Dizzy Spells
Anyone familiar with the Ex's 20-plus-year history of punk  rock, noise, social satire, and anarchism won't be able to help  cracking a smile looking at the cover of their new record. The members  of the band (G.W. Sok, Andy, Terrie, Luc, and Katrin) are clad in  nature observation gear on a city street, set against a backdrop that  includes Burger King, McDonald's, and Heineken signs, among other  pop-cultural artifacts. As the cover suggests, the Ex center their social  scrutiny on commercialism. The album is riddled with harsh and humorous  lyrical attacks on consumerism and pop culture ("Walt's Dizzyland").  The music is a beautiful barrage: drums trapped in an unrelenting  rolling march, bass that thuds and throbs, and guitars that riff and  skree from every possible direction. "The Chair Needs Paint," a blatant  stab at pop music, features a stark yet melodic bass line with a chorus  composed only of that infamous pop-music word, "la."  Tracks like "Time  Flies" and "Fistful of Feed," though, are where the Ex really  excel--they threaten to cut that final thread holding a song together, and  just when they convince you that it's all about to descend into chaos,  they skillfully pull everything together again, leaving you  satisfactorily dizzy.--Oakley Atterson