A review of the "Supergirl" pilot

In a shrewd and ballsy move by CBS, the pilot episode of "Supergirl" has been "leaked". Set, originally, for release in October of this year, two versions (one HD, one less than HD) showed up online a few weeks ago.

And I watched it.

Here are some thoughts:

Way to wrap up the origin in two minutes (Man of Steel, I'm looking at you...). Although I'm sure we're going to see it again. And again. And again.

Both Laura Benanti and Malina Weissman have great "cry face" acting, the former more so than the latter.

Dean Cain! Woo!

Getting a ridiculously strong Felicity Smoak vibe from Benoist. "I have glasses! I can't be hot! Look the the glasses!!!! And I bump into people!!!!!!!!!! Because of the glasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Eight minutes and we already have a romantic interest. Ugh.

And eleven minutes in and they're already spoon feeding us details they brought up nine minutes in. Kreisberg must really think his audience is a huge flock of magpies with ADD standing next to an exploded tinsel factory.

May that be the last not-really-funny-in-the-90's-yet-somehow-still-rehashed-twenty-five-years-later-"I-thought-you-were-going-to-say-you-were-a-lesbian!!!" lesbian joke we ever see.*

Puffy mouth bad guy, Vartox, has too much air in his tummy! Get it all out, Puffy Diddy!

The DEO angle is interesting, but I assume it's going to be 30% of every episode. The rest will be a balance of awkward exchanges between Kara and Jimmy, Cat Grant being a strong, competent, stereotypical bitch, and, I don't know, popular music? This was sort of my issue with "Alias".**

Flockhart's heavy-handed "defending the word 'girl' " speech is a bit much, but, as Kreisberg has already illustrated, he thinks he's writing for distracted birds. Perhaps he also thinks the birds are stupid.

Regarding the emotional and revealing speech Alex gives through the door of Kara's apartment…neighbors? Hello?

There are four actors worth of acting coming out of Harewood's Hank Henshaw. He really needs to rein it in.   

One positive: I'm glad that there's only a very small number of people who don't know who she is; less time wasted with those inevitable, awful speeches about trust and putting people in danger and so on. This is the first upside to having Kreisberg write a third show in this universe: even he's getting sick of his worn out formula.

Of the four shows currently being written by Andrew Kreisberg, this is the least annoying***, but it still feels so goddamn much like "Arrow" and "Flash" that I can say, with confidence, that a lot of people will watch and enjoy this show, but that I will not be one of them.

There is an infinitesimal chance that, since CBS is using fan reaction from this "leak" to change aspects of the show before its release this Fall, that we might get something better, but, like I always say, less diarrhea is still diarrhea.

* It will not be.

** The TV show, not the Bendis book.

*** Obviously, I haven't seen any of "Legends of Whatever", but I have a strange feeling that, since it's "Arrow" and "Flash" having a stupid family of badly written idiots, that that'll annoy the piss out of me as well.

A review of Alessandro Cortini's "Forse 2"

I'll save you some time: if you liked Forse 1, go get Forse 2.
For the most part, this is a much colder album than its predecessor, just in time for winter.

Forse 2 starts in space with "Canta" (perhaps where we left off after Forse 1? ). The instruments are cold and old, but the notes are warm and reassuring, until something goes wrong; a change in trajectory? Meteors? Interference.
Bursting through the atmosphere and bearing witness.

"Cerca" feels a bit like "Canta" with the (almost) alert noise which starts off smooth and then gets distorted.

"Conta", at the very start, sounds like a variation of "A Warm Place". Nice. Evolves into questing through huge ice caverns. Then, the caverns start to glow. Reds and oranges, but they are still ice. And there is something alive in these caves.

"Grigia" is sharp and piercing, the light reflecting off the ice. Blinding. Movement in the motes in ones' eye. A melody emerges, high and stinging, then distortion and dissolution. Melting ice / snow.

"Lenta" sounds like something from Forse 1. Plodding, deep, contemplative. Emerges from its own shell and then grows large enough to swallow you whole.

