Faith No More are a brilliant band. I will give them that. But they are definitely an acquired taste. Bands like Nine Inch Nails, Tool and their ilk owe a huge debt to Faith No More, who were doing it way before those bands thought to rip these guys off. Songs like The Real Thing and Absolute Zero are the blueprint that those bands used as model for theirs, and I'm really surprised that not a lot of people call them on that. Those bands went on to make millions, while Faith No More kind of just fell off the face of the Earth. Boo hoo hoo. Whatever. Anyways, the recently reunited group announced a shit load of shows over in the U.K., and to help promote it Rhino cooked up this 2 CD compilation of the creme de la creme of all things Faith No More. The Hits (From Out Of Nowhere, Digging The Grave, Epic), the Misses (R 'N' R, Ashes To Ashes) the B-Sides (Easy, Das Schnutzenfest, This Guys In Love With You) and the Unreleased (New Improved Song, Sweet Emotion). Pretty ecclectic collection of tunes. It's cool they threw the Chuck Mosley stuff in there too, as he was a huge part of the Faith No More sound. Check this compilation out if you're a Faith No More fan. Worth the cost for the booklet alone. From Rhino Records.

Ahhhh Madness. Guilty pleasure to be sure. This new offering of songs from this Legendary British hit making, dance creating machine is Dub heavy and sickly sweet. Opening track We Are London sets the tone of the album; lush vocal melodies, toe tapping bouncy beats, interesting musical interludes and that dry, sardonic wit than can only come from being a Londoner. The lads Ska and Dub influences are all over these songs, but long gone are the days of songs like The Prince and Baggy Trousers. The newer stuff is more along the lines of Grey Day, or maybe even It Must Be Love. Yeah, more introspective stuff, as opposed to the Nutty Dance days of yore. Let's face it, these guys aren't as young as they used to be, and the fact they can put together a nice collection of music like this is a good enough reason to celebrate being alive. Songs like the scary catchy We Are London, Idiot Child and That Close are some of the standout tracks on here. Could of done without a ten minute opus though (The Liberty Of Norton Folgate). You gotta let that Ragga drop, man! LOL Madness are one of the originators, one of the Rock Steady foundations upon which a whole genre of music was built upon. Pay respect to your Elders, kids. To not give this CD a listen would be doing a great disservice to your ears and your feet. On Yep Roc Records.

Some records come out and they are the stuff of instant Legend. Some albums come out and it's only after all the band members have died from food or drug overdoses that their musical output is deemed Legendary. And some bands are only Legends in their own minds. This long time coming debut release from the Mapes is all of those and more! LOL Containing more hits per second than Elton John has hats (and other things) in his closet, the Mapes have released the Damion of Local Music here in Las Vegas with this CD, a release that is going to mature and get more powerful as the years pass until ultimately, it will consume and destroy us all. It's that fucking good. Opening up with a song called Your Pussy Makes Me Vomit, how could it not be? Clocking in at around 20 minutes, this album is the perfect collection of some of the best songs to ever come out of the poor, heat baked, tortured, alcoholic souls of some of the crazed aggregations who are trapped here in the Las Vegas basin. More catchier than Herpes and Syphilis combined, these mini-Epics of monumental stature lyrically run the gamut of all sorts of things, from subjects like Dingos, Anal Sex, Tits and Cannibalism, all things which are considered staples of any classic Punk Rock album. The music on here is just as amazing too, with flourishes of semi-brilliance shining through the limitations of 3 chord song stylings. I'd like to think that they were drunk as skunks when they recorded all these tracks, but the music sounds too good for that to be true. The guitars are driving and gritty sounding. The bass is thunderous. The drums are right in your face and loud, propelling and accenting the Mapes musical output to even greater heights of musical lunacy. It's all in the drums, kids. Seriously. This digitally encoded piece of plastic contains the secrets to our survival as a species, and unless you all go out and buy as many copies of this debut release as you can, listen to the message that lies within, and then spread that Mapes message like the Gospel that it is, then we're all doomed to die like the dinosaurs we are. You have been warned. Available from Underground Government Records.