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 […]
review
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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 […]
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BLK JKS
Out of Johannesburg, South Africa, arrives a quartet likely to scare you. Rock does register with Africans. At times, it seems the speakers or your head might explode from the layers of rhythm, noise and the unknown. The title and album images suggest an aftermath of some trouble when humanity has no toys to filter […]
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La Roux
Absolutely everything about the Mercury Prize-nominated debut by British synth-pop duo La Roux screams retro. Anyone born before 1990 will recognize Elly Jackson’s Flock of Seagulls/Annie Lennox stylistic mash-up, the early ’80s new wave synthesizer and drum machine combination that comes directly from the likes of Yazoo and OMD and the emotional isolationism and lost-love […]
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The Cove’s revelations shock
Part nature doc, part espionage thriller, part horror story, The Cove contrasts its dolphin character study (they’re self-aware, intelligent and highly communicative, according to the film) with shocking footage of the capture and slaughter of thousands of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. Director Louie Psihoyos, at the urging of former Flipper trainer turned activist Rick O’Berry, […]
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9
What on Earth happened in 9, an animated post-apocalyptic adventure featuring a voice cast of Christopher Plummer, Elijah Wood and John C. Reilly? 9 (voiced by Wood), who looks like a burlap rag doll, wakes up in a world terrorized by machines out of the Terminator films’ Skynet nightmare, finds his goggle-eyed, potato-sacked brethren (Reilly […]
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York Redoubt
If York Redoubt’s main vision was to make noise, they’ve succeeded. But there’s more than just noise here: heavy distortion and feedback play into a math-rock, post-punk aesthetic. Recorded partly in an abandoned schoolhouse, warping floorboards and haunted basements seem completely in line with the music. Arty, weighty but still accessible, the different elements of […]
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Fringe review: Beyond the Road Less Gravelled
Ah, the staple of fringe festivals: the one-man show. A solo show gives audiences the chance to spend an hour or so with one character, learning the deep, dark secrets of a life. If done well, this can be entertaining and enlightening. But in the wrong hands, a one-man show is as much fun as […]
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Fringe review: The unexpected pleasure of CHUG
The pleasure of watching the dancers of SINS (Sometime in Nova Scotia) perform their contemporary dance piece CHUG amongst the patrons at the Economy Shoe Shop is doubled by watching the reactions of the audience. As the gracefully athletic trio sprawl across the bar or chase each other playfully around tables and up steps, people […]
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Fringe review: J-Tel Presents…a fun family show
I am a sucker for talented young people, and I have a thing for folk music, so the awkwardly titled J-Tel Presents…Canadian Folk Songs Super-Hits Sound Explosion seemed like it would be right up my alley. I was not disappointed! This show is a clever satire of both infomercials and the “raise a perfect child” […]
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Halloween II’s killing machine
It’s possible to see the movie Rob Zombie wanted to make in Halloween II, but much harder to see the point. It’s Zombie’s prerogative to not want this sequel to amount to “fun” horror. But repeatedly, we’re seeing through Michael Myers’ perspective, observing victims’ prolonged suffering. That’s how Halloween II ends up fetishizing cruelty. The […]
