One Day Remains
ALTER BRIDGE
Wind-Up
In their former incarnation, as the multi-platinum Creed, it was the job of Alter Bridge's three instrumentalists to craft the macho, formulaic backdrop to vocalist Scott Stapp's oppressively postured baritone. They performed adequately. Predictability and overproduction aside, there was nothing particularly odious about the music behind Creed's generic slabs of anthem.
It was Stapp who inspired either rapt devotion or low-grade nausea — within the industry's target demographic, there really didn't seem to be any middle ground. Though the records were cunningly crafted to be the sonic equivalent of, shit, I don't know, the sun breaking through the clouds or a mountain breaking through the topsoil or birth or something, it was Stapp they loved or hated. Which means that, questionable new name or no, guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips are automatically at a bit of a disadvantage. Because Alter Bridge could sound exactly like Creed, and still be considered less than that.
So DOES One Day Remains sound exactly like Creed, albeit Creed fronted by a new guy?
Of course it does, more or less. Tremonti's abilities as both guitarist and songwriter begin and end at combining what he's copped from the Encyclopedia Hard Rockica A-Z (in this case, Alice in Chains through Zeppelin), with a knack for making that stuff sound more pop-oriented than it actually is. The good news is that his soaring-riff/processed-tone style is instantly recognizable. The bad news is that if you don't like it, you're S.O.L.
To its credit, One Day Remains is an improvement on all three Creed albums. It's more energetic and less one-dimensional. And, while he's often as overwrought as his predecessor, the new guy — soulful tenor Myles Kennedy, formerly of Mayfield Four — isn't nearly as overbearing. But new motivation and a new singer don't necessarily equal a new band, and the three famous musicians in Alter Bridge have obviously decided to go with what they know. One Day Remains could easily have been the next Creed album. Thankfully, it isn't — but it's only a little more than one guy away from being that. 
—SCOTT HARRELL
Houses of the Mole
MINISTRY
Sanctuary
With apologies to those diehard loyalists who stick with their favorite bands through evolution, experimentation and outright crap, the industrial-rock flagship known as Ministry hasn't made an even halfway decent album since 1992's landmark Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. On each of the three proper full-lengths that followed, Al Jourgensen and company alternately veered too far away from and lazily rehashed their trademark amphetamine-jackhammer sound; the albums came off as either plodding hack-metal or pale self-imitation. Well, maybe it takes a few years of enduring a conservative in the White House to bring out the best in Ministry, because Houses of the Mole displays an impressive return to form, and better late than never. Instead of simply re-releasing the repetitive blitzkrieg assaults and endless throbbing dirges of the band's best work, Mole revisits them with a fresh perspective and new ideas — check out the tidal wave of distorted bass on "Wrong," the seizure-inducing, schizoid sound-collage of "WTV," and the turgid New Wave-on-Rufinol "World." (Yes, it's true: Every song title on the disc begins with a "W," in anti-homage to the President.) It may be too late for Ministry to recapture much of its former glory, but it's nice to know the outfit is still capable of producing powerful material.
—SCOTT HARRELL
Straight From the Heart: Timeless Music from the '60s & '70s
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Shout Factory
Never in my many years of accumulating box sets have I seen a collection that gathers together so much schlock so proudly. Straight From the Heart is a staggering collection of syrupy pop, wimp-rock, tepid country and vapid soul music — 60 songs in all on three CDs, including such crimes against music as Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden," Olivia Newton-John's "I Honestly Love You" and Jefferson Starship's "Miracles." What's really miraculous is that someone decided to send this set, unsolicited, to boomer critics who were raised on hating this kind of shit. The label should've used that money to buy a few more spots on VH1 Classic. Yet I admit I was intrigued. I hadn't heard many of these songs in decades; would I have a revised opinion of some? Would I recognize the true genius of Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree"? Didn't happen, people, but I will say this: There is good schlock and bad schlock, and several of the songs here are ones that I liked the first time around. Some, like Hall & Oates' "Sara Smile," 10cc's "The Things We Do for Love," Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" and Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" don't even qualify as schlock. Others — Stephen Bishop's "On and On" and Spiral Starecase's "More Today than Yesterday" — inhabit the realm of guilty pleasures. Some tunes sound better a few decades on. Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" (written by master tunesmith Jimmy Webb) is an affecting little gem; Mama Cass' "Dream a Little Dream of Me" has a nice, old-timey lilt that I didn't get in '68; Nilsson's "Without You" made me lunge for the buttons in '71, but this time I can appreciate the song's epic sweep. Let me close this review by citing this box's two most inspirationally egregious selections, ditties that were heinous and inexcusable back then, and remain just as horrifying now: Morris Albert's "Feelings" and Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life." Certain readers of a certain age are now scrunching up their faces in disgust at the mere mention of these atrocities. (www.shoutfactory.com) 1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
Carrier
CARRIER
Hideaway
There's not much this obscure little collection of slightly raw-edged Colorado dream-rock doesn't do right. Every song is a bit rootsy and a bit psychedelic, but always swathed in dirty layers of innovative, innately melodic guitar. Influences immediately come to mind — The Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr. and especially Built to Spill — but all that inspiration gets mixed up somewhere along the way through Carrier principal (and former 34 Satellites honcho) Marc Benning's filter, and gets tangled up in an original, emotional perspective. Songs like "The Disconnected," "November Was Hard to Find" and standout opener "Finally Over Water" aren't indie-hippie, but they certainly are trippy. Meandering, layered and falsetto-laden, but never self-indulgent, Carrier gets weird and interesting without ever losing its earthy resonance. Highly recommended. (www.carriercarrier.com)
—SCOTT HARRELL
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2004.