Latest Entries
Since 2000, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong have made music to fit Woody Allen's worst nightmare: a universe expanding, stretched to the point of breaking.
[Brady Baker]
Endless Boogie is a little too composed to be AC/DC, a little too garagey and East Coast to be like ZZ Top, too tasteful to be like Foghat and too straightforward and clean to be like Monster Magnet.
[Chris Middleman]
The Extra Man is fortunate to boast a distinguished cast, since its story never coalesces into something more concrete than a sketch of eccentricities.
[Nathan Kamal]
A wood-fired oven is best for achieving high temperatures, but any regular oven cranked up to 500 degrees gets the job done.
[Amanda Jones]
San Diego, CA, 07/22/10-07/25/10
[Rafael Gaitan]
Unlike other Bruce Willis flicks of the '90s, there's a pleasingly absent amount of cutesiness this time around.
[Marcus David]
If Farewell doesn't as successfully marry high and low culture elements as Spielberg's Munich, it does do a commendable job of keeping the two sides together, filling hollow spy tropes with feeling and life.
[Jesse Cataldo]
"I still like about 95% of my record collection. Except for That Petrol Emotion, that was a mistake."
[Stacey Pavlick]
Yes, Rick Ross has a song named "MC Hammer" and it represents everything that works and doesn't work about Teflon Don.
[Chaz Kangas]
Spur's sound is definitively '60s; it's difficult to even think of a band this steeped in psychedelic, country, riff-driven rock and pop as existing in any other period.
[Nathan Kamal]
That director Todd Solondz is able to make this oppression so palatable in his films is a real skill; neither Happiness nor Life During Wartime feel grating or overbearing.
[Morgan Davis]
Sounding more confident and mature than any 24 year-old singer on their first solo outing ever should, Walker takes to his material like a man who knows that what he's recording is a sheer marvel.
[Nathan Kamal]
June 2009 Archives
Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
On a sunny afternoon, Oddfellows is at its picturesque peak, bright and brimming with stylish clientele. This is the sort of place filled raucous lunch parties, quiet couples and lone diners casually flipping through profound works of fiction.
[Nicola Fairhead]
Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
Cheri is a story quickly told by trading depth for visual beauty. There is nothing unique or wholly interesting about this period piece though it did make another rainy afternoon more bearable.
[Jane Hruska]
Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
The Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 05/16/09
[Jory Spadea]
Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
FOL's second album, Travels with Myself and Another, is everything you could possibly want from the latter-day project of your now defunct favorite band. It's similar enough to the core aesthetic of Mclusky without sounding redundant, but it also offers up enough change and potential to suggest that this might just be the group to succeed on a wider scale than Falkous'sprevious outfit.
[Morgan Davis]
Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
For a dance album, there isn't much of a motivation to get the asses gyrating. Most of the beats suffer from severe anemia. Good For Ya!! will surely come off as unenthusiastic and lackluster to even the most diehard night-clubber.
[Jory Spadea]
Monday, Jun 29, 2009
There are actually some people who will feverishly argue that Tom Lehrer is the best musical satirist to ever walk this mortal coil. These people are, of course, completely right.
[Eric Dennis]
Monday, Jun 29, 2009
Discarding any of the tropes present in most heavy metal, Sunn O))) members Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley are more interested in exploring the places that trance and silence can take us, creating a minimalist work where the empty spaces have quite a bit to say.
[David Harris]
Monday, Jun 29, 2009
As a collective of Toronto musicians, Rock Plaza Central's current five-member roster centers on the vision of songwriter and twice-published novelist Chris Eaton. His anguished warble, often described as a hybrid of folk-rock demigods Jeff Mangum and Will Oldham, gives each anachronistic lyric a penetrating sincerity capable of plucking even the rustiest heartstring.
[Brady Baker]
Monday, Jun 29, 2009
Like those films it follows a competition, in this case Afghan Star, a popular television show that is Afghanistan's equivalent of American Idol. We're so inured to bad news out of that war-ravaged country, that there is some novelty to a film that presents ordinary Afghanis trying to win a singing contest.
[Lukas Sherman]
Monday, Jun 29, 2009
Roseland Theater, Portland, OR, 05/23/09
[David Harris]
Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
Through the power of the internet, you can avoid being pantywaisted by the films that the left forces on our collective conscience. We present to you, five of the most awesomely bad-ass movies from the most awesomely bad-ass decade: the Reagan era.
[Lisa Bahr]
Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
While this particular Wilco iteration may have reached a contented, happy place both personally and professionally, they're not content to stop writing great music, even if it lacks some of their former emotional struggles.
