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There are lots of fools, April and otherwise, trying to hoodwink you into buying their product. We, however, are unimpressed. That's why we offer this month's collection of reviews to guide you through the muck and mire of mediocrity. Enjoy!

Stone Breath - The Silver Skein Unwound (Camera Obscura)

Another fine collection of murder ballads and haunted nursery rhymes accompanied by Timothy Renner's banjo, dulcimer, bouzouki, sitar-like revelator guitar and headless horsefiddle, Prydwyn's soaring flutes and harmonium and Sarada's angelic harmonies and guitar drones. There's much more of a religious fervor about the tracks this time around, as exemplified on "A Bottle of Breath," which tracks down a religious lunatic proseletizing the Gospel of Christ on Christmas Eve in Renner's home town of Glen Rock, PA, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bible-banging preacher last heard foaming at the mouth from his soapbox pulpit on recent Godspeed You Black Emperor! albums.

Scarecrows, ghosts, open graves, lyrics lifted from biblical passages from Matthew and the Song of Soloman, and countless references to Christ's suffering (the crown of thorns, the "nails of Christ," the holy cross, etc.) all lead up to one of the year's darkest examinations of guilt and man's search for meaning in an intolerably cruel and inhuman world. Hell, Renner almost makes Leonard Cohen sound cheerful. But Prydwyn's omnipresent flute manages to lift us from the muck, offering hope from the eternal flame of death.

Several tracks continue Renner's fascination with love after death (a favorite theme in wyrdfolk), and there are numerous visits to graveyards, forests, and wooded enclaves. As always, nature plays a critical role in these tales, with countless references to grass, leaves, vines, trees, flowers, water, rocks, fog and rain.

Highlights abound, but I particularly enjoyed the droning, religious lullabye of "Secrets Bound In Skin," with it's sitar-like accompaniment, Prydwyn's flute weaving circles around Renner's bouzouki on "Bless The Lily, Bless The Rose," and the unusual instrumentation (ektara, gopichand) that Renner employs on the navel-gazer, "Ephrata Sacred Heart" which is perfect for transcendental meditation with the transcendental medication of your choice. I'm also duly impressed with the manner in which he gets his "revelator guitar" to emulate a sitar on this and other tracks.

If you can get past Renner's toneless (and occasionally tuneless) vocals on the medley, "Midgard For A Dreamless Sleeper/The False Bird," you'll find another mesmerizing horror tale replete with worms, serpents, snakes and our hero literally kissing his ass goodbye, all culminating in Renner's vein-popping rant! 

Throughout, Renner's typically deadpan vocals form an uncomfortable alliance with Sarada Hart's lilting soprano, imbuing these already somber tales with a dark, Halloween-y, late night vine. Never is this more evident than on his incantation in "The Hidden Heart," which invokes the spirit of Alastair Crowley in a seat-soiling seance conducted by Alfred Hitchcock. Like the similarly themed Ink Puddle Compound reviewed last month, Camera Obscura has given us two of the years Halloween soundtracks that you can enjoy year round and is infinitely more horrifying than the darkest images from Mel Gibson's imagination. 

Yet Renner & Co. still manage to end on an upbeat note with the banjo-driven "Let The Towers Fall" and the a capella bonus track, "Arrowhead, Thorn, and Wasp-Sting," implying, perhaps, that there is still hope at the end of even the darkest tunnel. Perhaps this explains this final track's reversal of the opening track's title ["Wasp-Sting, Thorn, and Arrowhead"]? Stone Breath have reversed their fortunes, withstood the onslought of religious persecution and mental anguish, and returned to the beginning of their journey, having "pressed seed to soil, felt the sharp kiss of thorns, and slept under a storm," euphemisms, perhaps for birth, life/love and death.

Micah Blue Smaldone - Some Sweet Day (Hyla-Phone)

Leon Redbone meets The Charlatans for a collection of olde tyme tunes delivered like Al Jolson leading the New Vaudeville Band. It may take a couple of tracks to realize that Smaldone is deadly serious and this is not an elaborate prank to move product to the octogenarian set! However, when one imagines the money to be made monopolizing the retirement home circuit...nah!

From the yodel-ay-ee-hoo on the title track to the extremely fine picking on the "Blind Boy" and "Pine Needle" rags, Smaldone offers an entertaining history lesson in the popular musical stylings of the Roarin' 20s, made all the more brilliant by the fact that these are all contemporary recordings meticulously mimicking the vocal techniques of that bygone era. His guitar sings like a ukelele, leaving the listener with the feeling that he or she is experiencing Tiny Tim guesting at a Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass revival.

