November 2006 AstroPOP! is brought to you with musical reviews by Chris Estey.

Scorpio (October 24 - November 21)
The Rorschach test was invented by a Scorpio named Herman Rorschach, and the personality of a Scorpio in the autumn can be just as inky and hard to figure out. Realizing that life is a mixture of the sloppy good and the sunny bad is the whole point of the Fall, and that realization is all over the keen songs of The Action Suits. Presspop Inc. in Japan has reissued seven old and added five new of that Seattle band's melancholy yet convivial tracks into one sparkling collection. These songs mix romantic tension with painful puns (as in "Fun Flies") and agonizing situations with morbid humor (as in "Cancer Father"). This crisp collection of underground pop absolutely crackles, even if it also sort of makes you want to hit the bong and drink a half-rack on the couch while watching Reality Bites. Anyways, the husky-toned vocalist Eric also hustles comics and graphic novels at Fantagraphics for a living, and Pete is HATE Comix art-maestro Peter Bagge, who brings his wide and deep love of all kinds of pop and rock to these fantastic tunes. If you're an old Young Fresh Fellows fan or a new follower of pop, this record will blow your "Four-Track Mind." The purchase is worth it if only for the final track "Visualize Ballard," which is a delightful Camper Van Beethoven-style romp that peaks with a rant about those maniacal churches in that part of town ("Fuck church! Fuck the state!") . Wish I could play it over the loudspeakers at Mars Hill in memory of the Paradox. Dont you, Scorpio? {listen to "Fun Flies"}

Thanksgiving feast for Scorpio: A big bowl of Cheerios with bananas and a Ballard Bitter!

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21)
Sagittarius is powerful and wise, having survived major tests of his will many times. So is Nite Owls and their Rainy City hip-hop, featuring language-wizard and dusted-poet Barfly and the clipped neo-soul of Mr. Hill. Barfly kicks ass with the throw-me-out-now-suckas wit of Fatlip, a sharp eye for detail like Chuck Bukowski, and an intrinsic political protest that comes with the rat turds in your food bank cornflakes in the morning. The strong but subtle Mr. Hill is his partner from seminal band Oldominion, and his rhythms and noise are all pump and sway percolation to Barfly's inimical observations of the state of this losing nation. Tracks like "More Power To Young America" and "Spirit of Bushwood" are evolved California-style punk rock spirit topicality wrapped in silky yet junkyard grooves. If you identify with lines like "Looking around my house looking for shit to sell," and "Some of us romanticize the hard life, some of us actually have to do it," then turn the bass up and slap this Lisa Wood (KEXP)-adored album into the technical shit of your choice. Sagittarius, I see that big things are ahead for you this month: Keep your Saturday Knights free and stay out of jail you can accomplish anything! (Word to my man Barfly.) {listen to "Some Of Us"}

Thanksgiving feast for Sagittarius: Ghetto chicken with Jo-Jos from the local Korean mini-mart and a near-frozen cold St. Ides! Or two, or three.

Capricorn (December 22 - January 19)
While appearing shy and humble, Capricorn is aware of her personal worth. So she tends to either work a lot of scams at once, knowing she can eventually pull big things off, or works a succession of jobs, organically escalating her fortune along the way. Such is the canon of great subversive music made by women in post-modern rock, generously and intelligently compiled into an absolute bitch-beast of a 3CD compilation called Girlmonster. Chicks On Speed records has put together this 61 song (!) extravaganza that varies from the acid funk reflux of The Slits to the cyber-tribal spasms of The Creatures to the techno-skronk of the band Chicks On Speed themselves. If your poet niece is putting on the studded bracelets and Converses, or your crusty punk best pal needs some stacks of femme-ferocious tracks to feed the iPod her girlfriend gave her, AstroPOP can't recommend a better Xmas gift — especially considering the amazing booklet materials included along with these decades of dark diva stiletto-pop. Best combination zine and thematic compilation in some time. {listen to "Hot Topic"}

Thanksgiving feast for Capricorn: Ask the band Lesbians on Ecstasy! This is a family website. Ha!