[Jason Stoff]
Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
Yes, PDX Pop Now is a bargain at $8 for two discs and it helps bolster a community that is usually vibrant and exciting. But where once the PDX Pop Now label was one you could trust your money with, it now seems like the well has run dry.
[Morgan Davis]
Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
Throughout history, there have always been front-runners in both the social and scientific realms of the human "community." Oftentimes, these progressive individuals are met initially with distrust and even animosity by the majority of society.
[Allyn Sterling]
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
Our writers honor the passing of Michael Jackson with stories about how the King of Pop influenced our lives.
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
Dragonslayer is a solid work and shows plenty of development on Krug's part, but given that the artist in question averages two to three releases a year, it's difficult not to think that each release is only a brief glimpse at that development, which in turns lead to another brief glimpse and another and so on.
[Morgan Davis]
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
Quest For Fire is not a bad album, just one that wears its influences a bit too much on the sleeve. There's nothing wrong (or unique) about imitation or influence, but there's also very little interesting. Perhaps the band doesn't mind constant comparisons or "hey, they sound like...," but if they do, they probably shouldn't share a name with an Iron Maiden song.
[Nathan Kamal]
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
Larry David blends his Curb Your Enthusiasm crankiness with Woody Allen's wordy intellectualism into an awkward hybrid, failing to strike the right balance of exasperating and endearingly neurotic.
[Teri Carson]
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
Serve it in front a black and white TV, '50s style, or out in the garden with a glass of mild Chianti. Either way, it's a casserole and it's delicious.
[Nathan Kamal]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
Town Hall, New York, NY, 05/29/09
[Jesse Cataldo]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
Manners feels fully formed, a perfectly realized vision of a bright young songwriter whose music is refreshingly unpretentious. The album couldn't possibly begin more perfectly than it does with "Make Light," an unabashedly straightforward pop number with guitars straight out of an early Stiff Records single and a bass line that is marvelous in its simplicity, all sustained notes with bright little octave runs thrown in here and there.
[Morgan Davis]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
This is Kasabian's most discernible aspect; seeing their easily comparable qualities on paper may trigger a copycat image, but their distinct hybrids speak in refreshing tones that countless lackadaisical imitators can't effectively execute.
[Jory Spadea]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
Skeletons is agonizingly repetitive and dull, a computer-generated album that favors software trickery over something - anything - worthwhile, meaningful, or, shit, even humorous. There's simply no soul or conviction here; it's imitation lo-fi music awash in technological overindulgence.
[Eric Dennis]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
Our series reviewing music on film continues with this new release featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1969.
[Nathan Kamal]
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009
Do you ever hear about the premise of a film and just wish and pray that it's going to be something special? Just imagine the moment someone conceived the story of a group of young skiers dispatched by the remnants of a phantom Nazi cadre in the pristine Norwegian wilderness. Unfortunately, the execution is no way near as brilliant as the idea.
[David Harris]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Mercato is a cozy cash-only BYOB that cranks out tasty, upscale Italian dishes in a space that could just as easily be in New York's East Village.
[Tara Pierson Hoey]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
So much of BLAST! reeks of an attempt to make an entertaining science film with appeal to those who cringe at the sound of the word "education," but it ultimately fails at reaching for the depths it only casually grasps at.
[Danny Djeljosevic]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
The Information is very much a watershed record between Beck's sonic interests and bridges the gap from the eclectic affair of Guero and the tighter focused, soul-softened production of Modern Guilt. As difficult as it is to accept, Beck can definitely be experimental AND popular when he doesn't stray from what he knows.
[Rafael Gaitan]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Patterson Hood's Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) will likely sound familiar to the legions of PBR-swillin', trucker-hat-wearin' Drive-By Trucker fans. Like Hood's work with DBT, its songs are deceptively simple, straightforward and full of rough edges.
[Eric Dennis]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Let The Dominoes Fall is a well-rounded record; though it's likely not the high water mark of Rancid's career, it will definitely hold the interest of anybody who has enjoyed the band for the past couple decades.
[Nicholas Ryan]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Drawing on Western desert themes and the accessible aspect of drone, Lunes is a remarkable thing; an experimental album that's incredibly easy to listen to. 5 tracks and 42 minutes long, it feels brief partly because each song is so simply constructed, largely based off a single riff apiece.