The catchy, walking melody on the "Pine Needle Rag" again displays Smaldone’s dextrous fingerwork, and "A Sunny Place (for Shady People)" is another wonderful instrumental with that old "Classical Gas" vibe.

A pleasant re-creation of a bygone era that may have limited appeal, but will certainly be enjoyed by folks who miss Leon Redbone, Flatt & Scruggs, and Bob Buckingham & Todd Clewell, as well as bluegrass and ukelele fans, little old ladies from Pasadena and sweet old grannies everywhere.

Tweaker - 2 a.m. Wakeup Call (Waxploitation)

Remember that David Byrne-less Talking Heads reunion album where the trio were fronted by a different singer on each track (The Heads - No Talking, Just Head [1996, MCA]? Well, that's the concept at work here, as former Nine Inch Nail drummer Chris Vrenna unfurls his sophomore effort under the Tweaker banner. Enlisting the vocal talents of Will (Palace) Oldham, Robert (The Cure) Smith, David (Japan) Sylvian, Jennifer (Elysian Fields) Charles, et. al., is an excellent start, as long as they're given something interesting to do. And for the most part, Vrenna succeeds in doing more than showing off his trendy address book.

The instrumentals are mostly industrialized metallic cacophony (the fittingly-titled, "Cauterized," the electronic, techno breakbeats of "Remorseless," which sounds like Front 242 performing on an old "Sprockets" episode from Saturday Night Live), but the fairly straightforward pop tunes work best, particularly "Worse Than Yesterday" (with Jonathan Bates, aka, Mellowdrone) and "Pure Genius" (with Sylvian). Smith's own industrial goth outfit is probably the closest in musical temperment to Vrenna's previous work, so one would expect "Truth Is" to be one of the highlights, but - pardon the pun - truth is, it ain't. Smith's disjointed, bluesy swagger stumbles all over the place, leaving us with something that sounds like an outtake from The Cure's worst album, The Top.

Contrastly, Sylvian's "Pure Genius" truly is. The smoothest crooner this side of Bryan Ferry adds a sexy, sultry vibe to the smokey proceedings on the album's finest track. Elsewhere, the percussive overdose of "It's Still Happening" virtually drowns Walkmen vocalist Hamilton Leifthauser's atonal wailing (a good thing), while the gently acoustic, droning title track brings all the noise down for a much-needed rest (and is a very good thing indeed!)

Vrenna's own vocal efforts on Tones on Tail's "Movement of Fear" are rather nondescript, but the cover selection at least acknowledges one of Nine Inch Nail's formidable precursors, even if it isn't one of their more memorable tunes. A.I.'s Nick Young brings his effeminate scowl to "Sleepwalking Away," which does just that, and Charles' mumbles her way through the lengthy closer, "Crude Sunlight," which nevertheless makes effective use of the haunting, piano-under-water effect featured at the end of The Downward Spiral's "Closer."

Buchanan - All Understood (IMusic)

It seems that anyone can release their own albums these days as attests these two self-released projects from the Artist Direct network. The debut album from this Orange County (California) quartet, named after the surname of singer/songwriter/guitarist Jay, will appeal to fans of 70s duos like Hall & Oates or Seals & Crofts. Their songs are laidback, AOR fodder for the masses - not awful, just not breaking any new ground. Buchanan (the singer) has a tendency to visit the upper registers on all the tracks, often sounding exactly like a soulful, sorrowful Robert (The Cure) Smith, but also lending a sameness to the tunes that wears thin halfway through.

Buchanan (the band) may also be one of those acts that don't translate well onto aluminum. Sections of the bluesy rant, "If You Leave" have potential to break into a sweat in concert, "American Son" ventures nicely into Neil Young & Crazy Horse territory, and "Three Times Coleen" is just the sort of tale to provoke bottle hurling from the female contingent (while the guys exchange knowing winks).

There's a little something to please everyone: the gals will enjoy the wispy ballads, the guys will enjoy some of the guitar workouts and everyone who digs The Cure, Dave Matthews and Seals, Crofts, Hall and Oates will enjoy the soulful wailing and bluesy jams.

The Incredible Moses Leroy - The Soft.Lightes (IMusic)

The second (and better) of the two is this third album from Leroy's alter ego, Roy Fountenberry. It's a smooth collection of electronic pop ditties in the style of new Norwegian popsters, Sondre Lerche, Erlend Øye and Röyksopp. Fey, twee vocals glide along cumulous clouds of cotton candy riffs that'll appeal to kids and grandmothers of all ages. "Transmission C" is an early highlight and fans of Cibo Motto will enjoy Miho Hatori's lead vocal contribution to "The Color of Sky," an easy first choice for lead single.

