Anthony Scialdone leads all of last year’s returning players with a batting average of .361.

By Carmine Vetrano

The Central Connecticut State University Baseball team is looking to make another splash in the NEC tournament, after they were ousted in extra innings in last year’s tournament.

The Blue Devils lost to top ranked Wagner in the 10th inning after they watched a 5-2 lead vanish. Wagner’s Van Avella capped off the comeback with a solo homerun in the top of the 10th, and the Blue Devils could not answer in the bottom half, to close out their 2009 season.

Last year, CCSU finished with 26-22 record, which placed them with the number three seed in conference post season play.

This season, the Blue Devils were picked to finish third in the NEC with two first place votes in a ranking produced by all the conference coaches.

The Blue Devils are returning with their top ten hitters, which only means more runs on the scoreboard for a team that hit .323 at the plate. However, the pitching staff needs to bolster up after hey displayed a poor 6.67 team ERA.

Coming back to the bench is head coach Charlie Hickey. Hickey is in his 11th year behind the captain’s deck running the Blue Devils baseball team. He guided the team two three NEC conference championships, which allowed the team to reach the NCAA tournament.

Senior infielder Anthony Scialdone returns to the diamond, as he leads all returners from last year with a batting average of .361. He collected 46 RBIS to go along with six homeruns and 61 hits.

Another senior that is looked upon for leadership is outfielder Richie Tri. The Everett, Washington native led the outfield in batting average with .348 and started in 44 games for the Blue Devils. He had .972 fielding percentage and is looking to leave him mark on the team in his final year.

Junior Pat Epps, who still has one year left of play, is another infielder that finished third on the team in batting. Tri, from Watertown, CT, had 63 hits and 57 RBIS. His .346 BAA is second for infielders. Epps provides a staple point for the coaching staff to build for next year’s infield class.

The Achilles heel for the Blue Devils was the pitching staff. Last season, the team allowed 579 hits and 361 runs. No pitcher on the team had an ERA under three, as former Blue Devils Ken Kerski led the staff with a 4.79 earn runs average.

Coming back to the bump is senior right-hander Dan Markoya. Markoya went 1-4 last season with a 4.99 ERA. The Blue Devils lost arms over the summer, which added to more than half the wins of last year’s team.

Sophmore Jack Greenhouse went 8-3 in his senior year before Central, and is looking to add depth to the pitching staff. Last season he went 1-0 in seven appearances. Todd Savatsky, Nate Strurgis and Jason Foster are other sophomores looking to make a dent in the rotation and give the team some innings.

The rest of the preseason rankings are as follows: Wagner regains the top seed, followed by Monmouth at two; Scared Heart sits behind the Blue Devils at four, with newcomer Bryant at five and Mounts St. Mary’s at six; Quinnipiac, Farleigh Dickinson and Long Island round out he bottom three.

With a good core coming back, the Blue Devils have high hopes on a return to the NEC postseason.

By Matt Kiernan

Punk-revival band Titus Andronicus return with their second full-length album, The Monitor, continuing their aggressive punk/indie rock sound that pokes fun at national pride, similar to the punk forefathers that came before them.

The album opens with the seven minute track, “A More Perfect Union,” starting with an old radio speech that is followed by Patrick Sticklestitus’s vocals that sound like Paul Westerberg of the college rock band the Replacements. The track shows love for their home state of New Jersey, referencing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” with the lyrics, “Cause tramps like us/ baby we were born to die.”

The idea of the album is taken from the American Civil War, as seen in the picture on the album cover, and the album title coming from the USS Monitor ship that was used by the Navy during the war.

“No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future,” starts with Sticklestitus’s throaty vocals that lead into bursts of sung screams. The song ends with the cynical chant of, “You’ll always be a loser.”

Instead of making the lyrics position themselves to speak on a direct topic, they hold reason and advice that can be taken in pieces to reach listeners on a personal level, reaching greater depth than other punk bands.

“A Pot in Which to Piss,” takes a quieter tone than other tracks on the album, having Sticklestitus singing like it’s a lullaby. The slow guitar chords soon turn into quick strumming that are accompanied by piano.

The album ends with the epic 14-minute track, “The Battle of Hamptons Road,” referencing the USS Monitor’s battle with another ship. The song is complicated in that it comes in many parts that can go from little instrument use to full out jamming, and back again.

War is something that’s tough to be translated into art, and Titus Andronicus come out in one piece by making an album that transcends the ideas of war to speak of everyday feelings.

