The Atomic Bitchwax - The Local Fuzz (Album Review)

The Atomic Bitchwax - The Local Fuzz
Release date: June 28, 2011 (Tee Pee Records)

Sometimes, the mark of great music isn't so much that it demands your undivided attention, but that it simply makes whatever else you happen to be doing that much more enjoyable (or, in some cases, slightly more tolerable). By those standards, the Atomic Bitchwax might have a legitimate "Album of the Year" candidate in The Local Fuzz.

Helms Alee - Weatherhead (Album Review)

Helms Alee - Weatherhead
Release date: June 21, 2011 (Hydra Head Records)

After four or five spins of Helms Alee's sophomore album, Weatherhead, I found myself thinking "Man, it's too bad Kurt Cobain isn't around to hear this." After all, Cobain was never shy about name-dropping the Pixies and the Melvins as two of his biggest musical influences, and those two bands' legacies are alive and well on Helms Alee's latest release. Hell, if Kim Deal and Buzz Osbourne had a torrid, drug-fueled love affair and spawned three illegitimate children, odds are good they would grow up to sound quite a bit like Helms Alee.

Top 20 Slayer songs for your International Day of Slayer playlist

Slayer in 1986. 

To commemorate the sixth annual International Day of Slayer - which, if your math skills aren't so great, originated on the incredibly appropriate date of 6/6/06 - I have decided to assemble a playlist of 20 of Slayer's greatest songs.

I should note right off the bat that this isn't a "true" Top 20 list of Slayer's absolute best songs. My goal was simply to create a career-spanning playlist to celebrate the International Day of Slayer. In so doing, I established the following two rules for myself:

1. I had to choose at least one song from each of Slayer's full-length studio albums (I didn't include live albums or EPs, but I did pick a song from their album of punk covers, Undisputed Attitude).

2. The total running time of the playlist could not exceed 80 minutes - the duration of a standard CD-R.