offBeat.com on Holiday for Vacationers:

What could be more enticing than an electric carnival spanning the dimensions of space rock and progressive jazz? On their third album, Holiday for Vacationers! (Everything Awesome All the Time), local, interstellar ringmasters the Other Planets blur genres and contort harmonious conventions in search of such a musical destination.

While they’ve always drawn upon an uncanny ability to open resonant portals amidst apparent bedlam and dissonant chaos, the Other Planets have come together on Holiday for Vacationers! to add a point of emphasis onto their bizarro idiosyncrasies. And for the intrepid listener, this venture may yet divulge an even more enlightening axiom.

The twisted jamboree gets underway with “Paranoia,” a prog rock opus whose grandiose arrangements bond its lullaby chorus to distorted verses and clamoring marches. Throughout the album, instrumental interludes set the tone for ensuing lyric-based numbers. The avant-garde melee, “How’s McClimon Doing?” scribbles its way into the lounging, Ween-like tomfoolery of “Happy Time at the Mall.” The street beats, vocal samples, and ominous grooves of “You Killed Him, Too,” drop atop the beautifully absurd lyrics, aching harmonies, and retro hooks of “Teeth and Dreams.”

Jerry Lee Lewis: The Video Game” is a frantic breakdown that bears the signature of founder Anthony Cuccia. Holiday for Vacationers! provides a vivid canvas for Cuccia to display his lyrical development, and he evokes a flash of Stephen Malkmus on “The Business of Losing Sleep.” Fellow planetary conspirator Dr. Jimbo Walsh lends his compositional wizardry to several of Holiday’s key tracks, but two instrumental gems bear solely his imprint: the winding, rising, and pulsating “Lengua” and the murky, warp-zone trip, “The Hidden Level,” complete with pitfalls and power-ups.

At 17 tracks, Holiday for Vacationers! runs a tad long, and few songs, though sonically fulfilling, could be better fitted to a future extravaganza. Yet, while fairweather tourists may debate if everything is, in reality, awesome all the time, the inclined vacationers know that the holiday doesn’t being until they’ve strapped on a pair of headphones.
-- Aaron Lafont

NewOrleans.com on Holiday for Vacationers:

The latest release from gonzo rockers The Other Planets is the most coherent CD they have put together.

There is still the eclectic song styles and blaring horns that have earned them comparisons to Frank Zappa, but on this effort the songs hold together better. They are still combinations of sounds and riffs but they also have forward momentum and structure. They sound more like songs than collections of instruments playing. And there are some sweet melodies and chords here on tracks such as "Happy Time At the Mall" and "The Business of Losing Sleep" even though they are put toward smart satire instead of confectionary sentiment.

There are also soundscapes that take the listener into other worlds or deep into one's head on tracks like "They Killed Him Too" and the appropriately titled "Bo Diddely's Opium Nightmare" where the keyboards and synthesizers combine with Dan Ostreicher's baritone and bass saxophones to romp through maybe imaginary, maybe too-real worlds of off-kilter riffs and squeaks. Each listen reveals more layers to the combinations of instruments and the way the band mixes their timbres into distinctive sounds.

Fans of the aforementioned Frank Zappa and the Flaming Lips will be overjoyed at this record while the more adventurous listeners will find many things to be happy about amid its spinning.
-- Sister Ray

NOLA.com on Holiday for Vacationers:

On their third album, Holiday For Vacationers: Everything Awesome All The Time, The Other Planets take listeners on a futuristic thrill ride full of "Novacaine" and "Linoleum Nights."

The album opens with random synthesizer sounds that blends into a smooth drum melody with lead singer and multi-instrumentalist, Anthony Cuccia, crooning the title track "Paranoia" faintly in the background.

So what does "Paranoia" have to do with holidays and awesomeness? Apparently, it was made for all the substance tolerant people in the world.

"It's a beautiful vacation. Listen to it...put on your headphones, imbibe your favorite substances, and it's a vacation. It's everything awesome all the time," joked piano/guitarist/bassist/and accordion aficionado Jimbo Walsh....Read more.

