Ten Thousand Fists

DISTURBED

Warner Bros.

Disturbed's first album, The Sickness, was a plodding, rudimentary boiling-down of nü-metal; it sucked and sold millions of copies. The group's sophomore effort, Believe, grew up a bit, and likewise scored. Like so many third albums, Ten Thousand Fists attempts to blend the characteristics that made the first so popular with the growing pains of the second. Here, the decidedly mixed results reveal a band caught between the need to evolve and the pressure to give its people what they want. "Just Stop," "Deify," "Sons of Plunder" and "Decadence" evince the knack for soaring, hooky choruses first glimpsed on Believe, while the tellingly titled "Stricken" and others revisit the turgid, one-dimensional plodding of material from The Sickness.

Elsewhere, there's an abysmally overwrought pseudo-ballad ("Overburdened"), a half-hearted cover (Genesis' "Land of Confusion"), and various attempts at more sophisticated atmosphere, most of which are self-consciously bass-heavy and forcibly recall both Tool and its less arty sister project, A Perfect Circle.

More than anything, Ten Thousand Fists sounds like the work of the most popular (but not best) unsigned band in any given local-music scene — the one with a modicum of talent and a wealth of musical ambition, both of which are trumped by an overwhelming desire to please the crowd. 2 stars

— SCOTT HARRELL

It Is Written

PETER APFELBAUM & THE NEW YORK HIEROGLYPHICS

Act

Big Apple multi-instrumentalist Apfelbaum leads a DeMillian horde of ace players through a dense, generally intoxicating set of world-infused jazz (loosely defined). The leader, who plays everything form harmonium to clarinet to bells, subdivides his collective (which includes Josh Roseman, Steven Bernstein, Will Bernard and Jessica Jones among the 26) into ensembles ranging from 10 to 15 pieces, builds tunes around layered patterns and favors big slabs of horns (some of which have a Fela-esque ruggedness). Apfelbaum does an admirable job of incorporating African and Indian influences into the large-ensemble mainframe. Guest vocals by Malian singer Abdoulaye Diabate ("Petroglyph Extension," "Titiwa") and Indian-American Jai Uttal ("Rainbow Sign") add welcome exotica. It Is Written flags ever so slightly when it resorts to more standard big band conventions, but in all it's a creative and original musical brew. www.actmusic.com 3.5 stars

— ERIC SNIDER

One Step Closer

STRING CHEESE INCIDENT

Sci Fidelity

Road dogs like Boulder, Colo.-based sextet String Cheese Incident aren't normally given credit for their studio output. After all, this group has released dozens of live albums through their own Sci Fidelity label. While One Step Closer doesn't aim to negate them as a stage entity, it does make a good argument for their studio prowess. The bluegrass-influenced jam band may've written this material with performance in mind, but here they're rendered as quaint, compact tunes. While you can hear the half-hour jams of these songs in concert, One Step Closer proves that the five-minute versions are worthy as well. 3.5 stars

— MARK SANDERS

Excerpts from the Diary of Todd Zilla

GRANDADDY

Songwriter Jason Lytle's band of synth-heavy quirk-pop purveyors returns with a stop-gap EP that swaps its trademarked future-phobia for a bleak, tired tirade against culture-less suburban sprawl. By and large, Todd Zilla is slower, sleepier and less fully developed than the last couple of Grandaddy full-lengths. "Cinderland," "Fuck the Valley Fudge" and "Goodbye" seem more sketches than songs, and only the throbbing opener "Pull the Curtains" and evocative lament "A Valley Son (Sparing)" match the majesty of tunes from Sumday or The Sophtware Slump. 2.5 stars

— SCOTT HARRELL

Eat My Nuts

THE C*NTS

Disturbing

The music here is about as subtle as the names of the group and the album: garage-punk rock battered onto tape by a bunch of fucked up MC5 fans from Chicago. It sounds stupid and simple, and it is, but there's also quite a bit of instrumental skill to be found. Guitarist Ivan Stankowicz floods the mix with righteous solos. 3.5 stars

— COOPER LANE BAKER

Dirty Mind

PRINCE

Warner Bros.

This terrific disc catches Prince in pre-superstar mode, playing and singing (with emphasis on falsetto) all the parts himself. The sound is lean and extremely poppy (with hints of New Wave). Contains paeans to oral sex ("Head") and incestual lust ("Sister"). Yum.

— ERIC SNIDER

This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.