A forum on drug policy will be hosted at Central Connecticut State University on Thursday, March 18.

The event, which will be held at Alumni Hall at 2 p.m., is an informational forum centering around the current Connecticut gubernatorial candidates. All of the individuals who have either expressed interest in running for Governor of Connecticut or confirmed their candidacy have been invited to the event. Among the invited candidates are Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman, entrepreneur Ned Lamont, Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele and former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley.

The goal of the forum is to address issues concerning drug policy and hopes to promote discussion and understanding among policy makers and stakeholders. Potential gubernatorial candidates will be able to answer questions based on speaker presentations, which focus on the history of drug policy in Connecticut, the costs of criminalization and possible drug treatments among other topics.

“Connecticut’s approach to drug policy has a very significant impact upon all of its residents, both in human and economic terms,” said Andrew Clark, director of the Institute for Municipal & Regional Policy, in a CCSU press release. “Unfortunately, it is a widely misunderstood topic that is seldom publicly and meaningfully discussed. Our hope is that the March 18 forum will help to change this dynamic.”

The event, which will be moderated by former State Representative William Dyson, features speakers such as CCSU dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Dr. Susan Pease, CCSU policy analyst Dr. Robert Painter and Dr. David Shapiro, associate director of trauma and critical care at St. Francis Hospital.

“It’s critical to examine the impact of current drug policy on families, especially children,” Dyson said in a press release. “By bringing together educators, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, we hope to create an atmosphere that allows for the free exchange of ideas and the movement towards rigorously examined and implemented drug policy”.

The final portion of the forum is scheduled to be dedicated to allowing members of the audience to ask questions to the candidates.

The free and public event is a collaborative effort between CCSU, Yale University, University of Hartford and St. Francis Hospital.

The idea is a great one – why wouldn’t CCSU students want to get involved in the way their university system is represented at the state capitol?

Unfortunately, asking students to complain about the inevitable rise in education costs will produce little or no results after a conversation with legislators – the same people who have to think about plan for mitigating a $500 million plus budget deficit. While education is obviously a priority, legislators have countless things to worry about. In the end, fighting over tuition increases is futile and a waste of time – they are inevitable, as are other education costs like textbooks.

The SGA, and whoever else is responsible for marketing this trip, has to consider this, and probably should have thought up a better purpose for creating a dialogue between students and lawmakers.

For example, the discussion could focus on only the positives of attending CCSU, and why its students deserve more financial aid, or money to fund renovation or construction projects. Or, more importantly, why CCSU needs to hire more faculty and staff to take care of the Registrar vacancies. If students can showcase what we have now and how best CCSU makes use of it, it will be an easier argument made to say that CCSU can do “x, y and z” with more resources. A more difficult task, we know, but in the end it’s one that will reduce the amount of unproductive ranting.

Besides, lobbying is supposed to focus on the positives and why the represented group really needs more money to keep its positive contributions going. CCSU has the opportunity to stand out against the backdrop of higher tuition increase-protesting University of Connecticut students, or maybe even the other CSU schools and their complaints.

Instead, students should read, learn and prepare for what to say and the ultimate presentation that CCSU students can make in front of the Connecticut General Assembly, if they do plan on making the trip in April. Alternately, it would reflect poorly on the university if students – especially the SGA – traveled to the capitol to complain. At the very least they could promote a real conversation about what students think and how the state can make life here just a little bit easier – not expound on the existing difficulties.

CCSU Hooligans Rugby is ready to roll into the spring season on a high after their 3-3 finish in the fall, the squad’s best finish in years.

The Hooligans qualified for the New England Rugby Football Union Plate tournament, one of two postseason tournaments hosted by NERFU at the college level. Though they lost in the first round to Plymouth State, Chris Pritchard, Hooligans president, believes it is a step in the right direction.

“We used to be fourth in the nation in the mid-90s,” Pritchard said. “We try to encourage more camaraderie among the players. I think it helps recruit more kids. Last season we had 35 kids coming out regularly.”

The team consists of 15 positions, separated into two sections, the forwards, or “pack” and the backs. The team, if possible, will field both an A side, which will count in the standings, as well as the B-side, which will help players work their way up the depth chart and gain experience. Recently, the Hooligans have been able to field a B-side.

CCSU competes in NERFU’s Men’s College/Division III, as rugby in the United States is not an NCAA sport. All rugby is regulated by USA Rugby, which, more locally is regulated by regional unions, such as NERFU. Along with CCSU, schools like the University of Hartford, Trinity College, New Haven U-23s (Quinnpiac University) and Western Connecticut State University are all a part of their division, and are played against frequently. Every permanent member of the squad is a part of the USA Rugby Player’s Pool.

