Superchief
“Trophy Room”
Magnetic Eye

If you are a fan of good, old-fashioned, hard-driving rock music, and you are not already a fan of Superchief, you need to come to Jesus. The Des Moines five-piece has been churning out quality music for a good while now, but in “Trophy Room,” the band has given the world its best work yet. Opening track “Kings” lets you know exactly what kind of album this is, as guitarists Jason Monroe and Casey Doser come out of the gate melting faces and taking names. “Trophy Room” was produced by Kevin Neal at Redd No. 7, and if there is any complaint to be had, it would be that Neal’s work almost makes the album too clean, leaving frontman Haldor Von Hammer’s vocals sitting uncomfortably high in the mix at points. ‘Tis a small issue, however, and not one that keeps “Trophy Room” from being a powerful addition to the local sound. CV

David Duchovny
“Hell or High Water”
ThinkSay

First off, yes. It is THAT David Duchovny. “Californication” was pretty good, “X-Files” is coming back, and now Duchovny has found himself in that “screw it, I’ll make some music now” point in his career, ala Bruce Willis in the late ’80s or Billy Bob Thornton, circa 2003. For his efforts, Duchovny comes out OK enough. As you might expect, there is nothing here that is going to rework how you look at music, but he also does not make a complete fool out of himself. His voice is nothing special, but he keeps everything pretty simple and manages to come off sounding like a poor man’s version of a poor man’s version of Tom Petty. Beyond that, the album itself is acceptable background music; it is inoffensive, not horrible to listen to, and it pretty much all sounds the same. CV

Faith No More
Sol Invictus
Ipecac

Here is maybe the best thing you can say about “Sol Invictus”: it feels like it could have been released in 1999. That is not to say that the album feels dated. Rather, Faith No More has somehow managed to take a couple decades off and still not miss a beat. In fact, tracks like “Superhero” are classic Faith No More. The band also tries a couple of new things — the title track opener is more laid back than anything the vintage version of the band released, while “Cone of Shame” takes nearly half its running time to actually get started — but everything that is here feels like it does the band justice. Mike Patton’s voice has gotten a bit more complex over the years, and he uses it to good effect. CV