Six Finger Satellite: Paranormalized

There is such a thing as "riff-rock," and a great thing it is indeed. The rare ability to think up raw, full-throttle guitar hooks—and back them up with sinister keyboard interjections and scratch vocals—is what Six Finger Satellite is all about. It does a pretty good job, too, especially on "30 Lashes," the first and by far the best track on Paranormalized. The album is a super-tight, super-fast, super-catchy piece of work, but it's also super-inconsistent, failing to live up to the many flashes of brilliance it displays here and there. Tons of bands do at least as good a job of being catchy and edgy: Some of them, most notably Xerobot, stuff as many hooks as there are on this album into one single track. Paranormalized might have benefited from a longer incubation period.