Author: Gillian G. Gaar

Single Rider is ready to swoop you up and take you for another spin on the dance floor, as long as the tunes keep spinning.

Yes, you read that right. “Wave Tale” puts you right smack dab in the middle of a gathering on the beach; you hear the waves rolling in, a crackling fire, and snippets of indistinct conversation, until the music kicks in at around the five-and-a-half-minute mark.

The opening and closing tracks are a study in contrasts. The brisk “Romeo” forcefully kicks the door open, while “Roast Beef” starts out slow enough to be almost languid. It does get harder as it goes along, building up to a fuzzy climax, and dropping in cryptic lines like “Maybe I thought once you died everything would be easy.”

The five bonus tracks are from a radio session Enigk recorded with KNDD. They’re interesting because they’re not quite as frantic as the album versions, giving you an idea of how the songs would’ve sounded live.

Vancouver, B.C.’s D.O.A. has been flying the punk banner for four decades now. And their latest release, Fight Back, shows them to be as high-spirited as ever. Times may be tough (and likely to get tougher), but you won’t find them backing down.

One gets the sense that the album’s running order is meant to take you on a specific journey. It’s bookended by the same song, “I Still Believe,” presented in two different versions, “Unplugged” and “Plugged.”

Thunderpussy made the harder choice; don’t make an album that just replicates the live show. Choosing not to play it safe in such a different environment bodes well for their future; both in the studio, and on stage.

The album gets off to a poppy start with “Stop Moving to Florida,” a mash up of the James Gang’s “Stop” and the Butthole Surfers’ “Moving to Florida,” opening with some ‘70s guitar crunch before abruptly shifting into the far more twisted environs of the Surfers’ song

Even if you’re steeped in Seattle’s music history, he name “Frank D. Waldron” likely won’t ring any immediate bells. The jazz musician left no recordings behind, and a folio of a handful of his compositions had been out of print for years. But this release aims to change that.

Asked to give a shorthand description of Transcendence, you could get away with saying “jazz.” But there’s more going on here than that. There are elements of funk, soul, and world music as well.

It’s not all rough and tumble though. The tempo slows down for “Red & White,” and by upping the blues quotient (especially in regards to Angell’s vocals), the band manages to avoid slipping into the territory of the dreaded power ballad.

It’s post-grunge Americana, alt-country with a modern twist, indie lounge rock. It’s as unique as anything Novoselic has ever done — but it’s very much a group effort. These Giants are carving out their own territory.

It all wraps up with the optimistically-inclined “I Still Believe in New Year’s Eve.” In common with the album’s underlying theme, that belief is maintained in spite of whatever else may have happened during the year.