Elsewhere, Fountenberry's moogs, acoustic guitars and drum programming works overtime to create a cartoon universe populated by HR Pufnstuffs and other candy-coated figurines, bordering on bubblegum muzak for the 21st century. Amicably produced by legendary drummer/producer, Joey Waronker (Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Elliot Smith and tons of et.als.), who joins his wife, Lizzy and daughter, Anna on backing vocals, The Soft Lightes is exactly what you'd expect given its pedigree (Anna's hubby is Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald and her sister-in-law is ex-Go Go's guitarist Charlotte Coffey): sweet, sticky, pleasant popcorn for the ears. Fans of Jim Rao (another one man band recording as Orange Cake Mix) and British twee popper Lawrence (he of Felt and Denim fame) will love this; others may fall asleep halfway through, but are at least assured of plesant dreams!

The Kinison - "Mortgage is Bank" EP (Fearless)

Scatecore punk from Southern California is the order of the day on this quintet's debut EP. Five songs shoot by in fifteen minutes, leaving behind the typical trail of throat-shattering vocals that all but demolish any chance the casual listener will stick around long enough to catch the better-than-usual instrumentation and catchy, punky riffs. "The Way I Used To Be" is all Sabbath sludge, "Sorry I'm A Pushover" ranks with anything on The Cure's debut, Three Imaginary Boys and Bub and Aaron's twin guitar attack (rare for a punk band - I like it) on "The Kinison's Area 53" hint at tre cool Television tendencies. Unfortunately, the venomous vomitorium vocals ruin everything. Why, oh, why does everyone insist on screetching at the top of their lungs instead of singing these days? Reason number 37 why retro-punk will never replace the real thing.

The Citizens - Are We There Yet? (Yellow Ball)

Yet another self-released debut (must be spring!), this New York quartet mixes avant-garde insanity with the occasional catchy rhythm to create an awkward listening experience that's as subtle as a car crash, yet just as strangely alluring. Rubberneckers unite for a foolhearty romp through the Residents-inspired, lounge lizard lunacy of a completely fucked "Deck Full of Jokers" that makes Tom Waits sound sober, and the confrontational, conversational confessional, "Mussolini's First Crush," with singer/lyricist/keyboardist Mark Lesseraux combining Steven Tyler, Axl Rose and Jim Morrison into one outrageously over-the-top crooner. Too bad the song cuts off mid-sentence, as if someone backstage grabbed him by the throat with "The Hook."

From opener "What's Happening At The Seams," which joins the band midsong, pulling the listener in four different directions at once, to the swaggering, snotty hard rock of the Aerosmith-inspired, "A Thing For You" and "Catch You On The Way Down," to the sheer brilliance of "In B For Backward," an ironically irreverent, spot-on parody of the pretentiousness of Thom Yorke and Radiohead and their ilk, it's clear this is not going to be an easy listening experience. And that's a good thing. I'm tired of all the overhyped, unlistenable garbage coming out of NY these days, be it Strokes or Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Citizens are a refreshing alternative.

"Kaleidoscope (Do You Recall)" is a tender, change of pace ballad with some tasty guitar licks from Thom Loubet, and the Steeley Dan-ish "King Kong" will have Becker and Fagen fans nodding their heads and stroking their beards in approval. Felicity Fenton brings a refreshing warmth to the macho posturings with her elegant duet on "You Might Be Right," and there's even a wacky Elephant 6-ish vibe-think Neutral Milk Hotel-meets-Olivia Tremor Control-on the theatrical "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," complete with Beach Boy harmonies and string arrangements straight out of Witch Hazel Sound and High Llamas.

While not as earcatchingly brilliant as New York's finest new discovery, Famous, Are We There Yet? offers hope that the Big Apple may still have some tricks up its sleeve and is a promising debut from a band to watch out for.

Cerberus Shoal - Bastion of Itchy Preeves (North East Indie)

Rising from gently tingling windchimes to a full-on Hari Krishna tambourine choir assault, the strident clarion call of "Grandsire" opens yet another "difficult listening hour," as Laurie Anderson used to call them, from these prolific Maine hippy commune-ists. Their eighth full length picks up where last year's Chaiming the Knoblessone left off. In fact, its pre-"Knoblessone" recording began in 2001, marking it as the initial recordings of the "new" Cerberus Shoal line-up that was consummated in 2000 after the Tarpigh guys left.\

The oriental percussive vibe throughout "A Cloud No Bigger than a Man's Head" merges with the harmonium-styled bed supporting a choir of angels (actually Erin Davidson and Colleen Kinsella) chanting their way through a penny-whistle arcade and assorted chock-a-block percussive effects, Morse codes and the sound of party-goers in full flight speaking in tongues, not necessarily human…not necessarily English. It's an all-out sonic assault somewhere along the road to unlimited self devotion where The Fool meets Hapshash and (his amazing techni)coloured (dream) coat. Oriental gypsy music forms the background to "Bogart the Change," a theatrical dance-cum-Exorcism as (if) performed by the traveling minstrels from Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal. It all culminates in a key/tempo change that sounds like someone turned the record player off without removing the stylus and reportedly brought a tear of laughter to the bloodshot eyes of the elusive Captain Van Vliet.