[Nathan Kamal]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
The Black Cat, Washington, D.C., 05/22/09
[Neal Fersko]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
The real appeal of Congleton's group has always been the slightly off-kilter nature of their structures, though Congleton's voice has a brilliant Texas twang to it that makes his melodies and words all the more interestingly rough, sweet enough to juxtapose the bitter machinations of the rhythm section and the haunting pianos but still throaty enough to hold its own.
[Morgan Davis]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Imagine Neil Young with the voice of a less whiny Billy Corgan, rub some gravel over it and throw in a Traveling Wilbury or two. Now let a blade of straw lazily hang from your mouth as you look over the grassy hills expanding in front of you, all while blasting it out of a Marshall stack. You now have the sound of Deer Tick.
[Josh Vietti]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
It's no wonder that Spinnerette does little prowling; Dalle wrote the material almost entirely on bass. You can hear this in the songs' leaden steps.
[Chris Middleman]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
The film blends documentary and fiction in a disorienting way. It doesn't incorporate documentary technique into an outwardly fictional film; it gradually weaves in an increasing number of fictional elements into what is outwardly a documentary.
[Andrei Alupului]
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Rosen tries to sensitively explore the the "coming out" process and the struggle to embrace ones true sexual identity. Unfortunately the film falls somewhat short of its potential.
[Allyn Sterling]
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Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
So what's so great about Goldfinger? Simply put, it's got everything: one of the best songs, a memorable villain, classic lines, the tricked out Aston Martin, one of the best evil sidekicks, a clever scheme, a laser beam, some great sets by Ken Adams, a potent title, Sean Connery at his most assured, and, of course, a dead, naked girl covered in gold paint and Pussy Galore.
[Lukas Sherman]
Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
After over an hour and a half of this repetitive, sloppy film, Lyme disease feels more nagging than it does scary.
[Melissa Muenz]
Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
"With Britney, it was a total accident. Fran had learned the chords just because he was fascinated by the cyclical nature of the song. It's the same chords that just go again and again and again."
[Aimee Herman]
Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
Unlike other reunited bands, Dinosaur Jr. is likely not interested in digging up the bones of their past. Now with two solid recent albums to their credit, Dinosaur Jr. will likely be of the few such bands whose victory lap won't end with them hacking and wheezing as they approach the finish line.
[Eric Dennis]
Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
Penner fares better when he doesn't mutilate structures and try to force the music to be as grandiose or pretentiously epic as what he seems to think Islands does. The most effective songs on this debut are, without fail, the simplest.
[Morgan Davis]
Saturday, Jun 20, 2009
City Center has a lot of flaws, but ambition certainly isn't one of them. Thomas is clearly going for a sound so full and inexplicable that catchiness and the songs' being listenable fall by the wayside.
[Nathan Kamal]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, 04/24/2009
[Joan Wolkoff]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
The most startling thing about Wavering Radiant is the sonic dynamics present in the album's seven mini-suites. The common preconception surrounding metal is that it's fast, loud and dumb. More a kissing cousin to the hovering doom found in the music of sludge metalists such as Boris, Isis instead integrates principles of prog-rock, allowing lumbering menace to supplant the prerequisite shredding guitar.
[David Harris]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
To surround yourself with 150 of your biggest fans and jam to your own music does have a slight air of narcissism, but the album feels almost void of that.
[Cameron Mason]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
Alive's modus operandi seems to be signing artists working within a framework of traditional, established rock idioms that connotes a fan base of dudes in brothel creepers and chicks in Bettie bangs.
[Chris Middleman]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
Downloading Nancy is not ill-conceived, just poorly executed.
[Danny Djeljosevic]
Friday, Jun 19, 2009
If consumed past its expiration date it also just might wreak havoc on your bowels. It's called dump cake for a few reasons, you see.
[Eric Dennis]
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009
Why is Sodom so clean looking? Why the fuck is this entire film so ill-conceived? Why is this review almost entirely composed of rhetorical questions?
[Danny Djeljosevic]
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009
Our retrospective of the past decade continues as our writers discuss which artists broke their hearts.
Monday, Jun 15, 2009
We take on concert films in all their staged glory- first up, a spaceman in drag.
[Nathan Kamal]
Monday, Jun 15, 2009
How well the album will be received depends almost solely on whether Man of Aran is considered a score or the follow-up to 2008's lauded Do You Like Rock Music?
[Brian Loeper]
Monday, Jun 15, 2009
On his U.S. debut The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own Finn presents us with 16 songs full and sweet and sad. They range from the simple and acoustic to the orchestral and dramatic, and there's a deep melancholy in each track that hints at a grand story without ever revealing much.
