DJ? Acucrack : Mako vs. Geist : If you like DJ? Acucrack, you'll like this. Not much room for argument. Decent pseudo-industrial jungle-esque techno-thing. Money well spent in that I can throw it on and it doesn't jam itself up my nose and scream like most "techno" does. I'm not big on Acumen Nation but DJ? Acucrack is pretty satisfying. Grade : A-* Going into rotation.

Pig : Pigmata : Remastered WATTS. It may be pretty good in five or six years. I say this because everything Watts does as PIG he does seven or eight fucking times with minor or major variations. Pigmata is a straight-up sludgy, guitar-heavy rehash of all previous PIG and doesn't really add anything to the pot. If you like Watts, you won't mind... but after this, I'm starting to reheat the thought that En Esch and Gunter Schultz are the best thing that's run down KMFDM's leg. "Reject" is decent, "Junky" is reason enough to bring this disc to a show on the off chance you'll get the chance to shove it up Watt's ass and snap it off. Tracks range from old PIG lyrics on top of other old PIG tracks to complete shit that wouldn't look out of place on a Skold-or-later KMFDM B-side. Grade : D- I doubt I'll give this a second listen.... despite the fact that it whips the shit out of the last three KMFDM albums. King grumps when people say The Stand is his best work... ya gotta wonder how Watts feels about having peaked with Juke Joint Jezebelle.

Final : 3 : Broadrick sez Final isn't "Ambient." Technically, he's correct. Ambient doesn't have the occasional razors-on-chalkboard Autechre-takes-on-the-Federally-Mandated-Trance-Techno-Treble-Break. This does. All I can say about it after most of one initial listen is either I didn't notice (it accentuated the instance nicely) or it irritated the shit out of me (the sporadic adherence to aforementioned Federally Mandated Treble Laws). The former is good, the latter isn't just bad, it's thank the gods I got this out of the used bin four days after its release. Final seems to have the one thing lacking from every other JKB project under the sun - treble - and it's got just enough to make up for the lack of it elsehwhere. Really not sure how I feel about this. Grade : Inconclusive.**

* This ain't High Art. But it's not Complete Shit, either.
** It's JKB. I need a second listen under better operating conditions.