Field Manual
Chris Walla
(BARSUK)

Guitarist/producer Chris Walla's long-simmering batch of solo material makes me yearn for a follow-up. Not because it doesn't sound good, but because Walla's breathy vocals don't go far enough in distinguishing him from his main squeeze, Death Cab for Cutie.
Yes, Walla favors sparse guitar arrangements as opposed to DCFC leader Ben Gibbard, but the differences sort of end there. Field Manual boasts catchy, northwestern pop and flashes of electric candor on "The Score" and "Sing Again." But the flaw lies in the way Walla treats his vocals. He professes, "We'll sing together with fiery eyes, our anger alive in our chests," in a manner that conveys neither frustration nor vitality. Instead, this cat remains laid-back. He doesn't sound afraid to belt out a line or two, but when you need some raw emotion from him during the urgent command, "It is uneasy here, we need everybody on," you won't get it. —Mat Herron

Unplugged in New York (DVD)
Nirvana
(GEFFEN/UNIVERSAL)

There are things here you already know about: Kurt Cobain’s eyes suddenly snapping open in full relief as he gasps for a breathe to deliver the last “throughhhhhhhhhhh” of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”; the Meat Puppets laying the rhythm down on three of their best songs; Krist Novoselic’s accordion and Dave Grohl’s restraint.
It was a solid, versatile performance codified in the American musical canon a few months later, when Cobain blew his head off, and it has retained its mythical status since, largely because not much is known about it outside what’s on the CD. Unplugged is the stack of gold coins that the aunt you never really knew left for you, unbeknownst, in her will.
Now it gets the 2K treatment: Pimped out for the first time on DVD, this set is the full 66-minute concert, complete with bad notes, bad jokes and banal banter for the unabashed grunge junkie you thought you’d finally suppressed. And for that inside look that no self-respecting DVD is without, there’s a half-lame MTV documentary about the performance, as well as rehearsals of five songs, which is where we finally learn why Cobain played “Pennyroyal Tea” by himself. Why MTV decided not to air the hilarious send-up of Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” I don’t even care to know. —Stephen George

It’s Alive 1974-1996 (DVD)
The Ramones
(RHINO)
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Now, with the benefit of hindsight about the years, I was certifiably obsessed with The Ramones via this career retrospective of live performances, something is glaring: At first, they sucked.
The instruments they could hardly play remained comfortably out of tune. Joey, the singer, wiggled around on stage like a sandworm, awkwardly banging his head at inopportune moments in what appeared to be a vain attempt to fill open space. Tommy was on the drums trying to hold it together, and Johnny looked like he was ready to kill his bandmates. Dee Dee remained, as he would, lost in a world about which we still know very little.
But the songs stayed the same. For 22 years. Legend has it Johnny didn’t keep a guitar at home for fear of getting better and compromising his hacksaw style. Good thing. Here we can watch him — well, all of them — hone their gig, which is an unusual thing, even for a band with such high status in the punk rock universe. By 1977, The Ramones were tight, like military tight, and from there, it just got more fun: “Loudmouth” and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” from Liberty Hall, Houston, 1977 — Ramonal quintessence.
The only real negative of this set is its redundancy. There are a handful of performances of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” as well as a couple other repeats of Ramones megahits. But I suppose that’s par for a band that started all its songs off the same way. —Stephen George