Music: CD Reviews

Geto Boys: Reunited and still on the offensive

Geto Boys: "The Foundation"
(Rap-A-Lot)

You know what would be funny? If groups opposed to gay marriage took out TV ads featuring rabidly anti-homosexual hip-hoppers. Man, talk about strange bedfellows (no pun intended). "Yo, I'm Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys on behalf of Focus on the Family. You know who I don't like? Gay people."

Of course it'll never happen, but it would be more amusing than too much of "The Foundation," which may disappoint casual Geto Boys fans.

But then, expectations were high. Time was, the Houston trio (Bushwick Bill, Scarface and Willie D) were making some of the most electrifying rap fans had ever heard, putting their city on the map at a time when hip-hop was all about two coasts and little else.

1991's "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" is still a stone classic, and Scarface's 2002 solo album "The Fix" was stunning, a complicated and subtle look at a crime and its discontents.

With Houston poised to brake out the way Atlanta has, "The Foundation" is one of the year's more anticipated albums, a reunion among the trio that made all this bling possible.

You learn a lot on "The Foundation." You learn that real gangstas don't dance, they boogie. You learn that the Boys roll with guys that seem happiest "when it gets gangsta." You learn they stick up for "mom and pop stores in every hood" and "all my soldiers who are locked up on this fake-(expletive) conspiracy law."

But mostly you learn who the Geto Boys hate. "The Foundation" rails against a wide variety of targets, including women of all sorts, "those devils in high places who been conspiring to kill off present and future black entrepreneurs," someone Scarface calls "a black Jew" and, as always, gays. Hip-hop has never had the best relationship with gays, but the Geto Boys, and Bushwick Bill in particular, seem devoted to making it a mantra. (Check out www.houstonsoreal.blogspot.com for a surreally homophobic interview with Bushwick Bill.)

But what "The Foundation" really marks is the return of Willie D, an oddly underrated talent who released "(expletive) Rodney King," a single that hip-hop-centric academics couldn't get enough of. Willie acquits himself amazingly well, and of the three of them, seems the least paranoid about his sexuality.

But then, nobody ever listens to the Geto Boys for polite discourse. They listen to them to hear it get gangsta and to annoy anyone who thinks civility has a place in art.
-- Joe Gross

Broken Teeth: "Blood On the Radio' "
(Perris Records)

Bon Scott's favorite Austin band Broken Teeth may have shot itself in the foot with this album, recorded live last year for Loris Lowe's "Local Licks Live" on KLBJ. Play this and you get a face full of the B.T. express train without having to pay cover. Why go out when you can stay home and rock out (says the 49-year-old rock critic whose favorite club is Room 710 because you can go upstairs and take a nap between bands)?

"Blood On the Radio" has got a leash around this band's intense recasting of AC/DC, with Jason McMaster's endless fountain of shrieks eddying over the intertwinable riffs of guitarists Paul Lidel and Jared Tuten. The centrifugal force will pin you. Some albums are imprinted with the words "Play Loud!" In this case, that would be redundant, like a bearded transvestite in a thong holding a sign that says "Divert Your Eyes."
-- Michael Corcoran

The Octopus Project: "One Ten Hundred Thousand Million"
(Peek-A-Boo)

Never thought I would see the day when Octopus Project made an album commensurate with their skill on stage, but here we are. The core trio of Toto Miranda, Josh Lambert and Yvonne Lambert have blown out the band with a mess of guest musicians piling up bass, buzzing guitar, wheezing synths, mutant brass, flute and thunderous drums. They were once a wheezing engine that could; now they're one of Austin's heaviest locomotives.

Octopus Project plays with Horse + Donkey = Mule, AM Syndicate and Bring Back the Guns on Saturday at Emo's.
-- Joe Gross

High on Fire: "Blessed Black Wings"
(Relapse)

High on Fire can put you through a wall when the metal trio is playing at Emo's, but muddy sound has always undercut the band's recorded output. Well, to Hades with all that. For "Blessed," H.o.F. enlisted Mr. High Fidelity himself, Steve Albini, to turn their mush into concrete. Drums gallop over your head instead of trotting in the background, while former Melvins bassist Joe Preston, a new addition to the group, is, you know, actually audible.

And then there's guitarist Matt Pike, who never met a riff he couldn't turn into a thousand Harleys rumbling into Altamont. Loud, tough and, as always, spotlessly heavy.

High on Fire play with Planes Mistaken for Stars and the amazing Kylesa on Tuesday at Emo's.
-- Joe Gross