"Luna" is another reminder of Forse 1. Again, there's a strong sense of emergence. At just the right moment, I happened to come out from the sticky, muggy subway and into the chill of an early fall evening. The music reflected that perfectly. Odd abrupt ending.

Something about "Marcia" feels dated, nostalgic.  The record scratch and hiss in the background. That and the delay work very well together. This becomes mesmerizing. Words for the end: photon array.

"Menta" is one of the softest tracks on here. Freezing to death in your sleep. False warmth. The fuzz in the background adds an excellent texture.

The very beginning of "Salta" reminds me of Goldfrapp but then evolves into something that sounds like an early Doctor Who theme...which makes me want to hear Cortini cover the Doctor Who theme. The Who-ness actually takes me out of the flow of the album. The second half of this track is great, supplanting and then obliterating the first half, becoming regal, the rising of a pitch black sun. It's interesting to hear what the removal of a beat can do. The second half of this is my favorite part of Forse 2.

"Strada", which clocks in at just over three minutes, serves as a playful denouement to the massive climax of "Salta"; the perfect counterpoint to its world ending finale. Everything is mellow until all the knobs get turned up and the controls start to smoke and fizzle and explode, leaving us drifting, once again, in space.

Something that keep occurring to me in regards to Cortini's Forse, is how much it has the same quality of some of Coil's instrumental releases, namely, the quality to tell (or, at least, allude to) epic stories without containing a word.

While Forse 2 absolutely sounds like it's in the same galaxy as Forse 1, it's a far less inviting and habitable world; whether it's still and beautiful and sad, like a body found in the snow, or rough and frozen and heavy, like a thick slab of ice, it's always cold. Going along with that drop in temperature, I found Forse 2 to be less dynamic than Forse 1. There are glimpses of dynamism here, but not enough for me, although some might simply call it more subtle.

A review of Beck's "Morning Phase"

Yes, I'll admit I would have been more excited if the newest Beck album, the first proper Beck album in five and a half years,* had been a continuation of Midnite Vultures, but I'll take a continuation of Sea Change with nary a qualm.
Ha!
I'll bet you thought this was going to be an outpouring of bilious vitrole!
Well, in your face, nobody, because I really, really like Morning Phase!
...although I do have, like, two qualms.

I'm not going to be the first nor the last to call this album gorgeous, epic, radiant, award winning, a triumph...because it is.
Maybe it'll even earn Beck another five-star rating from Rolling Stone!!!
EEK!!!
What a world!!!

I'm also not going to be the first or last to compare it to Sea Change, so let's get that out of the way: Morning Phase is denser than Sea Change, but the cloth it's woven from is brighter than that of Sea Change. While there's night on Sea Change, the closest thing we get to it on Morning Phase are those seconds right before the sun shows itself, when the sky is already lit, just not directly. The darkest song on here is "Unforgiven", and even that addresses the end of night. 

However, the strongest and most direct connection between Beck's ridiculously well-crafted 2002 opus, Sea Change, and this latest ridiculously well-crafted opus is the second track from Morning Phase, "Morning". The acoustic guitar, bright, plinking notes and ambient electronic echoes floating in the background are absolutely a reference, whether intentional or unintentional**, to "The Golden Age".
But, enough about Sea Change.

There are only a few tracks on Morning Phase that don't contain the words "morning", "sun", "day" or "light", and, each song, regardless of its lyrics, captures a different aspect of the sun's light.***
For example, "Heart Is A Drum" feels like mid-day light, more silvery, falling on a small, honest town as it goes about its day. The opener, "Cycle", and its fraternal twin, "Phase", are straight up representations of a sunrise, the notes sung by Beck and then transposed to strings by his father and long-time collaborator, David Campbell. "Cycle" is the perfect opener for Morning Phase.

The sunlight on "Blue Moon" feels older and more mature than the rest of the album, but still new; perhaps a decades old photograph of the sunrise in "Cycle" and "Phase". The sparkling guitar at the end does an amazing job of cutting through the dreamy, sleep-dusted atmosphere up to that point. I also love the piano on this as it lends such a sense of sincerity. And, like most tracks on this album, the myriads voices and vocalizations in the background add a sense of warmth and depth, depicting, in sound, yet another aspect of sunlight. 