Gambit Weekly reviews Holiday for Vacationers:

[The] Other Planets are at the end of a three-month-long residency at the Dragon's Den. This final night in the series will serve as ... a release party for the Planets' third album, Holiday for Vacationers, which is possibly its best mashup of weird wizardry yet. The combo melds psych-rock and space-jazz into a smoking, burbling cocktail of delicious poison that's heavy with Frank Zappa influences, plus equal parts Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and a smidge of Camper van Beethoven. Its horns can soar like Alvin Batiste at his most cosmonautical or lilt sloppily like Sgt. Pepper. Tracks like the bitingly creepy 'Happy Time at the Mall" burrow into your brain as hypnotically as a Zappa opus.
-- Allison Fensterstock

Eugene Chadbourne review of Discrete Manipulations for the All-Music Guide:

The Other Planets, an ensemble from New Orleans that released this debut effort in 2005, has been compared to big avant-garde guns such as Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. While there are certain similarities, the New Orleans combo is less obnoxious and much more willing to risk blending into the background, sometimes letting seemingly trivial details of interaction simmer until the unexpected comes seeping out, a process right out of the Big Easy cooking school. There are swaggering rockers such as the opening musical question, "Will You Adhere?," complete with a distorted vocal in the manner of "21st Century Schizoid Man" and some chord changes that indeed smack of Zappa's mustache hair. Elsewhere, vibraphonist Matt McClimon enters like the long lost roommate, dumping owed piles of gold coins onto a long ornamental piece of display fabric. Other instruments including low-end saxophones are folded into a mix in which there are often several layers of percussion bubbling away, sometimes chanting as well. Political humor in several tracks, some arranged like tape collage, add a relevant bite to the proceedings.

offBeat.com review of Eightballs in Anglola:

Mixing forward-looking sounds and studio wizardry, the new CD from the New Orleans collective the Other Planets, led by percussionist and sampler Anthony Cuccia, strikes an eclectic chord. This record, Eightballs in Angola, has 10 tracks of gonzo speed-blowing, seemingly random notes and sounds, and an enthusiastic attitude. The band seems to have a lot of fun playing with each other and playing these songs, and that vibe permeates every selection on this CD. The record recalls Frank Zappa’s stop-on-a-dime-and-switch arrangements, with fast vibraphone runs courtesy of Matt McLimon and sarcastic lyrics in tunes such as “Rock and Roll Ain’t Easy.”

Other songs possess a touch of the gravelly avant-blues and honking stomp of Captain Beefheart. In the same way that Beefheart’s music continually surprises the listener, this recording has the similar songs that contain the opposite of the conventional, hypnotic grooves that are the basis of funk and techno. There are also tunes such as “Who’s at the Dragon’s Den.” with the mystical space synthesizers of Sun Ra’s Arkestra.

Each song sounds different, and the band plays around with the studio to add computerized and processed sounds or vocals which gives the CD a futuristic feel. One of Sun Ra’s maxims was, “If you’re not prepared for the future, then you’re probably not ready for the present, either.” The Other Planets and Eightballs in Angola have both covered. -- David Kunian

Republic New Orleans reprint of AntiGravity Magazine interview:

The Other Planets certainly aren't the first artists to take jazz, toss in some rock riffs and off-the-wall instrumentation and make some racket, but since they're based in New Orleans, the land where traditional jazz rules, they earn automatic points for their balls alone. When you factor in the fact that they're actually good? Well, that makes for interesting listening. Eightballs In Anglola, the Planets' first studio album in nearly two years, picks up where '05's Discrete Manipulations left off, namely with tightly written jazz songs accentuated by xylophone play, noisemaking and some hooks thrown in for good measure. Think Frank Zappa mixed with Drums & Tuba and an upbeat Chef Menteur. Eightballs is an amazingly even album in terms of quality, which is an accomplishment considering its tracks move between the styles of more traditional jazz, funk and electronica, and that attribute is both good and bad. What's good is no track is worse than another, but that consistency comes at a price—there's no standout track, like "Will You Adhere?" was to Manipulations. Sure, traditional jazz will always be around, but it's nice to know that groups like The Other Planets are playing with the concept and making an interesting, well-conceived mess of it.

ANTIGRAVITY sat down with the Planet who has the most instruments to his name, Anthony Cuccia, to talk Eightballs. Read more.

Gambit Weeklyreview of Discrete Manipulations:

The Other Planets' song "Hector Detector" may become the anthem of every New Orleans musician who doesn't play funk, jazz or lead a brass band. Pinging electronic percussion kicks off the track, then a crunchy bass saxophone creates a seesaw groove that even a head banger could appreciate. Anthony Cuccia, the leader of the group, sings the progressive musician's blues: "Frenchmen Street and nobody cares / The Dragon's Den has got such excellent players / They play a million notes and everybody just stares."