[Nathan Kamal]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR, 05/21/09
[David Harris]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
The production value adds a cohesively 1950s rock 'n' roll feel that exudes the innocence of the era while retaining E's contemporary approach to alternative rock, folk and occasional old-school hip-hop. The results are, not surprisingly, strangely accessible in the most inviting way.
[Jory Spadea]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Even as Viva Voce evolve, their strengths remain the same: the close folk-like vocals that blur into one another, the way they smartly evoke various styles while always sounding like themselves and their unerring, but not too sticky, melodies.
[Lukas Sherman]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Kassim Ouma is a star, an ebullient firecracker that exudes cocky confidence and sly wit. He is one of those people that is endlessly watchable in his enthusiasm for life and Davidson allows his camera to linger as Ouma, speaking in an endearing miasma of slang and broken English, tries to achieve not only his dream of rising in the boxing ranks, but escaping the demons of his past.
[David Harris]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Simply put, Sügisball is a confounding work: beautifully shot on perfectly decaying post-Soviet locations, the film nonetheless cannot manage to rise above its pointless structure and irritating subjects.
[Morgan Davis]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
This album batters the listener with the chaos, noise and gothic arrangements for which Cave and the Bad Seeds are best known. A parade of psychopathic butchers tears through large parts of Murder Ballads, leaving a bloody trail of carnage in their wake.
[Eric Dennis]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
Secret, Profane and Sugarcane humbly succeeds, mostly because Burnett and Costello have kept things simple and refrained from glutting their project with kitschy clichés.
[Neal Fersko]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
The record is certainly a satisfying look at Luaka Bop's catalog and a decent peak into music one might not normally come across paying attention only to Pitchfork.
[Chris Middleman]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
The alternate tension between the heavy-handedness of the narrative and Coppola's abilities as a filmmaker being stilted by it is what unfortunately weighs Tetro down.
[Andrei Alupului]
Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
If so many films about so-called troubled teenagers come off as little more than exploitation, it's often because the filmmakers turn them into reductive symbols or archetypes; they're not really interested in them, just their dysfunction and its entertainment value. That is not the case with Pressure Cooker; a story of real people doing their best to rise above their less-than-desirable situation told in a manner that real people will find accessible and truthful-the mark of an engaging documentary.
[Teri Carson]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
Verizon Center, Washington, D.C., 05/18/09
[Brian Loeper]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
Just like the Buena Vista All-Stars craze from 10 years ago, these are songs that you shouldn't stop playing. Spin these discs at a party, play them as you relax this summer in your backyard. This music is the essence of class.
[David Harris]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
It's clear that Earle has put a lot of love and care into Townes and by channeling this similarly troubled songwriter, Earle might have found some much needed inspiration.
[Morgan Davis]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
Spaced could have never been produced for an American audience. We wouldn't have had the stomach for it.
[Nicholas Ryan]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
Spoiler alert: Don't buy popcorn. You'll be spitting it out as soon as they move into the subject of corn.
[Teri Carson]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
"I work really fast. I'm a dinosaur, rooted in what I grew up with. And I can seem like I'm ordering people around."
[Joan Wolkoff]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
A more unified and soulful noise emerges out of the band' swamp of scrape-what-you-can percussion and exalted cross-gender voices. They tap into a bigger philosophy that works wonders with all of the spirit that blue-eyed soul is supposed to accomplish but has seldom delivered.
[Neal Fersko]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
And that's the catch with this re-issue: it likely won't entirely please all of O'Rourke's fans. It's not an easy listen by any means, though as an artist O'Rourke has never pretended to be obvious or predictable.
[Joan Wolkoff]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
With the look and feel of a dark, seedy tavern, Anchovies serves up homey pastas, tasty pizzas and other Italian-American dishes rather than the standard pub fare.
[Tara Pierson Hoey]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
This is an easy, no-cooking dessert that can either serve as its own dish or as an ingredient. It's simple, quick and makes you seem way classier than you are. And remember, just like any wine, the better the vinegar, the better the dish.
[Nathan Kamal]
Saturday, Jun 13, 2009
Most science fiction films are caveats, warnings that if we don't change our ways we will be condemned to a horrific damnation of rotting morals and decaying ideals. We can ease our bodily and industrial concerns, but that does not change the basic nature of humans or society.
[David Harris]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
Neumos, Seattle, WA, 04/30/09
[Chris Middleman]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
Jhelli Beam is nothing short of a revelation, a perfect amalgam of conscious rap's sheer love of the written word and the avant-hip-hop scene embraced by hipsters and the Oakland core alike, with bits and pieces of the indie and electronic elite thrown in for good measure.
