John Tenta RIP

John 'Earthquake' Tenta has died at the age of 42.

Tenta's death follows a lengthy battle with bladder cancer.

Tenta had some success as a sumo wrestler before entering the WWF as Earthquake in 1989. His feud with Hulk Hogan in 1990 is one of my favourite wrestling memories.

Tenta is survived by his wife and three children.

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Album Review: The Trials Of Van Occupanther

With Grandaddy no more, The Flaming Lips pushing farther and farther into space and Mercury Rev seemingly on a self-imposed hiatus, a gap has opened for a quirksome, melodic, psychedelic American band. Enter Denton, Texas, five-piece, Midlake.

The Trials Of Van Occupanther is Midlake's second album and while their debut, Bamnam & Silvercork, was, at times, primitive, the new album is a fully-realised beast. Roscoe, driven by keyboards and both charming and infectious, is a perfect opening statement from a band who sound much more confident two years on from their full-length debut.

Like Grandaddy - to whom the band are most often compared - Midlake's chief concern, at least on their new album, appears to be a desire to retreat from modern day materialism to a more simple life of honest toil and nature. In the case of the album's fictional titular hero, this means invisibly transporting pales of water.

But while there's a degree of fantasy in the album's midst, singer Tim Smith's lyrics prove that The Trials Of Van Occupanther is grounded in reality. The gothic crawl of Branches gives us the biggest insight into Midlake's world as Smith sings, "we won't get married, because she won't have me", before closing the song with the heartbreaking refrain: "it's hard for me, but I'm trying".

Smith's bandmates have also clearly become more adventurous since Bamnam & Silvercork. Home sees the band adding fuzzy guitar solos to their repertoire, while In This Camp too proves that the band are equally adept at cultivating soon-to-be indie anthems. Elsewhere, Young Bride cascades along on a wave of carefully laid-down percussion and tempered strings, Gathered In Spring's conclusion is deliciously swamped in Eric Nichelson's keyboards and Chasing After Deer is just a lone guitar and Smith's trembling vocals.

Repeated listening of The Trials of Van Occupanther's charming and infectious songs might unveil hints of Neil Young, Mercury Rev, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens, yet there's no mistaking Midlake's brilliance for anyone else's.

Album Review: Napoleon Of Temperance

Mixing the intoxicated tone of Tom Waits, the incoherent babbling of Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston's fractured pop, Dave Cloud's star could've shone as brightly as any of his contemporaries. That is, if he had ever left his home state of Nashville.

This may all be about to change for, in April, Cloud left Nashville for the first time and toured Europe with his band, The Gospel of Power, a contingent of caballeros that includes members of Lambchop and Clem Snide.

Matching this bold move, and having recently signed to Fire Records, Cloud releases a new album, Napoleon Of Temperance this June. To familiarise a European audience who might not have previously heard of Cloud, the new album includes his two previous albums in their entirety and throws in a few entirely new tracks for good measure. The result is a colossal 45-track, double CD.

Whether he's playfully toying with Herman's Hermits' I'm Into Something Good or telling of his love for a Honda Superhawk on Motorcycle, Cloud's compulsion is to make noise and play with words with unabashed salaciousness. It's also clear that Cloud savours delivering his words dramatically, as he mixes the raspy tone of an old-time Southern hipster with the elocution of a competent voice-over artist.

Furthermore, despite surrounding himself with musicians as talented as Tony Crow, Matt Swanson and Matt Bach for the recording of Napoleon Of Temperance, Cloud clearly enjoys using his vocal chords as an instrument in their own right. Consequently, two distinct vocals chase each other through Save The Last Dance For Me and three voices speak and sing their way through a variety of riffs on Booty Shoe II.

Cloud also explores the unique qualities of his voice, settling on particularly rich notes or slow vibratos (notably when covering War's All Day Music) or simply playing with the effect created by repeating single words on album opener Vixen... Vixen... Fox... Fox. At the conclusion of the second disc, Evil Dracula Man permits Cloud the chance to attempt B-movie vampire voices.

The production has clearly been done on a shoestring, but while Cloud has absorbed the punk ethic of raggedness, he hasn't absorbed the rage. Indeed, there's a degree of mischief about the entire album, but no more so when Cloud is tackling other artists' songs. He mangles K.C. & The Sunshine Band's Get Down Tonight with a series of Casio drones, but he also croons his way through Gamble & Huff's Me & Mrs. Jones, The Rolling Stones' Let's Spend The Night Together and David Bowie's Moonage Daydream. The Beach Boys' Warmth of the Sun, Bob Dylan's Lay, Lady, Lay, Irving Berlin's Heatwave and a pair of Bee Gees' hits ( (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away and a string-laden version of How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?) also receive a twisted make-over.

Album Review: Detrola

Having made their debut with 1990's stunning Livonia album and forged a career of eccentric dream pop, His Name Is Alive branched out in the new millennium with 2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover The Earth, an album which, astoundingly, featured nothing but urban soul ballads, before appearing to go into deep hibernation after the release of their final 4AD album, 2002's Last Night.

In fact, Warn Defever and his cohorts had actually been busier than ever, delivering .mp3-only tracks, EPs and albums. However, the lack of any widely available new material seemed ominous for fans of the Michigan-based collective. Detrola, His Name Is Alive's first album for the aptly-named Reincarnate Music, lays to rest any concerns about the band's existence and is definitely worth the four-year wait.

Rather than tackle a single genre with the eleven tracks on offer, the recesses of Detrola contain hints of all HNIA's back catalogue. The folky torch song vocals of Lovetta Sharie Pippen immediately recall their second album, Home Is In Your Head, while much of the late-night electronica hints at the more up tempo moments of Last Night.

