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Lisa Loeb Firecracker Geffen It's hard to imagine petite Lisa Loeb performing at the San Jose State University Event Center; her delicate voice and thoughtful demeanor seem better suited to a cozy cafe. Loeb's lyrics, like Edie Brickell's, evince an air of intelligence, and she delights in every word. After Tails' "Stay (I Missed You)," Loeb could have disappeared, but Firecracker is a sound follow-up. She drifts effortlessly through concepts from ending a bad relationship ("I Do") to finding a good one ("Truthfully"). "Furious Rose," a Moody Blues-styled orchestral number about Freud trying to convince a woman that she is crazy, is especially powerful. (Sarah Quelland) Bunkbed Bunkbed Let's Go! There's breezy and there's wind chill. After a listen to Bunkbed, turntable owners will go in search of an electric blanket. The cold, stark guitar-cello-brushes sound extinguishes a campfire's glow with icy precision. Keith Karate and Jen Wood's whispered delivery begs for an ear and a reliable shoulder. "Substance Abuse" covers loss and recovery in a narcoleptic, somnambulistic style. "Grasping for Reasons" would make K Records fans hot. The single is the first release on Tyler Kogura's label, Let's Go, and sounds unlike anything else coming from this area, which is a good reason to climb between Bunkbed's sheets. (Todd S. Inoue) Shower With Goats Just Another Day Springman Boy meets girl. Girl rebuffs boy. Boy commiserates with other boys and records an entire album about sordid affair. Just Another Day started to seem extremely repetitive after a few listens, but that is the way high schoolers think. Shower With Goats sounds like Less Than Jake without the ska--like Blink 182 with a little more oomph. The band's pressurized brand of power punk comes across most effectively on tracks like "Stranded" and "Just Another Day." Another good reason to pick this album up is because local guy Avi Ehrlich started Springman Records and issued Just Another Day himself. Avi is still in high school. (TSI) Sensational Loaded With Power Wordsound Back in the early 1990s, when Sensational (then known as Torture) was down with the Jungle Brothers, his kind of hip-hop didn't sit too well with the brass-knuckled boyz who held rap hostage. With Loaded With Power, the MC/producer plumbs the genre's low end, indicating his affinity for bassy, stripped-down beats. "Where It Started Out" flaunts a sparse drum-and-bass-dominated pulse with faint traces of ghost-town keyboards hovering in the background. Accompanied by a couple of unidentified rappers, Sensational's guttural freestyling is alternately urgent and lethargic. His lyrics consist chiefly of reiterating a track's title in an overdubbed, dope-choked voice that grates after a couple of replays. Indeed, after a while, Sensational's sonic approach grows wearisome; an occasional shift in tempo would help. (Nicky Baxter) [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]