Go! Motion - Kill the Love 3/5 stars
In the spirit of The Faint and Stellastarr, a new band has sprung up out of Omaha's seemingly endless talent pool of indie-rock musicians.
And while the Go! Motion sound is nothing new, having gone through a "been there, done that" phase in the mid-1980s and a rebirth in the past few years, it doesn't make the band's debut album "Kill the Love" by any means a throw away.
It's hard sometimes to critique albums by local artists and not grade them against national best sellers. But a good way to do that is in trying to picture how the music would sound in a live setting.
I'd have to say I think I'd really enjoy a Go! Motion show. I say this because my head was constantly moving with the beat of the songs on the record. My main criticism is there didn't seem to be much variation in style between the songs. They were for the most part fast-paced and heavy on the synthesizers.
But it doesn't mean the band doesn't have room to grow. "Kill the Love" is an impressive debut album and should take the place on the shelves of local music fans' CD collections alongside other party starters.
Various Artists - A Situation Like This 3/5 stars
The story goes, a collective of Lincoln-based musicians wanted to make a compilation CD. An introductory group of five bands offered up two songs apiece for the comp. For the second go round of an album, the five bands picked five other bands to take their place on the comp. Now we're on round three, and the talent level hasn't dropped off.
"A Situation Like This" is the third offering from the collection and features two tracks apiece from five local bands, including Once A Pawn, Justin Kohmetscher, The Thielgoods, The Government and The Show is the Rainbow. Lucky listeners even get a bonus track from local heavyweights Eagle*Seagull.
Once A Pawn starts off the CD with "Like U.S. Media," offering an introduction of distortion and effects leading into a blistering two-and-a-half minutes of the band's signature punk sound.
The album doesn't pretend all local music is punk rock, proving so with The Thielgoods' "Too Many Nights," a quieter ditty with more of an alt-country feel that would fit in at a bar like Bob's Tavern. The Government's "I Hate This Town" brought immediate comparisons to Ween in that it takes a serious tone to the song but undermines the seriousness by adding intelligent and at the same time corny lyrics.
For music fans who are interested in getting more involved with the Lincoln music scene, the "Situation" series is a great starter kit. For Volume 3, genres across the board are represented. And that's pretty representative of what's going on around here.
U2 - U218 Singles 2/5 stars
I suppose you could call this one of the band's latest greatest hits album, seeing as it has already come out with one for each decade of the band's existence. But with this collection, "U218 Singles," the band is focusing merely on the songs that were released as singles. Which, by the way, have the habit of being the hit songs from the record.
It's possible that this release has something to do with the holiday season being in full swing or there is a huge demand for a CD with just the band's singles on it. My money is going on it being the holidays.
Die-hard U2 fans might buy this album, but only because they feel the need to have every disc U2 every released. Otherwise, the biggest purchasers of this album should be people who don't pay much attention to music and only care enough to know what the best is without ever doing any research themselves.
Granted, for U2 fans, this album has a lot of great songs, including "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Beautiful Day" and "Where the Streets Have No Name." But we've been given plenty of chances in the past to pick these songs up off the rack. We really don't need another.
- Compiled by Jeremy Buckley