The team is coached by Eric Rentz, a former CCSU Rugby player, and current member of Hartford Wanderers R.F.C, the local rugby team in this part of Connecticut.

One aspect of rugby, that many people may be hesitant about playing, is the lack of padding and the risk of injury. Though rugby may look excessively dangerous, with the right training, it is actually a much safer sport than people are led to believe.

“If you go into [playing] not knowing what you are doing, then yeah, you are probably going to get hurt,” Pritchard said. “Now that we have a coach, he will teach you everything you need to know to not get hurt. Safety is a huge issue with NERFU and they stress it at all times.”

Many people may not know the rules of rugby union, the official name of the sport, but Rentz, Pritchard and the forward and defensive captains run new recruits through drills to learn each part of the game, to get them acclimated to the rules.

“It is a combination of soccer and rugby,” Pritchard said, when attempting to explain what the game is like to anyone who does not understand it.

Pritchard is a product of Cheshire High School’s rugby team, a school that has been very important to producing rugby talent for the school.

“Rugby in high school has really taken off,” Pritchard said. “At least seven or eight out of 15 from the A-side are from Cheshire. We are getting responses from kids at other high school teams, too.”

Other than Pritchard, some of the other members of the Hooligans will be key to the club’s successes both in the spring and when the actual season starts up in the fall semester. Pritchard plays flanker, and is joined with Jake Dilts, who is the forwards captain and the Hooligans’ Number Eight; Marcus Giansanti, the backs captain, and the team’s fly-half; Thiago Bitencourt, another member of the backs; as well as Brian Nugent, a member of the front row.

Practice for the season is underway, and a spring schedule has not been completely agreed upon at the time of print, but the team is constantly looking for new members to add, as the club is run on a pure voluntary basis. The fee to join the team is $30, mainly to cover the costs of shorts and socks. All the player has to bring is cleats and a mouthguard.

Pritchard hopes that also the introduction of Rugby Sevens, (a form of rugby played on a smaller scale) to the Olympics will have an impact for the Hooligans’ future.

“Once it gets on TV I think it is going to blow up even more,” he said. “People are actually going to realize that it is an awesome sport.”

The Hooligans took part in the New York Sevens tournament over winter break. They were scheduled to play UConn in February, but could not due to a frozen pitch. The full spring schedule will be made public shortly.

Fall 2010 football schedule.

Fall 2010 Football Schedule Announced

By Brittany Burke

The 2010 CCSU football schedule was released last week, getting die hard fans excited for a new season and another run at the NEC title, and while it is only March and baseball is just getting into full swing it is never too early for football.

The CCSU Blue Devils’ (9-3, 7-1 NEC) season came to an end on Dec. 5, when they lost 23-28 against Butler in the Gridiron Classic, but despite the bowl loss they walked away NEC Champions, losing just three games away from Arute Field.

Next season’s schedule places the Blue Devils on the road in a tough season opener versus the University of New Hampshire Wildcats, a team ranked seventh in the FCS’ Top 25 polls, on Sept. 4 in Durham, NH.

“It’s very challenging, and we’re playing a very good traditional playoff team from the Colonial League conference in New Hampshire and we’re playing a historical power. They’ve won about three or four National Championships in Youngstown State,” said Head Coach Jeff McInerney of the teams non-conference opponents.

CCSU went undefeated at home during the 2009 season and seem to thrive while playing in front of the home crowd, going 17-2 at Arute field since Coach McInerney took over. The Blue Devils are back at Arute field on Sept. 11 when they host Division II school: Bentley.

The Blue Devils end non-conference play on the road traveling to Youngstown State University to face the Penguins in Youngstown, Ohio. The games against UNH and YSU are going to be tough for the Blue Devils, which means preparation begins early.

“We’re going to prepare by practicing in the spring for them first, get an early start and going to camp, and just prepare to go out there and play the teams at the highest level and try to beat them,” Coach McInerney said.

The following week of Sept. 25 the Blue Devils begin their conference play against Bryant in front of the CCSU fans.

The 2010 season brings the CCSU community an additional chance to cheer on their Blue Devil football team. Instead of just four home games, the Blue Devils are finally scheduled to play five of their 11 games at CCSU.

The home games include matches against Bentley, Bryant, Duquesne, Wagner (the only NEC team to defeat the Blue Devils last season) and St. Francis (PA). The game against St. Francis (PA) on Nov. 20 will close out the regular season for the CCSU Blue Devils football team.