The gals open the two-part "Me and My Dead Head" suite under the influence of helium-you can literally hear and feel them inhaling on "Baby Gal" as the guys sing their parts through Jew's harps over the usual penny-whistles, blocks, xylophones and assorted percussives, culminating in a pant-shitting monotonic Witch's coven chant/shreik. But the weirdest track of all may be the second part, "Train Car Nursery." Don't worry, I think it's supposed to sound like it's time to break out the laser head cleaner, and perhaps that's what the "dead head" refers to? More theatrical chanting on this escapee from the soundtrack to Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas reminds us that something nasty is, indeed, in the Nursery.

Fans of this challenging collective's recent material will thoroughly enjoy "Itchy Preeves," with its theatrical, absurdist lyrics set to oriental gypsy music (think Transylvanian Kabuki). Their live performances (throughout the US in April and May) will give you an opportunity to experience these pieces in a proper setting, as they get somewhat lost in translation in the CD format. Catch them if you can.

Graham Parker - Your Country (Bloodshot)

Ah, Graham Parker! Another record…another record label. Actually it's his 21st effort for only his eighth (US) imprint, it just seems like everyone has released a GP record over his 25 year career, including almost all the majors: Mercury, Arista, RCA, Capitol, and Elektra. Possibly due to all his label affiliations, there seems to be a steady stream of Parker product these days (over a dozen releases since 2000), and the shelves are full of endless repackagings with the customary bonus tracks lifted from his numerous one-off projects. His famously vitriolic diatribes against the backstabbing bottom feeders and beancounters getting rich off his life's work will no doubt continue to be the musical equivalent of shooting himself in the economic foot, but it is still a cause for celebration to finally hear something new following a three-year absence since the brilliant Deepcut To Nowhere, perhaps his finest release since Squeezing Out Sparks.

GP has been a lot of things in his career, from the original "angry young man" to a pub/punk rocker to a romantic old family man, but he's managed to keep his country/rock hat firmly entrenched in mothballs…until now. I guess it was inevitable that Parker might succomb to its economic charms. After all, alt.country, or whatever they're calling it this week does seem to have the record-buying public under its spell. However, his longtime legion of staunchly loyal fans should be intrigued by this collection of country-flavored tunes, opening with "Anything for a Laugh," wherein GP rips off the melody from his own "Christmas Is For Mugs" to good effect, illustrating that the concept is not that far-fetched after all. In fact, GP's own 12 Haunted Episodes actually has more of a country air about it than this release and ultimately, these swaying, savvy singalongs aren't real "country" at all, or are only "country" in the sense that Neil Young's After The Gold Rush or John Prine's debut were "country" albums.

Nomenclatures aside, GP has always been a master at setting his poignant lyrics to a great melody, and Your Country is no exception, so don't let the title fool you into thinking GP has joined his contemporary friends, drinking buddies, and leave-of-their-senses takers, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds and entered the country fray. That's not to suggest that "Cruel Lips" doesn't have the potential to be a classic, sobbing-in-your-suds soaper, or that Dave Edmunds shouldn't learn "Queen of Compromise" post haste and add it to his next album and setlist. However, I will admit that the twangy, hick impersonation on "Things I've Never Said" leaves a bit to be desired.

Other highlights include the soft "sho[e]p doo wah" shuffle of "Tornado Alley," which again borrows liberally from "Mugs," and the Dylan-esque "Fairground," (with its clever lyrical reference to Struck By Lightning's "They Murdered The Clown" and which I'd love to hear Van Morrison take a crack at). [In fact, my wife suggests that GP's vocals emulate Dylan throughout, and his shadow certainly hovers over the "Revisited" version of "Crawling from the Wreckage," rearranged to sound like "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts," and the only real weak track in the lot - I'd have preferred he left well enough alone.]