So, within this potpourri, HNIA treat us to Introduction, a traditional spiritual dirge, some New Order-inspired instrumentation on In My Dream, a galloping Vaudeville sing-along (Get Your Curse), Beach Boys' melodies (You Need A Heart), some free jazz saxophone runs (Seven Minutes) and the electro hypnosis of *C*A*T*S*.

As Send My Face sends the album to a bittersweet conclusion, we are left to ponder that the four year gestation might have been required for HNIA to so expertly learn each of the genres they succeed in attempting on this new album. Bewilderingly eclectic Detrola may be, but it's no less enjoyable for it.

Album Review: Everything Wrong Is Imaginary

It's often said that the best records come out of intense personal turmoil and Kurt Heasley (who is, for all intents and purposes, Lilys) is certainly no stranger to turmoil. While he was creating the 8th Lilys album, his wife had a psychotic episode and abandoned him. This left Heasley as a single parent of his three children. Putting his family first, Heasley decided to record his guitar and vocal parts at home and send the tracks to producer Michael Musmanno, who filled in the missing spaces with various studio musicians.

The resulting album, Everything Wrong Is Imaginary, is yet another stylistically nomadic record to add to Lilys' impressive canon. The smoothed-out disco funk haze of A Diana's Diana, the Guided By Voices pop of The Night Sun Over Sun Juan and the Pink Floyd tribute that is Knocked On A Fortune Teller's Door all show that Heasley's willingness to experiment hasn't been tempered by his tumultuous personal life. Perhaps the most divergent track, however, is With Candy, a curt, disjointed avant-rock number that features the stinging garage guitar of Heasley's overtly retro period, some of the dreamy sound-waves of his earliest work and some new forays into electronica.

There is a degree of stylistic goofing as Black Carpet Magic jolts from giddy noise to giddy noise and Still In All The Glitter nearly gets lost under its own veneer, but when the music gets too muddled, Heasley's world weary lyrics maintain the album's excellence. No more so than when he sarcastically declares "everyone knows everything" on Black Carpet Magic.

Witty, acerbic and intelligent, Everything Wrong Is Imaginary proves that Lilys continue to brim with imagination and, more importantly, are startlingly able to splinter and bend pop convention.

Album Review: Fast Man Raider Man

Sometimes you have to go back to move forward. With a solo career in danger of stalling, a reunion with the Pixies has clearly lit a creative fire within the artist formerly known as Black Francis, and Cooking Vinyl are preparing to release the third Frank Black album in as many years.

Where last year's critically applauded Honeycomb album found Black working with legendary Memphis session men, here he expands his list of collaborators to include The Band's Levon Helm, P.F. Sloan, Heartbreaker drummer Steve Ferrone, Marty Brown, Cheap Trick's Tom Petersson, Simon Kirke from Bad Company and Free, and the legendary Al Kooper. Musicians returning from Honeycomb include Booker T & The MGs' Steve Cropper, Reggie Young, Buddy Miller, Spooner Oldman and Chester Thompson.

Black's clearly relishing spending time in the studio with his heroes and, by his own admission, he was more relaxed during recording this time around: "On Honeycomb I was walking on eggshells," Black admits. "These guys are still legends, but now that we'd hung around a bit, I was more at ease".

Perhaps because of this, Black doesn't adhere to such a strict blueprint this time around. In fact, there was a degree of overlapping with the recording of this and his last album (no bad thing since Honeycomb formed a high watermark in Black's solo career), Highway To Lowdown, Sad Man's Song and Where The Wind Is Going were all originally recorded for Honeycomb but didn't quite fit into its laidback remit. Since Fast Man Raider Man lacks such a distinct tone, there was no problem including them this time around. In fact, they form three of the album's highlights.

Elsewhere, Wanderlust has Black doing Van Morrison better than Van Morrison, Fitzgerald and Elijah both hark back to the time when Black and the Pixies were turning rock music on its head, while My Terrible Ways is a true, tragic story of heroism in wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Fans of the screaming, shrieking Black Francis may be confounded as he moves further and further away from his Pixies heyday, but to attempt to curb a talent as endless as Black's would be a crying shame.

Album Review: Progress Reform

With three limited 7"s to their name and a live show that is already the stuff of legend, Leeds-based enemies of Caps Lock, iLiKETRAiNS are all but redefining the phrase `hotly-tipped'.

Progress Reform - the band's first mini-album - features two of the band's previous releases, Terra Nova and A Rook House For Bobby, as well as five other tracks of intellectual, darkly uplifting sonic exploration.

Those dismissing the band's decision to wear British Rail uniforms during their live performances as a blithe gimmick would do well to re-think. In fact, it'd be taxing to find a band that take their craft as seriously as iLiKETRAiNS. Terra Nova tells of Captain Scott's doomed 1912 Antarctic expedition, while A Rook House For Bobby depicts the life of Bobby Fischer, the troubled chess grandmaster who ended up joining an apocalyptic cult and had the fillings removed from his teeth in case they influenced his behaviour, before being arrested, imprisoned and arriving in Iceland as a reclusive exile. In four-and-a-half minutes, Simon Fogel's drums punch the stomach, while David Martin's lyrics tear at the heart.

Elsewhere, Citizen is a jangling mess of distorted guitars and thumping drums and Martin's threatening lyrics on Stainless Steel ("Don't go in the kitchen, that's where all the knives are kept and I won't be held responsible") are masked by gentle, affecting guitars. At the close of Progress Reform lies The Beeching Report, a track which features iForwardRussia!, Napoleon III and This Et Al on backing vocals as some sort of iniquitous choir.

Leeds can claim ownership to perhaps the most exciting music scene in the country at the moment, and with Progress Reform, iLiKETRAiNS can probably claim to be the city's most exciting band.