Articles by Bryan Reed, Diversions Editor

There's a sense of epic urgency that spills from Giant's music.

Guitars clash, surging against each other as they propel melodies to soaring heights.

Powerful drum hits fill the space, nailing shut the lid as Isaac Jones' gruff vocals battle against churning waves of sound - exasperated, desperate.

But when the fury recedes - even if only for a moment - it leaves a raw, vulnerable haze of gorgeous melody and melancholic atmosphere.

As the opening band at Cat's Cradle tonight, Giant should prove a tough act to follow.

Experimental act pushes buttons

I find it interesting how our pop-trained ears (and brains) crave melody to such a degree that when deprived of it, listening can become a challenging, even painful endeavor.

When familiar concepts of melody are manipulated or exploited - even altogether abandoned - we consider the music to be avant-garde, inaccessible, unmusical.

But only through challenges and explorations can our ideas be solidified, and the concept of melody truly defined with any degree even approaching adequacy.

With No Ceiling, her full-length debut (following two 2007 EPs), New York singer/songwriter Haale guides her band through a solid set of smooth psych-rock melded with Persian influences.

The blend becomes almost seamless as the Middle Eastern elements are pronounced mostly in the melodic phrasing of the songs and in the lyrics borrowing from Sufi mysticism and poetry.

Three of the album's 10 songs simply set the words of the Sufi poet Rumi to music - and it's these songs that lend the most audible excitement.

'Heretic' not Mtn. Goats' proudest LP

It's impossible to consider Heretic Pride without the context of the two albums that preceded it: 2005's The Sunset Tree and 2006's Get Lonely.

See, both of those records were so inescapably personal, so paralyzingly powerful, so great.

They're the kinds of albums that don't just inhabit a spot on the shelf or in the stereo, but gradually become indelibly attached to anyone who's ever cared to listen. They get in your bloodstream, and no matter what you do, there's no cure.

In 1968, George A. Romero turned zombies from ambling, carnivorous corpses into vehicles for sharp social commentary with the classic "Night of the Living Dead."

He did it again 10 years later with the critical hit, "Dawn of the Dead" (not to be confused with Zack Snyder's dumbed-down remake).

And throughout the resurrections of his "Dead" series (now in its fifth installment with "Diary of the Dead"), Romero's eye on society has never been far from the foreground.

The very name, Instruments of Science and Technology, carries the perfect mix of enigmatic sci-fi nerdity to act as the moniker for popsmith Richard Swift's eerily propulsive electronic project.

The title carries an evocation of distance and coldness, almost stereotypical of electronic music.

But with Music from the Films of R/Swift, Swift's music is given room to breathe, becoming something akin to human, despite the notable absence of truly human elements in the arrangements.

Raleigh metal act bangs out Colossal fun

Critiquing acts whose primary purpose is to faithfully resurrect a particular (and largely dead) style brings with it its own particular challenges.

Colossus, Raleigh's troupe of New-Wave-of-British-Heavy-Metal revivalists, creates all these sorts of critical challenges with its debut LP, ...And The Rift of the Pan-Dimensional Undergods.

Since the band's primary mission is to recreate the sound of the NWOBHM, we can say outright that the effort isn't pushing into any new musical territory.

'Bricks' sinks in lame excess

Kate Nash is at her absolute best singing along to the plinking toy piano chords of "Foundations."

On the standout track from her debut, Made of Bricks, the British songwriter predicts an argument with a poetic specificity that belies the conflict's frequent nature and the fragility of the relationship in question.

Joy Division's classics untainted

It is impossible to consider Joy Division in 2007 without framing it through the context of lead singer Ian Curtis' 1980 suicide.

That said, Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) - both recently re-released, untainted, with a bonus disc of live recordings - still stand as remarkable specimens of the post-punk era, chilling in their distant gloominess, and all the more haunting given Curtis' tragic biography.

The Collector's Edition versions don't change the original track listings, preserving the integrity of the already essential albums.

North Carolina's importance in the history of funk can't be overemphasized.

Charlotte housed the recording studio responsible for James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." The one-and-only George Clinton was born in Kannapolis.

But the legacy of Carolina funk is far too often forgotten. Except, that is, by erstwhile radio DJ and record collector Jason Perlmutter, whose reverent compilation, Carolina Funk: Funk 45s from the Atlantic Coast, assembles a laundry list of essential but mostly unknown singles from both Carolinas.

Articles by Bryan Reed, Diversions Editor

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