a roundup of recent local releases

‘Superliminal’
by The Screen

Portsmouth’s hard rockers The Screen had been fairly quiet on the Seacoast since releasing “Antitrust” in 2005. But they are quiet no more. With the recent unveiling of “Superliminal,” the local trio behind The Screen are just the way we like them: loud.

Guitarist and vocalist Robert Beal, bassist Erik Ralston and drummer Jarrett Osborn met while students at the University of New Hampshire and formed The Screen in 2001. Since then, the group has earned a reputation as one of the Seacoast’s most riveting rock bands, and perhaps nowhere has their power been better demonstrated than on “Superliminal.”

Recorded at Beal’s studio BB3 Audio, the album kicks off with “001,” which churns and boils until it reaches a scorching guitar solo. Beal is a downright nasty guitarist, and his talents are on full display here. The intensity remains high with the heavy chords of “Stand Up Guy,” and later instrumental experiments give the disc a cerebral appeal.

Eight of the CD’s nine songs are originals, the lone exception being a creative rendition of The Beatles’ “Come Together.” (For my money, The Screen’s version far outshines previous covers of the song by such mega-stars as Michael Jackson and Aerosmith.) The following track begins with what sounds like a false start of The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” but quickly mutates into the seething rock of “Count the Ways.”

“I try to scream, I try to scream / No words come out of me,” Beal growls.

Another curious highlight is titled “Vonnegut” and features eerie instrumentation behind a spoken word reading of the author’s work. “Interlude” is another inventive instrumental bit, showcasing the trio’s experimental spirit. But the album then delves back into shouted metal with “This Way to the Egress.”

All three members are skilled, but Beal’s guitar work—sometimes psychedelic and sometimes lowdown dirty rock—is what really makes this album excel. The CD closes with the nearly seven-minute “Faith Beyond Reason,” the title of which may be a subtle nod to one of the band’s credited influences, Faith No More. Visit www.thescreenmusic.com or www.myspace.com/thescreenmusic.

‘Charlie Strater’
by Charlie Strater

On the inside sleeve of his new self-titled CD, Charlie Strater describes two transformative experiences in his musical career. The first was catching a live performance from blistering bluesmen Buddy Guy and Junior Wells in Chicago. The second was noticing that the ladies in his life were more attracted to the music of country artists like Garth Brooks and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The new album aptly represents the marriage of those two styles. The first song, “Honky-Tonk Man” (one of two on the album by Kenny Girard), is pure country, while later tracks are saturated in bluegrass, folk and blues. The album’s common threads are Strater’s consistently smooth guitar work and country vocals.

Recorded at Milltown Recording Co. in Rollinsford, the album includes a handful of Strater originals alongside several covers by local and national artists. “Lullaby,” written by fellow Seacoast songwriter Harvey Reid, features bluesy slide guitar and harmonica by Strater. There’s also a lighthearted and thoroughly enjoyable cover of the rather obscure Bob Dylan song “Down in the Flood.” 

Strater got help from a slew of likeminded local musicians on the album, including Jon Nolan on guitar, percussion and vocals; Keith Foley on fretless bass; Steve Roy and Greg Rothwell on standup bass; Dan Walker on electric bass; PJ Donahue and Aaron Katz on drums; Bruce Derr on pedal steel; and Joyce Andersen on fiddle.

This music has a fitting place in the old New Hampshire farm country, and Strater seems aware of the Seacoast’s confluence of rural and cosmopolitan. “She’s the perfect combination of redneck and sophistication / We go to museums and eat at the Mobil station,” Strater sings in the Matt Shipman song “Perfect Combination.”

When he wants to, Strater can really tear on guitar, a quality perhaps best demonstrated in his instrumental romp “Freaks Show.” And his vocals carry an authentic country lilt.

Strater will play a CD release show at The Press Room in Portsmouth on Saturday, June 27 at 8 p.m. He will also play music from the disc on 106.1 WSCA on Friday, June 26 at 2 p.m. Visit www.myspace.com/charliestrater.

‘It Takes a Lot of Guts! (to be this obscure and keep getting up in the morning)’
by Moes Haven

In 2006, Manchester-based pop act Moes Haven embarked on a year-long, album-a-day project that resulted in 365 recordings. The following year, the duo of singer/keyboardist Matt Farley and guitarist Tom Scalzo threw together some of their favorite songs from the project and released them on a single CD, “Victory is Ours (For Now).”

With the recent release of “It Takes a Lot of Guts!,” Farley and Scalzo pull other songs from their extensive catalogue from June 2004 to December 2006. Recorded entirely in Manchester, the album is laden with 16 quirky, poppy numbers that reflect the near-neurotic whims of two compulsive songwriters.

Some of the songs are barely over a minute long, presenting short nuggets of catchy musical narrative. Part of you wants to hate these songs, and listening to all of Haven’s albums would probably grate on one’s sanity, and yet they’re kind of irresistible.

The band turns ordinary, everyday occurrences into humorously romantic adventures. The first song, “Dartmouth Girl,” for example, tells of the singer’s encounter with a college student from Seattle who knocked on his door one day and asked him to fill out a survey. He fell in love and, naturally, wrote a song about it.

You can hardly help but chuckle at some of the cutesy tunes, especially “Papaphobia,” which describes the duo’s chronic fear of the pope. “They say he’s a nice guy, but still I’m afraid of him / I’m not sure why,” Farley sings with a falsetto flourish.

Some of the jingles have the peppy, playful spirit of children’s music, while others are a bit slower and more somber. Farley’s idiosyncratic voice, and Haven’s obsessively prodigious storytelling, both share the rather inexplicable appeal of Daniel Johnston, whose odd genius was chronicled in the 2005 documentary “The Devil and Daniel Johnston.” Perhaps these unsung maestros, now buried in obscurity, will one day be the subject of a documentary themselves. But don’t hold your breath—they have vowed not to release an album of new music until 2012.

Visit www.moeshaven.com or www.myspace.com/moeshaven.