Listen after listen, I couldn’t figure out whether I liked Quotable, or didn’t. 24K wasn’t the problem. She’s a damn fine MC, with a style harder and tougher than any of her female contemporaries. I was 50/50 on the production. Some of it was hot, especially the Beatminerz, Just Blaze, and Anomaly Blackanom Productions/913 Entertainment. But some of it sounded like everything else I hear and forget.

Time to update your party playlist, boys and girls. Place this somewhere between James Brown and Toots & The Maytals, because that’s where it belongs. Just like the aforementioned legends, The Aggrolites play party music with a message. But they’re content with not beating it into you. So long as you shake your ass, their job is done.

Listening to Angry Atom reminds me of my youth. Their music summons thoughts of a warm summer day full of similar melodies. The day I speak of is August 12th, 1986-- my first trip to the Ohio State Fair's livestock barn. The tune I am reminded of: the frantic baaing of countless sheep tethered to walls.

The band: Nikki Sixx (bassist and songwriter for rock 'n' roll behemoth Motley Crue) and Tracii Guns (lead guitarist and founding member of L.A. Guns) have been fixtures of the hard rock scene for over two decades. The two of them have teamed up with newcomer London Le Grand on vocals, and Scot Coogan, an accomplished session and touring drummer who has worked with everyone from boy band All-4-One to Pete Yorn.

Earl Slick has assembled an impressive array of talent to lend their voices to his first solo album since rejoining David Bowie’s band a few years ago. Robert Smith, Royston Langdon, Joe Elliot, Martha Davis, and even the Thin White Duke himself, take turns collaborating with Slick on Zig Zag.

They say that a band has their whole life to write their first album, and six months to make their second, which explains why some bands seem to fizzle out after a brilliant debut. It also explains the giant leaps that take place from album to album. Another problem facing musicians is that critics (and I guess since I’m writing this, I am one) have a year or two to get to love that first album, and only a handful of times to listen to the new release to determine whether it lives up to the promise of the first. It hardly seems fair.

This special edition of Freak Films is just for the nerds out there; the geeks; the dorks; the movie lovers who can quote whole trilogies of movies; for people who like to go to Toys 'R' Us every couple of days just to make sure they didn’t miss a variant paint job on an action figure they already have five of; people who have more DVDs than they've had intercourse.

Paradise Pawned Vol. 1 is an hour-long homage that encapsulates every influence these guys have ever had. There's a little Rolling Stones, a little of The Who, some Aerosmith, a little Dylan/Tom Petty nasally singing, a little AC/DC, a lot of classic KISS, some Lynyrd Skynyrd, a sprinkle of ZZ Top, and a drop of just about every other influential rock/blues musician from the '60s, '70s, and early to mid-'80s. There was even a spot that sounded a little bit country, in a Tesla sort of way.

Thankfully, I get to write this. If I had to stand before you and recite it, I might be a little difficult to understand. Why? Because I’m eating my words.

Somewhere between Monster Magnet and The Breeders lies Jucifer's EP, War Bird. Jucifer is a band that takes the droning guitars of stoner rock and sets hypnotic female vocals on top. And the disc has a vibe all its own, with several of the intros reminding me of Tool.