But that's a minor quibble (and it's placement at the end suggests it may have been more of an afterthought than an intention). Bottom line: while Dave and Nick and Elvis continue to garner all the praise and attention, Mr. Parker has quietly and consistently released albums that are the best of the lot. To quote a line from Jerry Garcia's "Sugaree," competently covered here, "You thought you were the cool fool, that you could do anything." With Your Country, GP proves he's right on both accounts. Don't pass up this opportunity to hear a master songwriter at the peak of his powers on one of the year's finest releases.

The Church - Forget Yourself (Cooking Vinyl/spinART)

Australia's finest return from a three-year absence with their 17th full length (including several 2xCD sets) which picks up with the same amazingly high quality as After Everything, Now This. Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes' guitar duels are as majestic as ever and the balls-grabbing opener ("Sealine") will make you immediately prick up your ears and pay attention. "Song In Space" features their wall-of-guitars sonic assault a la The Chameleons and Echo & The Bunnymen, and after 25 years, the lads can still find new ways to amaze us with such effective little flourishes as the brutal Spanish guitar solo ending "The Theatre and Its Double" and the exquisite, I-never-knew-they-had-it-in-them Beach Boys' harmonies opening "Telepath."

Other Church trademarks we've come to expect and enjoy are Steven Kilbey's meaninglessly enigmatic lyrics, sung with the conviction of someone whose life depended on every word, and their signature floating, spacey ballads ("Maya," "Summer"). Kilbey steps aside to let Koppes turn in a soft, easy-listening pop gem with "Appalatia," and the swaying, hook-y grooves of the atmospheric, psychedelic trilogy, "June," "Don't You Fall," and "I Kept Everything" are perhaps the closest to the band's Heyday (pun intended). Another favorite is the aforementioned 7-minute closer, "Summer," a particularly soft-cushioned landing where you can, indeed, sit back, close your eyes, drift away and Forget Yourself.

Don't go too far, though, as you won't want to miss the pleasures tucked away inside the 3-track, half-hour bonus EP. Opening with the ambient, cinematmospheric, fifteen-minute epic, "Serpent Easy," a 21st century version of The Cure's "Carnage Visors" and a classic example of a soundtrack in search of a film, the band seque into the punny, alphabetical exercise "Cantilever" [read "Can't I Leave Her?"], which sounds like a U2 outtake, complete with Kilbey's pretentious Boner posturing. The third track, "Moodertronic" is a ruminating, acoustic guitar solo (think "Fripp"ertronics on 'ludes), which reminds me of the intro to The Blurred Crusade's "Just For You" expanded to a luxurious four minutes.

Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso, U.F.O. - Magical Power from Mars (Important)

This compilation of three rare, long out of print EPs plus a new bonus track contains some of the more accessible music from the wonderfully weird and prolific AMT collective. Let's ignore the groaningly silly titles (most, inexplicably, are puns on David Bowie titles) and concentrate on the music. The opening "Ziggy Sitar Dust Raga" is a droning sitar loop (duh!) featuring Cotton Casino (she of the most amazing cigarette trick this side of Emmanuel, and who has since fled the commune for a solo career) damaging her sitar and proving once again that Lennon was right when he said that Yoko Ono did all this 35 years ago. It's all hauntingly strange and perhaps addresses another Bowie musical question, "Is There Life On Mars"? If there is, this might be what it sounds like, and it's enough to fuel those SETI dudes' nightmares for weeks.

"Diamond Doggy Peggy" is the more familiar and less exciting noisy sludgefest that most fans seem to enjoy. Naturally, it's an unstructured cacophonous mess with Casino banshee wailing all over the place as if she unsuccessfully tried that Emmanuel trick and stuck her ciggie where it didn't belong. If you're into that sort of thing, there it is. Personally, it sounds like that old experimental noise jam, "Want You Baby" on The Plasmatics debut EP where the members recorded their instruments while isolated in separate booths so they couldn't hear what the others were playing. It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now.

Like his famous brother, Charles Foster, "Alladin Kane" (the bonus track) is an enigma wrapped inside a conundrum. It opens to the hum of deep space with electronic bleeps and bloops swishing past our spaceship on our journey to the far side of the sun, as Kawabata Makoto's guitar scrapings emerge from the deepest black holes of the universe like desperate pleas for help from a dying universe. Altogether, not unlike the mood created by the floating monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey as soundtracked by Tangerine Dream instead of Richard Strauss.

Spatial exploration is also the theme of the final track, "Cosmic Funky Dolly," which continues the nebulous, electronic bleeps, blurps and machinery hums like a krautrock rendition of Ligetti's "Requiem…," although it's occasionally difficult to tell when Higashi Hiroshi's synthesizers end and Casino's wailing begins. For fans of the loopier, more contemplative electronic side of AMT.