[Morgan Davis]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
Voices are distorted by vocoder and strange klaxon-like sounds replace much of the traditional instrumentation, but the human heartbeat-via-drum-kit never disappears. This is cyborg music without the murderous connotations.
[Danny Djeljosevic]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
The tragedy of Apostle of Hustle's third outing is that it doesn't feel like a cohesive thought under any circumstances. From one standpoint, it's a collection of songs from the same author, but the entirety of its thoughts feel jarring and counterproductive.
[Cameron Mason]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
The film is both a good introduction for those unfamiliar with the band, including essential tidbits like their formation after a Sex Pistols gig and the source of the band's name.
[Lukas Sherman]
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
The Tony Scott filmmaking formula is also rotting behind the walls: bigger is better, the marquee stars have to meet, and there have to be car crashes. The saving grace is the talents of John Travolta, Denzel Washington, and the retention of the tone of the original film.
[Rafael Gaitan]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
"It's funny, I don't even know if I'd listen to my music if I wasn't me."
[Aimee Herman]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The trio has a solid base formula of keyboards, drum machine and nearly indistinguishable vocals on nearly every song, but with enough minor variations to never be quite monotonous. The harmonies are gorgeous and the gentle interplay of the voices adds to the dreamy atmosphere of synths and Casio beats.
[Nathan Kamal]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
Super Animal Brothers III sounds comparably close to the title's suggestion: a cute, fairytale-ish explosion of heavy beats and screeching synth samples that bloop, blip and bleep their way through 16 songs that fall just shy of 35 cumulative minutes.
[Jory Spadea]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The disc is too bloated, too bogged down with instrumentals that add nothing to the whole. As background music, it does a fair job of being unobtrusive, neither stopping the listener from balancing a check book out of sheer annoyance or through the presence of mind-blowing jams.
[Chris Middleman]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The eventual question of Pontypool becomes whether we as a society are destroying ourselves through a similar isolation or through overly ambitious globalization, whether spreading our culture or maintaining it within our own borders is the best thing for the world, or if either are at all correct.
[Morgan Davis]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The world is full of endless atrocity, both our own and that inflicted via the sinister pact between the Illuminati and Satan, yet we still crack jokes and do incredibly stupid things that can ruin even the most serious moment.
[Danny Djeljosevic]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
Though the makeup of Liar certainly isn't to everyone's liking - those who offend easily or like their music smooth, optimistic and incidental should stay the hell away - it is the band's most enduring work and also the best starting point for anyone with a passing interest in The Jesus Lizard.
[Eric Dennis]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The band has honed their sound for the past 26 years, and while many milestone marks have been made, The Eternal ushers in the start of many more to come.
[Jory Spadea]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
As excellent as the vocals are, as interesting as the guitars can be for a moment or two, there's just nothing about The Curious Mystery that is more memorable than a dream you've just had but have already started to forget.
[Morgan Davis]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The record comes off like the wild-eyed girl that's cornered you at a party, talking entirely too much and asking what you'll be doing together next weekend.
[Chris Middleman]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
At least this movie isn't as bad the one we reviewed right below it.
[Andrei Alupului]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
What Goes Up is overstuffed with plot threads that never come together and tonally incompatible approaches that result in bizarre juxtapositions too awkwardly constructed to be disturbing. I may be wrong but I think this is the only movie in history to exploit a space tragedy as a cheap suspense-building device.
[Teri Carson]
Sunday, Jun 7, 2009
The Black Cat, Washington, D.C., 05/03/09
[Brian Loeper]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
As much as I like the idea of Pop playing the aging lothario, singing from a stool in a tiny Parisian café, it doesn't always work. And for songs that are supposedly about death, sex and the end of the world, it's pretty mellow.
[Lukas Sherman]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
More than ever, The Durutti Column seem content in hearkening back to their early roots. With such a bountiful discography accumulated after three decades now, it seems unlikely that Reilly would conduct things any other way.
[Jory Spadea]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Within Fake Surfers lurks a tremendous, excellent album, full of Cramps-like boogie stomping and a White Stripes-esque love of hooks. It just all happens to be buried beneath sludgy, completely unnecessary edgy posturing.
[Morgan Davis]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Buñuel's intent is clearly to erode the veneer of civility that keeps the bourgeoisie from imploding and show how the very status, etiquette and ritual upon which their complacent privilege rests isolates them from the remainder of society and reduces them to inertia.
