By Scott Thill

Whatever your chosen belief system, everyone appreciates a good tune; better yet, something that's a bit hard to achieve these days, a disc full of them. Well, I've heard the new Strokes joint and I gotta say it doesn't fit the bill for either of those categories. Which is why I'm sending you sonic holiday shoppers in the direction of these stocking-stuffing nuggets. The payoff will be that much better once the wrappers come off. Enough small talk -- let's rock!

The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow

The legendary indie label, SubPop, spent much of last decade capitalizing on its discovery of a little band called Nirvana, and it paid in spades: while Nirvana is no longer on this earth, SubPop still is, and they're busy propping up the next decade's worth of great bands. Their prize pooch is New Mexico's Shins, the power-pop brainchild of James Mercer.

Mercer is equal parts The Cure's Robert Smith (without the makeup and teased hair but with the same apocalyptic loneliness) and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, but that's just a jumping-off point. Chutes more than fulfills the promise of 2001's Oh Inverted World! -- with a heady array of jangly nuggets, it might be the indie album of the year if Gibbard's own Transatlanticism had come out in 2002 rather than the last couple of months. But as it is, desolate yet truncated masterpieces like "Kissing the Lipless" and "Mine's Not a High Horse" are compelling entries for any year, and regardless of similarities and sound, The Shins are quickly on their way to carving out a small corner of the music scene just for themselves.

To My Surprise, To My Surprise

I promise this article will be the only time you ever -- and I mean ever -- hear me employ the words "Slipknot" and "incredible" in the same breath, because I'm no fan of shock -- or schlock -- metal and its various Alice Cooper wardrobe raids. But this Slipknot byproduct is the most incredible, hard-to-classify rock 'n' roll release I've heard all year without the words "Mars" or "Volta" attached to it. With an ambitious mixture of deep groove, rap, psychedelia and full-bore metal (as well as the headbanger pedigree), you'd expect this self-titled debut from Slipknot's ex-percussionist, Clown, and his Des Moines homeboys Brandon Darner (guitars and vocals) and Steven Robinson (bass and vocals) to have received more attention than the three esoteric online raves I've been able to dig up.

But what else would you expect from a band with a name like this? For a taste of To My Surprise's motivated musicianship, <a href="http://www.tomysurprise.net" target="new">head to their official site</a> and dig up the politically satirical video for "In the Mood," a head-bobbing crunchfest praising the rebel spirit of all those interested, as its smart-ass rap explains, "in the mood to ruin the melody." It's easily the most socially damning critique of our post-millenial chaos, and a peerless stomp to boot. These guys deserve better than they're getting, and it's about time someone other than executive producer Rick Rubin (there's your Mars Volta connection, peoples!) recognized that.

Guided By Voices, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates

"Wait," you're saying (if you're a monthly Melt reader, that is) to yourself, "you covered a GBV album last month. What gives?" Yeah, I'm saying back, that's just how prolific ex-teacher Robert Pollard is. Actually, he probably just wrote another classic tune while you were reading that sentence. I don't usually dig the "Greatest Hits" route, mostly because, as an avid music fan, I think that you should already have all of the albums. But the truth is that most people don't collect records like others collect parking tickets; simply, you gotta start somewhere.

What makes this amazing collection of GBV's last couple decades of songcraft worth your while is the fact that Pollard assembled them himself; in short, you don't have to take the word of some label wanker that you're getting the good shit. And this is some good shit, people. Pollard's greatest songs are all here, from Bee Thousand's "I am a Scientist" to Earthquake Glue's "My Kind of Soldier" to the jamming "Bulldog Skin" from Mag Earwhig! The list literally goes on, because Pollard has stuffed Human Amusements to the limit with 32 tunes. That is easily worth the $18 you'll pay at the indie stores, or the $9.99 you'll pay at the chains once they drop it in the bargain bin. I promise this will be the last GBV review this year, but I can't promise that this will be Pollard's last album of 2003. That's just how prolific the guy is.

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Visit Scott at www.Morphizm.com

© Melt Magazine 2003