?Blueskrieg?
Various Artists
Rebolusyon Rekords/Vicor

?Blueskrieg? was the moniker for a multiband blues show in 1995 at Club Dredd. A decade and many such gigs later, the event?s impresario, Gerry Diwa, produced ?Blueskrieg,? an album containing 15 ?original Pilipino blues music? by five bands: Plug, Snakecharmer, Firebottle, Dahon and Kulukati.

These livewire groups may be classified along the blues-rock stripe, as opposed to the straightforward-blues type. As such, while traditional blues elements like the 12-bar structure and down-and-out lyricism are perceptible here, so are rock flourishes ranging from Southern rock, classic rock, even funk and Pinoy rock. Any sonic apparitions of the blues? forebears tend to get buried in the hodgepodge of influences that echo the Rolling Stones, Sly and the Family Stone, The Black Crowes, The Cult, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Juan de la Cruz.

Blues purists may snicker, but for the ?Blueskrieg? bands, blistering guitar solos, resounding howls and loud volume still rule?especially in the case of Snakecharmer. The album?s significance lies in the thought that the blues, as an essentially Afro-American genre, sounds pretty good as well in Pinoy hands.

?Pocket Guide to the Otherworld?
The Camerawalls
Lilystars Records

This 10-track disc is a sweetly engaging confection?further evidence of the songwriting talent of vocalist-instrumentalist-chief composer Clementine (a.k.a. Clem Castro of the defunct Orange and Lemons).

Among other things, he pulls off a catchy chorus?or morbid verse, if you will?out of ?Clinically Dead for 16 Hours.? He also has the bright sense to set Jose Rizal?s ?Canto de Maria Clara? to music, with Clementine himself crooning the Spanish verses and playing a banduria.

There?s just a distraction. The young Filipino artist is still bent on aping the ?gentle,? melancholic bands of the New Wave era, such as The Care, The Smiths and The Colourfield. Technically, nothing wrong with feeding our proclivity for the ?80s?a decade that, for all its embarrassing details, produced a lot of pop gems. We just suspect that Clementine?s rather retro-indulgent veneer actually masks the true artist that, his songs suggest, lurk within him.

For all we know, this could really be all there is to Clementine and the rest of the trio that is The Camerawalls. But then, it would be worth staying tuned to see if they would be, as one track in the album goes, ?Changing Horses Midstream,? stylistically speaking.

?Morph the Cat?
Donald Fagen
Reprise Records/Warner Music Group

As one-half of the brilliant jazz-rock duo Steely Dan, and as a solo artist alike, singer-songwriter Donald Fagen has always been an acquired taste. ?Morph the Cat,? only his third non-Dan recording since 1982?s ?The Nightfly,? doesn?t change things?not even ?Morph?s? having won a Grammy in 2007. In fact, while a number of Dan/Fagen fans have expressed appreciation for it, some calling it his best solo work yet, ?Morph? is easily the least radio-friendly among his three solo platters.

But then, that?s just fine and dandy for firm believers, who will relish yet another serving of Fagen?s witty, literary lyricism (such as ?Security Joan,? about hooking up with a security woman, and ?What I Do,? which aims to explain why Ray Charles was a star) and his painstakingly crafted hybrid of jazz and rock (seasoned instrumentalists were hired anew).

Still, our ears will hanker more for the hooks in ?The Nightfly? and 1993?s less celebrated yet charming ?Kamakiriad? than for ?Morph.? (Incidentally, he and Dan partner Walter Becker are touring again; anyone care to bring them over to our shores?)

At the very least, ?Morph? makes us long for at least one more album from the ever meticulous, now 61-year-old Fagen?before he himself, to quote a rumination on mortality among ?Morph?s? nine tracks, gets taken by ?the fella in the Brite Nitegown.?

?Story to Tell?
Story to Tell
Dredd1 Music Management

Story to Tell is a young band, the kind that calls to mind a timeless quote by George Bernard Shaw: ?Youth is wasted on the young.?

What the five boys in Story to Tell have going for them, as this eponymous debut album shows, is teenage vigor. They have a vast reservoir of energy to pummel their instruments and yell their lungs out.

The catch is that their adolescence shows in their music and lyrics?the kind typical of a high school-age band just starting out, still a long way from the peak of Mt. Maturity. The band members? pals and girlfriends may rant otherwise, pack their gigs and profess solidarity. But next disc around, perhaps Story to Tell would get the rest of us interested.