Another relation to those two instrumental twins, "Wave", might be the simplest track on the album, but it's also one of the most stirring. There's something so brave and powerful about "Wave", something brazen about that one voice just set adrift in this soporific sea of strings, swallowed and dwarfed by the size of it. The lyrics, out of context, could fit on a moodier-than-usual Nine Inch Nails album, and the repeated chant of "isolation" is almost silly but for the setting. Narrow miss on that one.
As I mentioned before, the darkest track on here (sonically) is "Unforgiven", although it contains sunlight as well. I'm picturing the light in the sky just seconds before the sun crests the horizon and stings one's eyes. Or, maybe a dark dream in a sunlit room.

There is a tiny handful of songs I've yet to get into, namely the more-folky-than-I-prefer "Turn Away" and the more-country-than-I-prefer "Country Down". I'm not altogether worried though, I didn't love everything on Sea Change when I first listened to it either.

But then, there's "Waking Light". I don't like sweeping statements. So I did some thinking before I put this here. This is tied for my favorite Beck album closer.
You know how "Debra" is the perfect ending for the sweaty, glitter orgy that is Midnite Vultures? Thus is "Waking Light" for Morning Phase.**** In a recent NPR interview, Beck mentioned that he'd originally had "Waking Light" at the beginning of the record. I've never actually wanted to slap Beck until that moment. "Waking Light" is the perfect evolution of all those ambient vocalizations we've been hearing this entire time, the perfect evolution of Morning Phase as a whole; it has the light and the facets and the darkness inherent in the album in one, glorious, five minute song. And, just when you think it can't get any more perfect, because it's already perfect, that guitar comes in at the end, and your mind and body actually dissolve into pure sunlight.

Beck. 

You've just transmogrified your listeners into sunlight.

Brava.

One comparison I wish I could draw between Morning Phase and Sea Change is that Sea Change had that SACD release with a music video for each track and the album in stunning, jaw-dropping 5.1, but, guys, this a new, full length*****, really great Beck album.

With music written and played by Beck.

Beck Hansen.

The musician!

But I digress.

I want to pour Beck's vocals on Morning Phase over a stack of buttermilk pancakes and then eat those pancakes while listening to this album. They're just that thick and golden and syrupy and delicious.

What can I even say here? I'm completely biased because this is the first Beck album in half a fucking decade and I'm so starved for buttery, syrupy Beckcakes that of course I'm going to find a way to love it. 

Although, to be fair, Beck facilitated things nicely by making yet another career defining masterpiece.

That rascal.

Morning Phase is out next Tuesday.
Details and pre-orders and whatnot here.

* Song Reader? Yes, I have heard of it. It's a bunch of fucking sheet music.

** Most of the musicians on Morning Phase helped to craft Sea Change over ten years ago.

*** Like TV On The Radio's Nine Types of Light, but for just sunlight. Dig?

**** Is "Waking Light" a better song than "Debra"?

Whoa.

I can not and will not answer that.

That's like comparing sex and pizza. Both are important. Both are excellent. But both cannot be compared to one another, and you'd be a fool to try.

***** By today's deplorable "full length" standards. FILL THE DISC, YOU LAZY BLACKGUARDS.

A review of Mother Feather at Bowery Ballroom (1.25.14) and the new "Living Breathing" EP

I knew this was going to be good, but I didn't know how good until it happened to me.
Seeing pictures of a Mother Feather performance, one might think that they have an idea of how the show will play out, but, just as a picture of a sumptuous meal isn't the same as indulging in said meal...you get the idea.

Seeing Mother Feather live is like watching a bonfire; they smoulder and dance and explode and burn.
Along with heat, they emit a strange, aggressive, confrontational sexuality.
At times, lead singer, Ann Courtney, is a screaming, fist-pumping dynamo and, at other times, she appears as a chastened child...the kind who plays with matches, her voice is warm, impish, admonishing, dirty, flirty and often soaked in both sincerity and innuendo.

This might sound fractured, schizophrenic, but it all fits, it's all Mother Feather.