[Teri Carson]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Rwanda's violent history haunts every frame of this film. The underlying tension is inescapable, and it colors our perception of this ambiguous image.
[Andrei Alupului]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
" My music isn't about being queer. It's about making music and I also happen to be a queer person. That doesn't mean that I don't think it's really important that people see me on stage and see my gender identity and like, identify with that and have intense experiences around that. I think that's awesome. But I don't specifically seek that out."
[Aimee Herman]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Of course, this EP probably has little to do with what the next Deerhunter album will be like. It's more than likely a little exorcism of sorts before the band goes back into their heady, noisy home territory, but that doesn't stop it from being an excellent, casual affair.
[Morgan Davis]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
On their third album, Breaks in the Sun, Weinland doesn't entirely avoid the singer-songwriter trap. The music is always tasteful and the playing always efficient, but there's nothing very exciting about it.
[Lukas Sherman]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
What carries The Way We Live is that producer's ear, which enables Blood to beautifully craft the arrangements of each song.
[Chris Middleman]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Brunch, Dolly Parton AND a drag show? Does life get any sweeter? This writer thinks not.
[Phyllis Anastasia Gasper]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Garnishes get a bad rap. Too often the parsley is dumped on the side of the plate, the orange blossoms are thrown away and the multitude of flavors that such overtly visual ingredients add are dismissed. But a garnish can be more than a punctuation mark on a dish.
[Nathan Kamal]
Saturday, Jun 6, 2009
Unmistaken Child is a fascinating film, but feels very much like an incomplete one. Despite the incredible history and scope of the tradition it portrays, it's only a brief look into something ageless and ancient.
[Nathan Kamal]
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2009
Just because it's meant to be mindless entertainment doesn't mean we should let it get away with being stupid. Have a little self-respect!
[Andrei Alupului]
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2009
In the end, Viridiana is forced to face some ugly truths about the world and to re-evaluate her approach to interacting with it. It is arguable, and Buñuel certainly makes the argument, that having been forced to deal with these truths, rather than evading them through sequestering herself in a nunnery, in having to work rather than pray, she winds up a better person than she was at the beginning. It doesn't feel good, but it's pretty beautiful.
[Andrei Alupului]
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2009
Neumos, Seattle, WA, 04/29/09
[Chris Middleman]
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2009
Despite my gripes, I'm still looking forward to Vol. 2. Hopefully it won't be another 20 years until we see it.
[David Harris]
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2009
Although it won't spawn any new musical genres, The Courtesy Tier's Map and a Marker succeeds because of its direct and organic approach. Its five songs pulse with ringing guitars, insistent drums, soaring lead vocals and occasional background harmonies.
[Eric Dennis]
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009
The classic New York slice may have been born in Manhattan, but Brooklyn is where it retired. That's not surprising. Like all the boroughs, Brooklyn is equally overrun with these kind of shoddy impersonators, but its size and profusion of isolated corners has allowed some old standards to survive unchanged for years.
[Jesse Cataldo]
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009
"Fuck Eric Grandy at The Stranger! Sorry, what was the question?"
[Morgan Davis]
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009
Billed by some as the "French Strokes," Phoenix made effortless, breezy pop songs that became instantly familiar without becoming irritating. Their fourth full-length, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is the garcons' most ambitious, experimental and European album to date.
[Lukas Sherman]
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009
Under no circumstances should anyone ever listen to this album. Nothing more than a collection of free-form nonsense, Funland is fucking intolerable.
[Brian Loeper]
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009
Yoji Yamada has no intentions of going out quietly, though his films may seem to speak otherwise.
[David Harris]
Monday, Jun 1, 2009
Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR, 04/29/2009
[Nathan Kamal]
Monday, Jun 1, 2009
Though the latest from the White Rabbits sounds a lot like Spoon, there is no denying this record seriously rocks.
[Jason Stoff]
Monday, Jun 1, 2009
One of Kinney's big problems as lead singer in his old band was his habit of getting complacent on songs and never emphasizing one phrase over another. Often he could shake himself out of it with the right accompaniment, but the sleepy strum of The Wooden Birds just makes it worse.
[Neal Fersko]
Monday, Jun 1, 2009
It's all too much like real life- as Director Rhein advances, "their triumph is small to the outside world, but huge inside their hearts." Rule one of movie making: your punchline needs to be huge to the outside world, for they are your audience and without them, there's no one to respond to your product!
[Joan Wolkoff]
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