breakthrough at the end of the neo-traditional wave that overtook Nashville in the late 1980s, he's mixed albums with topical rants, catchy melodies and intimate ballads.

He sticks to that formula here. It isn't often you hear someone in the relative mainstream rhyme a lyric with the phrase "intelligent design," but Crowell pulls it off without coming off as desperate.

Crowell is surrounded by top-tier musicians such as Doyle Bramhall lll on acoustic and electric guitar and Greg Leisz on, well, just about every other instrument, but the sound and lyrics are never cluttered.

Download this: "Sex and Gasoline"

Jeff Houck

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