The game against Bentley was a late addition to the 2010 schedule, which ensured that CCSU would play at home for the extra game that the fans had been pushing for.

“We ended up picking up another home game because the students, everybody’s been pushing. The fan base wants more than four home games so we picked up Bentley to play at home,” said Coach McInerney.

While the Blue Devils were granted their extra home game, finding an opponent proved to be a challenge within itself.

“We wanted a home game, we didn’t want to go home and home, and a lot of the people, they wanted us to play home and home,” said Coach McInerney. “The reason we play two big games for the money to help our budget… When you play home and home you don’t get any money, so you have to pick an opponent just who will play you at home.”

The fifth home game will prove to be beneficial for both the fans and the team, who traveled for eight of their games during the 2009 season. An extra game means no concerns with travel and missing school for the team, while giving the fans an additional week to show their support for their school.

CCSU’s first opportunity to cheer on the Blue Devils is Sept. 11, which gives the fans less than six months to get pumped, or “fire up,” in the words of Coach McInerney, for the 2010 season.

From left to right: Joseph R. LaLanne, Stephen Balkaran and Nicole Kennedy plan to make the trip into the South this summer.

Professor Plans to Plunge Students into Civil Rights-Era South

By Jason Cunningham

Reading the textbooks is simply not enough.

Stephen Balkaran, an adjunct professor of African-American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, will be taking a class of 20 students into the deep south to relive events and experiences of the Civil Rights Movement.

The course, AFAM 244 Tracing the Civil Rights Movement, will take place this summer, taking students on a week-long journey through the struggle for equality that defined a big part of the 1960s in the South and the nation.

“I think it’s necessary for the entire country to understand the struggle for equality. It’s a class that has to be implemented to tell a story,” said Balkaran.

This first-hand experience into America’s dark past is intended to help illuminate young minds who haven’t seen the damaging extent of Jim Crow laws and the severe public inequality amongst races within the practice of segregation.

“The problem I have is that most of my students were born in the 1990s. They’ve forgot what the Civil Rights Movement was all about,” Balkaran said.

The trip, which is scheduled to take place from July 9-16, spans a heavy itinerary that kicks off with a trip to Kelly Ingram Park, the historic demonstration site that brought the horrors of the Civil Rights Movement into the national spotlight. The park is infamous for photographs taken of police brutality during a May 1963 protest organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

From there, the group will trace the efforts of the activists and organizations from the early 1960s and on within the South, traveling to sites in Georgia and Tennessee in addition to Alabama.

“Currently, to my knowledge we are the only course in the country that relives the Civil Rights Movement. We’re in the field, not in the traditional boundaries of a classroom,” said Balkaran. “We are going to create a documentary, so wherever we go we interview,” Balkaran said.

The documentary, the final product of the class’s experience, is to include a wide range of interviews that showcase the many perspectives of the Civil Rights Movement.

“Well, we’re going to go to some of the institutions in the South that put forth racists laws, we’re going to interview people who lived it first hand, Ku Klux Klan members, mayors, police chiefs and Southern scholars,” Balkaran said. “I don’t feel nervous about interacting with members of the KKK. I’m here to conduct things in an academic setting as an academic instructor, going as an instructor.”

Balkaran created the course with an emphasis to talk about the importance of diversity and what it means to our culture and society. To make the course accessible to students, he spent time writing grant proposals to make the trip free for everyone going.

“Most of the kids have taken Civil Rights with me, so they have an understanding of what we’re there to do, expose them to what happened,” Balkaran said. “I also want to expose my kids to life in the South. Mark Twain said that travel eliminates prejudice.”

Two of the students enrolled in the course, Joseph R. LaLanne, a junior majoring in Finance and Law and Nicole Kennedy, a junior majoring in International Studies with a concentration in African Studies, are excited for the trip.

“I feel like my journey will be different because I’m of African American descent. I want to see [the older generation’s] struggles, a first-hand account of: One, what happened and two, how I’ll personally relate to that in my situation, living in New England,” LaLanne said. “We’ve made great steps forward, but in New England, we’ve made a few steps back.”

Some students, LaLanne observes, in Connecticut seem to lack a respectful understanding of what participants in the Civil Rights Movement fought so hard for during periods of segregation. Even though activists and demonstrators worked for the benefit of future generations, LaLanne believes that few in his generation fully appreciate it.