Aquarius (January 20 - February 18)
Aquarius is the master of the red boots, coordinating everything into light and order. At Thanksgiving time, he might feel a little like his own insides are getting all screwed up, and that can take its toll. So the candy-flavored chaos-pop of Oxford Collapse can come in handy, and their Sub Pop debut Remember The Night Parties is perhaps the most perfect Hall of Mirrors to scramble things back. After two noteworthy independent albums, Michael, Adam, and Dan have conspired with classic alt-rock and more recently Hold Steady producer John Agnello to work up a stickling mess of joyful guitars and exasperated longing. "Molasses" references The Kinks' gender-bending "Lola" with much more horrific imagery, and the transcendently squealing rock rants like "Please Visit Our National Parks" would not sound deficient near latter day Minutemen and their immediate descendents. Quality stuff, just like master Aquarius himself. {listen to "Please Visit Your National Parks"}

Thanksgiving feast for Aquarius: A big package of Red Vines and a gallon of hallucinogenic Bravo wine.

Pisces (February 19 - March 20)
Alexander Graham Bell was a Pisces, and that is appropriate because Pisces is all about communication, being perhaps the most psychically open of all signs. A gentle intuitive sensibility pervades everything a Pisces does, just like the music Bears creates, full of almost improvised jaunt and jangle. Craig Ramsey and Charlie McArthur's self-titled and released (and wonderfully designed) album features keyboards that remind one of the best of autumnal Sundays, walking to museums or building forts made out of leaves. Despite the lo-fi production, the melodies and playing on this thirteen song delight recall the best moments of all three Nuggets box sets. It was hard picking just one song-berry to nibble for this AstroPOP! {listen to "How To Live"}

Thanksgiving feast for Pisces: Sweet oyster stuffing and strong hard cider.

Aries (March 21 - April 19)
"Dead bodies piling up like garbage in the sun, it makes me feel so strong," begins the album Down Beside Your Beauty by Favourite Sons, on the strangely bright-sounding anthem "When You're Away From Me." This is how autumn will feel for Aries, as if the sun will shine no matter how desperate things get, which describes the dynamic tension of this driving, emotionally troubled full-length perfectly. The voice of front man Ken Griffin shows the artist's veteran status, melodically and literally getting away with murder in the lyrics (as well as adultery and all kinds of filth and shame). Griffin keeps things kicking, with a crack but non-obtrusive band, even when his imagery digs deep into the dark secrets of everyone's hearts. At times reminding one of S. Jones of Babybird at his very (morbid) best, or even a more melodic and pop-oriented Nick Cave, as on the title track, Down Beside Your Beauty has layers of black humor and characters. "When we go out and hang some sinners!" he gleefully exclaims, and you have to eat your way around the song from there, like James in the Giant Peach. Yum, delicious. Confronting fear in love is where it all begins, which is your salvation this month too, Aries. {listen to "Down Beside Your Beauty"}

Thanksgiving feast for Aries: Aries Thanksgiving Meal: Black leather gloved knuckles down your throat in a brawl at a posh restaurant.

Taurus (April 20 - May 20) Religion is important to you, Taurus, but then so is zooming through the corridors of the mind, and this time of year you're creatively ready for anything. Like the band M. Coast, you're able to shift from 'rolling joints' in the sweet new yacht rock anthem "Sailing Around The World" to Stereolab-cruising on harsher stuff down the luminescent streets of "Aurora." Say It In Slang is fifteen perfect Elephant Six style bedroom pop operas, driven by Derek, Andy, and Carlton with a combination of Captain & Tenelle smoothness with Free Design cracked allure. These guys have worked with artists such as Of Montreal, Elf Power, and Olivia Tremor Control, and this diversity will delight listeners. A collection of tracks recorded the past couple of years, I enjoy all the vocalists, but have to say that Emily makes me want to take a long, warm bubble bath and a large Quaalude. {listen to "Sailing Around The World"}

Taurus Thanksgiving Meal: Hush puppies, hot sauce, ice cream sundaes for dessert, and mint juleps all around.

