Guys have their foolish moments, what with fantasy sports and beer hats and all, but the caricatures needn’t lack empathy. Take this song “Beer Holder.” Nobody addled enough to admire his expanding belly’s utility as a coaster would think to write a song about it. That’s where Reverend Horton Heat comes in: white trash wit […]
review
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Zombieland brainless fun
It’s to Zombieland’s benefit that it pays no mind to the most obvious questions it poses. 1) Didn’t Shaun of the Dead already perfect the zombie comedy? 2) Is Jesse Eisenberg’s career relegated to playing neurotic 20-something virgins in movies with the suffix “-land”? Zombieland uses its redundancy as attitude—even the poster tagline wants you […]
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Two Hours Traffic
To the quartet’s credit, they don’t drive directly at the power-pop that made their previous records stand out. The hooks and upbeat tempo can be found (the opening and title tracks and “Lost Boys”), but overall, the band’s clearly concerned with songwriting’s other internal mechanisms: the almost-off-balance pitch of the keys and syncopated rhythm of […]
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Julian Plenti
While Interpol’s music is predictable and somewhat formulaic in its reliance on a specific 1980s aesthetic, this debut from lead singer Paul Banks is anything but. Complex, richly textured and varied, the songs range from intimate instrumental interludes to layered, spacey indie-rockers. There are few, if any, weak moments here, and Plenti solo is a […]
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Jenocide
The pounding distorted bass and fuzzy synth shrieks opening Jenocide’s Machines To Make Us Wet recall the sweaty genius of her first EP. But three tracks in Nine Inch Nails-like staccato drum beats introduce Jen Clarke’s haunting, subdued vocals, setting it apart from your standard electronic dance album. From there, Clarke navigates vocal history with […]
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Statues
Consistently infectious, Statues team up with P Trash and House Party Records, releasing yet another single that would make you hate yourself if you missed it. It’s damn near impossible for Statues to write a bad song. The real standout on this latest single is the first song on the b-side, “To the Top.” That’s […]
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Mille, “Crysteena”
Justice? Pfft. Crookers? Pfft. Give me some Mille! This song’s like a dance club playing videogame music. And it makes you wish that club existed. So bad. The cascading, fantastical synth riffs and super-duper-compressed drums leave you stranded on the peak of a snowy, digital mountain. Or dancing alone in your socks, in my case.
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Tell your friends about The Informant!
Steven Soderbergh has spent the ’00s committed to making lightweight genre experiments. It can at least be said that The Informant! is one of the better ones. Though never bridging the dramatic disconnect that hurt The Good German, this film realizes its story isn’t that interesting. What keeps The Informant! on its toes is its […]
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Jennifer’s Body goes for gutsy
Oscar winner Diablo Cody goes for the gutsy with a ’80s-style horror romp. Megan Fox, right in her tiny wheelhouse, is the titular Jennifer, who’s sacrificed to Satan by emo band Low Shoulder (fronted by Adam “Seth Cohen” Brody!) so the band can hit it big. She becomes a half-demon instead, feeding on boys to […]
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Spiral Beach
Let the boomers keep their recent Woodstock anniversary, their hazy memories. Psychedelia has left them behind, residing now in bands like Spiral Beach. On their third release, The Only Really Thing, this Toronto-based quartet serves sugary jolts with frosty-icing-coloured imagery. But there’s nothing artificial about them. The album opener, “Battery,” establishes the nocturnal motif, with […]
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Art Brut
These slap-happy lovers of post-punk scrappiness have found a most unlikely kinship in producer (ex-Pixies) Black Francis, who tightens up the band’s sound while simultaneously retaining its slackerish mantra. With songs about The Replacements (the band, not the movie), DC Comics, not learning to drive and having a song stuck in your head, there is […]
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Rich Hope
There is not much new to what Rich Hope does, save the crunchiness. You could call his blues a white-boy, minimalist sock-hop strain were it not for the many twists and turns his guitar navigates. On the slow numbers like “Death Bed Blues,” he’ll remind you of The Black Keys. When the tempo’s up, it’s […]