“The young age is blind. I hate the fact that I hear the ‘N’ word all of the time on campus, and it’s mostly black kids too,” said LaLanne “People paid a price for us to be here, people need to see that.”

Kennedy also said she saw many who were undereducated or unexposed to the pain connected to racist terms.

“The human rights struggle is universal,” said Kennedy. “A lot of people feel that because we’re integrated, racism is extinguished. This is a great injustice to our culture.”

Balkaran hopes that a diverse range of students will be interested in taking the course with him next summer. He plans to make Tracing the Civil Rights Movement permanent at CCSU, building from their experience and the documentary, which will be showcased at some point on campus.

To do this, however, Balkaran will need additional grants and funding that benefactors and the university may not be able to provide. Balkaran is aiming to get national attention for the course, seeking television interviews and other ways of getting the word out this year. If all goes well, the class will be open to more than 20 students in the future.

“Imagine standing where King was assassinated. It’d be a haunting experience that would give you the chills,” Balkaran said. “This trip will bring students together. It’ll give an enriched atmosphere to understanding the African-American struggle.”

From churches, capitals and colleges to centers, museums and mayors’ offices, the class has many stops along its way and they’ll be bringing back footage to highlight every discovery. If the trip goes as planned and if Balkaran can get the media attention he needs, Tracing the Civil Rights Movement could be a unique history course for CCSU to offer, one that students will likely be interested in taking.

“Going down South is going to be important because though you learn a lot in the classroom, you can’t experience its impact without seeing what was done,” said Kennedy. “I think it’ll be really informative.”

By Michael Walsh

In his early career, English filmmaker Nicolas Roeg was responsible for some of the greatest films never talked about.

Roeg’s 1973 psychic thriller Don’t Look Now is one of the best in the entire history of the thriller genre and his 1976 science fiction film The Man Who Fell From Earth featured David Bowie in one of the genre’s most surreal films of the time.

But quite possibly the most intriguing and best film from Roeg is his first feature film, Walkabout. The film, which tells the harrowing tale of a young girl (Jenny Agutter) and her even younger brother (Luc Roeg), who after experience a strange and bizarre string of events, struggle to survive in the Australian outback until they meet an Aboriginal boy in the middle of his ceremonial walkabout where he must spend six months living in the outback.

If you’re familiar with Australian cinema in the early 1970’s, you know that the landscape of film was beginning to be filled with toxic and outlandish exploitation films that sometimes didn’t portray themselves in great light. Drunken, unfriendly and strange are three common adjectives that could be used to describe a common Australian male. Just watch the classic film Wake in Fright for an example.

But in comparison what’s so intriguing about the depiction of Australia in Walkabout is how the entire film is a Englishman’s perspective of the Australian outback and people. Both the filmmaker himself and the two young main characters are English. And for an outsiders approach the representation is fairly docile and hardly stereotypical, showing Roeg took care with his limited characters.

What really sucks you in as an outside viewing party are the nearly hallucinogenic images of the Australian outback. Coupled with a story of survival, Roeg’s stunning and beautiful photography in this sometimes absolutely silent film tells the story worth telling. It’s a simplistic film and proof of that is in the fact that the screenplay written by Edward Bond reached only 14 pages, a product of the communication barrier between the English girl and boy and the Aboriginal boy.

Roeg even went on record to say that he shot the film on a partially improvised basis. With only 14 pages of dedicated dialogue and action and an entire Australian outback to work with, there certainly was some flexibility in what was shot and what was left in the film.

While Roeg’s picturesque cinematography is something to be gazed at without blinking, it isn’t the only thing worth getting giddy over. Roeg is not only a using the camera to show how dangerous and vast the outback is, but also to express a story filled with cultural and social commentary.

At certain moments in the film, such as the Aboriginal boy hunting, killing and cooking food necessary for survival, Roeg intersplices footage of a butcher slicing away at raw meat. The outcome is the strong comparison in how similar yet distant the two processes of food preparation are, with the boy’s method being a savage action and the butcher’s being a way of life.

The entire journey is also cause for comparison. While the girl and boy are completely out of their element, terrified and struggling to survive, an Aboriginal boy in the same situation is taking part in a ceremony rite of passage, hoping to become a man. These comparisons are simply the brink of the wealth of themes Roeg throws into the picture through a minimalistic 14 page screenplay and stunning photography.

Words alone can’t help anyone appreciate the treasure that is Walkabout. It’s a captivating, meaningful and simply entrancing film of 110 minutes and sits as one of the greatest films of its kind and a masterpiece in its own right.

