To kick off a (hopefully) weekly series of new music reviews in which I’ll praise one excellent album a week then bash one that I find unpalatable, I decided I would start with the complete best I could find and the complete worst.

The Good

As for the best, I chose "In Recovery," the first official full-length from Inspection12, a bunch of pop culture-savvy pop-punkers from Jacksonville, Florida. I know what you’re saying now: "Pop-punk? Like Blink182? It must suck." But I say nay! These four relatively young guys (they’re all 21) compose beautiful pieces of music that draw as much upon songwriters like Billy Joel and Peter Cetera as they do upon punk standards like The Ramones and NoFX.

In fact, all of the songs place great emphasis on the singing abilities of the four members, with four part harmonies that can at times put barbershop quartets to shame, especially in "Secret Identity," and the broken-hearted tale of lost love, "Photograph." Also, the group doesn’t limit themselves to the typical "guitar, bass, drums, voice" equation— they employ a string/horn section for many songs, such as the pop-culture primer "Great Scott!" and "Leave it to Me." Several members of the band also pull double duty on piano and other keyboards in my two favorite songs from the album, "Red Letter Day," and the incredibly well written and extremely powerful closer "Elegy."

Quickly after picking this disc up, it worked its way into my head and has stayed there ever since. The musicianship is amazing—the group has played together since 1994 and it shines through on this disc. All in all an amazing disc, and one I highly recommend to any one who enjoys music at all. *****

I can admit, under duress, that I have actually enjoyed some actors who sing. I mildly enjoy Eddie Murphy’s music, at times, but this just hurts my head.

Billy Bob Thornton, accomplished actor and husband to coo-coo sex symbol Angelina Jolie has thrown up a big pile of country western stink entitled "Private Radio." I use the term stink simply because anything more accurate for describing this album would render this review unfit for print anywhere except the darkest recesses of the Internet.

The album, in which Thornton sings wildly terrible songs about his wife or Waffle House, is largely co-written with legendary country artists such as Randy Scruggs and Marty Stuart. They volunteered to appear on this! The track entitled plainly "Angelina," begins with the lines "I walked into the elevator/and you walked into a wall," and that’s the highlight! Of the album! It’s all downhill from there. Like the Waffle House lament "Forever," written as though a trucker was speaking to a wife or girlfriend from the road. Or perhaps "Walk of Shame," a date story which sounds like what you would get if you threw Tom Petty at a stack of Hank Williams Jr. albums. At least I can take solace in the simple fact that the only way Thornton could force this album on an unsuspecting public is by creating his own record label, Lost Highway Records.

I will leave this article on a kind of high note—at least Angelina Jolie found someone to share her time with who compliments her crazy, brother-kissing lifestyle.

Back to my Inspection 12 CD, naturally
~Zac Martin

In memory of Scott Shad, 7/2/82 – 3/6/01