Gemini (May 21 - June 20) Gemini needs to learn self-control, especially during the holidays, but that's not why we fall in love with Gemini in the first place. It's her mad passion, her attention to details, her knowledge of both grace and depravity. The band Carrie Clark And The Lonesome Lovers has an album titled Seems So Civilized and its vocalist, keyboardist, and guitarist Clark and her players run the gamut of chanteuse pop from stately almost-gospel like "I Saw You (Hovering)" to ribald sexy romps such as "Just For Tonight." These would be great songs to hear on a jukebox in a David Lynch film just before an FBI agent comes in to investigate the murder of a torch singer. {listen to "I Saw You Hovering"}

Gemini Thanksgiving Meal: A slice of pie and a damned good cup of coffee.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22) Cancer is a truly American sign, full of confidence and concentration of energies. But others' disloyalty can cause a vicious response, and even imagined betrayal can kick a Cancer into overdrive. Thus, the perfect record for you this month, dear Cancer, would be the new one by Archie Bronson Outfit. A disc of barely restrained rage and sensual menace within trance-like blues forms, not unlike the best of Pere Ubu, DerdangDerdang is a staccato-rhythm masterwork only kissing cacophony when it needs to. On "Kink," "Dart For My Sweetheart" and "Harp For My Sweetheart" the band is experimental rock by people who bring back the meaningful midnight donut shop on speed conversation between despair and a riff. Elegant backing vocals on "Dart" push the song into my "Top Ten Songs" list for the year. What's great is hearing how closely a song like "Dead Funny" comes to the more commercial music being made on alternative rock stations these days, when the fear and trembling beneath is obviously so authentic and the music so expertly played without thought to genre or convention. A fixated album for fixated times, perfect for Cancer to lose his own obsessions within. {listen to "Dart For My Sweetheart"}

Cancer Thanksgiving Meal: A tribal feast of roasted goat and rotgut.

Leo (July 23 - August 22) Leos can be campy as hell, and somehow get away with being drag kings or queens even when they're impersonating their own genders! Like punk rock, it's all in the attitude, baby, and without your entertaining skills the holidays would be nothing without you. Kid Congo Powers has been the creative glue for bands from The Gun Club to the Bad Seeds, and his solo work is just as literary and full of the white devil blues as those bands ever were. He has a new band, The Pink Monkey Birds, and a new record called Philosophy and Underwear. Powers doesn't long for mythical ethnic lands, but digs tattered techno-funk on the kinky "Why Hurt Flesh." He embraces so-bored-I'm-cool Iggy style rants on "Even Though Your Leather Is Cliché," showing the hip, twisted side of the NYC he lives and loves. Little Annie from Crass and Coil is even here on the great Beat jeremiad "The Weather The War" (with its awesome rolling chorus). This whole dark cabaret flutters like a rabid bat through twelve songs that never get boring. From great sex-soaked idea-drenched lyrics to diverse, sometimes folk, sometimes electronic, sometimes just rock and roll playing, this is another great Kid Congo Powers project. {listen to "Why Hurt Flesh"}

Leo Thanksgiving Meal: Frozen chocolate banana and a shot of Wild Turkey.

Virgo (August 23 - September 22) Virgos are all about survival, and have the ability to hang on tight through hard times and still shine. The world may be against us, Virgo, but we rise above by skanking to the top of the pit as soon as we are able. Don't let expectations of others during the holidays get you down. Raw joy is found within the deep grooves of the music Lee Scratch Perry produces, as evidenced on his new album Panic In Babylon Lee Scratch Perry. This sort of riddim will get you through the snowy days ahead, as you bundle up and light up a blunt against Mystery Babylon. Choice cuts for this precious comeback include "I Am A Psychiatrist," "Baby Krishna," and the Brit-style "Purity Rock." A bonus disc of that track extrapolated into DJ deliciousness and mixed up with the album's title track makes this an essential dread purchase. {listen to "Purity Rock"}

Virgo Thanksgiving Meal: Rum and weed is all we need.

Libra (September 23 - October 23) Libra enjoys the dark pleasures of the fall season. Even thoughts of everything ending can give a strange joy to someone so concerned with balance and control. Knowing that we don't control everything helps one embrace the fires and cold night air, and this month's threnody comes to us via The Minstrels. Their elegant ode to decomposition, "Melt Into The Bed," is the perfect way to end the move and look forward to the resurrection in the springtime. Not the most swinging tune on their tellingly named full-length, Our Cruel Demise, but it's not the first time decay comes up as a topic. On this gypsy-spinning, plucked and strummed album the subject matter is usually more about transcendence on sonorous compositions like "Dove Into My Heart" or the zero to the bone "Her Heart The Queen." {listen to "Melt Into The Bed"}

Libra Thanksgiving Meal: Have you taken your medications, dear?