It’s that time of year again and in case you missed standing in a mass of rowdy green outfitted parade goers at Hartford’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Saturday or in New Haven on Sunday, there are many more St. Patrick’s Day Festivities still planned ahead.

This Wednesday, Hartford’s cozy Irish pub, The Half Door, will be serving an Irish brunch in the morning and will have a St. Patrick’s Day themed menu until ten p.m. Live music will start early in the day until late into the night. Local Irish musicians perform regularly at this gastro pub, which is also known for its draft list featuring beers from countries all around the world. You’ll be sure not to miss out on grabbing a glass of the infamous Irish Guinness here.

The Hungry Tiger in Manchester has always been a part of the local music scene packing in lots of listeners each night and providing Central Connecticut with local talent to listen to. That won’t change this St. Patty’s Day when the sounds of Irish music will fill the small dive bar from 5:30 – 10 p.m. Performers like Dave Connelly and the Blaney Brothers will take the stage. At 10 p.m. The Hungry Tiger’s Wednesday night regulars Eric Sac and Friends will be playing. Corned beef and cabbage will be served from noon until 10 p.m.

The Main Pub, which is also in Manchester, will also be celebrating with Celtic and Irish music with Don Sineti and friends at six p.m. If you take advantage of the legendary Irish dish of corned beef and cabbage being served all day you can wash it down with green beer-filled glasses.

Start the day off right at Vaughn’s Public House in Hartford, which will be open for beer and breakfast starting at 9 to 11:30 a.m serving raisin cranberry scones, lots of potatoes, bacon and corned beef. Visit later in the day for Irish music. Calley McGrane and the Exiles and Two for the Road are scheduled to perform.

Also serving a full day of food and drinks is Eli Cannon’s in Middletown. The bar, which goes for an American/Irish/English pub feel, has two options for both breakfast and lunch/dinner: the “5th Avenue” with grilled tomatoes, Irish sausage, scrambled eggs and potatoes meal and the “Lower East Side” meal of baked beans, corned beef hash and scrambled eggs for breakfast.

For lunch and dinner, Eli’s serves up affectionately titled “Ryan’s Mom’s Dinner” of corned beef and cabbage, carrots and potatoes, as well as the “SPD Reuben” with more corned beef, saurkraut and mustard. Irish soda bread offered all around, as well as the bar’s usual 33 beers on tap. Festivites include some bagpiping and Irish Step Dancers.

And end the night on a good note at the popular Murphy and Scarletti’s, which has always had its place in the young social scene offering up pizza, live entertainment, and plenty of pool tables. Murphy’s plans to have its “Legendary St. Patrick’s Day Party” at night where Shake That perform and green beer will flow from its taps.

If you plan on staying on campus CAN has a St. Patty’s Day event planned called Comedy Done Right. Comedian Lee Camp of The Citizen’s Brigade, and CCSU’s Mobiloxyschlock perform in Semesters from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m.

By Michael Walsh

The genre-crossing jam outfit Disco Biscuits spent years in the studio between tours and while the process didn’t produce an album in a timely fashion, the often-delayed Planet Anthem finally became a realization right in the midst of their most recent tour.

Picking from a multitudes of genres, the Disco Biscuits are a group known for blending a fusion of trance, electronica and rock and putting it together in one jam band package ranging from tight studio-produced tracks to lengthy, extended live jams.

Planet Anthem represents that variety in genre that the Disco Biscuits are able to easily touch upon. But in the form of a studio album, it becomes a sort of double edge sword. While the variety in style is most welcoming, the album hardly flows seamlessly, as the transition from the trip-hop inspired track “Rain Song” to the rather standard and unimpressive rock tune “Fish Out of Water” is somewhat strange.

From there the back end of the album turns right to the track “Sweatbox,” where vocals come in the form of a hip-hop style instead of the Weezer-like verses sang in the previous tune. These awkward transitions show the band’s range to play all genres, but it doesn’t sit well when listening to the album from start to finish, especially on an initial listen. After a few listens it certainly begins to grow.

The album does have a few really interesting and catch tunes, such as charged-up “On Time” and the more downplayed album opener “Loose Change.” The first video single off the album, “You and I,” is the albums quickest dash of enjoyment.

But after the highs and lows of Planet Anthem I still sit on the fence with the Disco Biscuits. Nothing ever stands out and nothing ever disappoints. Since my jam band love sits with groups like Phish, Grateful Dead and Umphrey’s McGee, it might just be that the Disco Biscuits are a bit too electronic for my tastes. That or they’re simply an average band better built for the live stage.