Tuesday, May 14 2013
Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
The New York-based indie juggernaut Vampire Weekend hits a masterful peak with its third LP, Modern Vampires of the City. It’s the kind of album that indie bands aim at but so often miss as it captures an old soul sporting new clothes.
MS MR: Secondhand Rapture
Sadly the 'Rapture' isn't the only thing that's 'Secondhand' on MS MR's début.
Dungeonesse: Dungeonesse
A pair of indie rockers set out to make a pop/R&B album. Jenn Wasner's vocals are strong, but a lack of hooks and a lack of bass hold Dungeonesse back.
The Airborne Toxic Event: Such Hot Blood
Airborne Toxic Event get lost in a search for love on a bloated third LP, Such Hot Blood.
Clutch: Earth Rocker
Clutch may well have been seeking to shed some of its veneer on Earth Rocker, but that leanness only emphasizes what we already knew: that Clutch craft addictive and contagious songs, no matter their density.
Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park
Musgraves knows we live at the corner of Is that Right Avenue and Strange Days Boulevard. It’s funny until it ain’t.
Monday, May 13 2013
Frustration and Lack of Respect: ‘The Stone Roses: War and Peace’
The story of the biggest British band to never make it in America gets a thorough, honest, and fair recounting.
Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Daud's change of heart is disingenuous and a tool used to force the moral system into the downloadable content. Daud is an assassin and an agent of extreme chaos in the world of Dunwall. Players shouldn't feel guilty or be punished for acting as such.
Better Off Dead: “Suicide Squad #20”
In just one issue, Ales Kot has turned Suicide Squad into one of my must-read titles each month.
‘Cloud Atlas’ Is an Ecstatic Exploration of Humanity
Adapted from David Mitchell's ambitious novel, Cloud Atlas is at once a visually rich Hollywood blockbuster and a philosophically driven experimental film.
The Diminishing Returns of ‘The Echo’
Hopefully the very last of an insipid glut of Asian-inspired horror remakes, The Echo strings multiple clichés together and is largely uninspired throughout.
Primal Scream: More Light
If the band wanted to shoot out the lights on XTRMNTR, More Light just turns them back on again.
Fiddling While Rome Burns: ‘The Perfect Meal’
John Baxter, an Australian writer living in France, is distressed at the death of haute cuisine, and thus sets out to discover France's remaining "real" foods. It's an onerous task.
Pure X: Crawling Up the Stairs
This Austin trio's debut was a pitch-perfect evocation of early 4AD LPs of yore. With a bigger budget and more professional sheen, the group explores more textures but fails to create many songs to compliment their atmospheric prowess.
Juno Reactor: The Golden Sun of the Great East
This is simply a great album wall to wall, one that updates a classic sound for those of us who were raised on "Head Like a Hole".
Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys: Birthing Days / Mike Pride: Drummer’s Corpse
Jazz drummer Mike Pride has two new albums. Stylistically speaking, they're completely different. On a broader artistic level, their dilemmas have a bit more in common.
TimLee3: Devil’s Rope
Tim and Susan Bauer Lee are songwriters who can celebrate the good times while giving a nod to the hard times, because they make the good times all the better.
Solar Bears: Supermigration
Solar bears turn in an interesting album of ambient pop that wears the group's influences proudly on its sleeve. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.
Sunday, May 12 2013
Christopher Guest Does TV with HBO’s ‘Family Tree’
If the plot is thin, the show does offer other pleasures, including the actors’ improv skills, revealed in subtle and hilarious flashes of genius.
Friday, May 10 2013
‘The Great Gatsby’: Excess and Then Some
This Jazz Age is presented in the film as so many brightly colored, manic fantasies, in frantic, crowded dance scenes, in speedy, deliriously unconvincing driving scenes, and even conventionally awkward, filtered-light sex scenes.