Discrete Manipulations is an unexpected mix of electronic beats, pop melodies, saxophones and samples. While there is nothing radio-friendly about the Other Planets, the group's music sounds more hyperactive than dissonant. "Will You Adhere?" is almost a sing-along, except that the lyrics are barely intelligible. "How's McFatter Doing?" might be the background music at a swank lounge in the next century. The first few bars of "Living in Harmony" start with a buzz-saw funk riff, but the song quickly exchanges the surging beat for spacey atmospheric noise. The unusual instrumentation -- synthesizers, guitars, drums, bass saxophone and vibraphone -- lets the Other Planets jump between genres without ever getting stuck in a single one.

Experimental groups often sound self-indulgent. A healthy dose of humor, however, keeps Discrete Manipulations from ever feeling like a chore. While lamenting the fate of New Orleans musicians, Cuccia raps, "To sell a record here you have to dance a f--king jig." The Other Planets won't be dancing for their fans, but this strange album certainly deserves some buyers. -- Todd A. Price

Gambit Weekly Music Pick:

New Orleans' strangest and funkiest new contemporary jazz combo takes more than a page from the interplanetary logbook of famous space traveler Sun Ra....the Planets occasionally play off of old Sun Ra charts. The combo takes as much influence from punk rock as from funk and cosmic jazz, though. They've been around since 2003, but their recent performances and their spanking-new record, Eightballs in Angola, trades heavy horns for fuzzy guitars, electronic noises and wild percussion for a unique sound that they themselves describe accurately as "eclectic gonzo freak-rock," also drawing from other genre-defying mad scientists like Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. Combine soaring avant-jazz trajectories with a sax player/singer's Iggy Pop-style ranting and writhing, psychedelic light shows, costumes and occasional go-go dancing and you have an interstellar musical experience of the most cosmic sort. Tickets $5.--Alison Fensterstock

Gambit Weekly Remix interview on post-Katrina life:

The Other Planets "I'm very proud of this band," says The Other Planets' vocalist/percussionist Anthony Cuccia. "I don't know any band around here like us." The group's experimental space-jazz takes cues from genre-defying visionaries like Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Sun Ra, combining funk, punk and cosmic jazz sounds, plus an increasingly spectacular stage show complete with live video art and costumed dancers. The Other Planets push the envelope to the limits of the galaxy and beyond.

The sextet has been playing together since 2003, with Cuccia and guitarist Jimbo Walsh, formerly Sun Ra sideman Michael Ray's Cosmic Krewe, at its core. Cuccia says the period following the storm has been the most intensely creative and in the band's history. "The past year and the six months before the storm have been our biggest developmental periods, which explains why it sounds like we surfaced just recently," he says. During that time, the band went through several drummers before gelling with Quin Kirchner, though after the storm he and vibraphonist Matt McClimon moved to Chicago, where the band recently traveled to play a week's worth of gigs. The two traveled back and forth, though, to a woodshed at Walsh's new house in Henderson, La., where they recorded Eightballs In Angola, which will be released this week.

"We started off as more of a jazz ensemble, doing Frank Zappa covers," Cuccia says. "Now it's like a punk-jazz thing with a Butthole Surfers influence. It's kind of a noise band, but with a lot of highly organized composition-based pieces as well as improvisation, with rock instrumentation. Everyone in the band is a trained improviser. Several are classical musicians. And we've all played party music, funk, blues and rock 'n' roll, so that element is there. Everyone in the band can do a lot of things musically, so it makes sense to explore different genres."

If the band was starting to kick into gear in the months before Katrina, in many ways the shock of the storm helped the current concept come together, with new and surprising elements emerging as a result of the cataclysm.

"The band evacuated to Lafayette, and we played a month's worth of shows there that were extremely punk. There was a lot of aggression in those shows, especially vocally. Dan [Oestricher, vocalist and bass/baritone sax player] has a new persona that developed as a direct result of the hurricane."

"The emergence of myself as a vocalist at all was the result of the storm," adds Oestreicher. "We had gigs while there was still water in New Orleans. There were 15 of us living in a two-bedroom house with four dogs, sleeping in shifts. So an easy way to deal with it was to get up onstage and yell at everyone. And when we got around to making decisions from a musical place instead of an emotional sense, it evolved."--Alison Fensterstock

LiveNewOrleans.com:

What do The Beach Boys' Surfin U.S.A. and the Christian traditional Amen have in common? Not much, and the local instrumental octet The Other Planets didn't seem to care Sunday night at The Dragon's Den. They played excerpts from both songs in one composition. The group consisted of guitarist/keyboardist Dr. Jimbo Walsh, percussionist/bandleader Anthony Cuccia, saxophonist Tim McFatter, bassist Matt Kryvanick, drummer Jeff Hebert, and trombonist Jeff Albert. Read more.