Ann and Lizzie (backing vocals and keyboards) work in perfect concert, like some ferocious, otherworldly clock, telling us to revolt and dance and live, rather than just what time it is. Their smirking, perfectly placed and executed interactions serve to expertly display their background in theater and how well they utilize it.

Highlights of the evening included the playful choreography of their opener, "Egyptology", the energetic sensuality of their infectiously catchy "Trampoline" and, as always, their massive, anthemic closer, "Mother Feather", which you really need to experience to understand. These ladies and their harem of talented instrumentalists are so much more than just what's on record, if you're just listening to the music, you're not getting all of Mother Feather.

And, speaking of the music...at their Bowery show on the 25th, Mother Feather debuted their new EP, Living Breathing.
This was a truly excellent birthday present.

Mother Feather's new Living Breathing EP

Like their first, self titled EP, Living Breathing contains four songs that range from fun to fiery and, also like their first EP, nothing here doesn't stand out. The drums aren't just keeping a beat, Gunnar Olsen uses every measure to do something to keep the listener present and engaged, and the interplay between Basile (bass) and Foley (guitar) is always riveting, never rote.  While it may not be as catchy or packed with instant hits as their debut, I was too caught up in reveling in new Mother Feather music to complain. One thing is does feature is a song called "Egyptology" (usually their set opener) and that's worth the price of admission alone. It's a blistering rocker centering around how funky the Egyptians were and containing the lyrics "I go where he go / follow my pharaoh / to the underworld disco / down in Old Cairo".

Yeah.
 Steve Martin and the Bangles wish they could write a song this awesome.
Someone find a song like this anywhere else, and I'll buy you a trampoline.
There's also "Mirror", which is as dark and intense as three plus minutes of uninterrupted eye contact with Ann herself, and the title track, another god damn awesome rock song with a fun, slinky, twisty climax that might be the sexiest suicide ever.

One aspect of Mother Feather I keep returning to is the fact that, after all the songs and all the music that have been, they have an originality and theatricality that doesn't seemed forced, we're hearing and seeing the real them; it's genuine and doesn't suffer from the pseudo-intellectual eye-rolling that plagues most of pop culture. They love and care about everything they create and that rings true in every facet of Mother Feather.

If you're interested, I interviewed the ladies of Mother Feather for my podcast a while back.
Check it out if you'd like to know about what makes these vixens tick.

digressive_obscenity - ep. 12 - mother_feather

A review of Nine Inch Nails' "Seed Eight (Remix 2014 EP)"

Before he'd announced Hesitation Marks but after he'd announced Beats Music*, I was 100% sure that Reznor was going to debut new Nine Inch Nails music on this streaming service as a way to get at least a few hundred thousand people (NIN fans who would gladly remove a small portion of their skin for new NIN music) to join on Day One.
I was kind of 100% right.
Yesterday was the debut of Beats Music and Seed Eight (Remix 2014 EP), a Beats Music exclusive** consisting of three new remixes of tracks from Hesitation Marks and one remix from the Japanese release of the album.
Seventy five percent of this free, promotional EP is not worth the money I didn't pay for it.

We start with the Hot Chip remix of "Satellite". On the album, it's a dark, dancy track that, as I've said before, might feel at home as the "edgy" track on a Justin Timberlake album; here, it's a boring, "thump aimlessly until we die" drag featuring some garbled whispers in the background that don't do anything at all for me or my dance bone. Keen example of some truly lazy remixing.
Next, we get the Cold Cave remix of "Running", the first twenty seconds of which tricked me into thinking it might be interesting. Then they start then they start then they started doing that obnoxious, shiity remix thing where they play the first half of a lyrical phase a few times before completing it. Genuinely innovative technique, gents. Grateful I'm never going to see these guys open for Nine Inch Nails, because I just might I just might I just might fucking kill myself.
Then, we have the Simian Mobile Disco remix of "Copy Of A". This! Here! Yes! SMD vs. NIN! WOO!
More like "WOE".***
I will say that I'm impressed they managed to find something less interesting than the Hot Shit**** remix. How can such a fun and talented bunch do something this pointless?!
Finally, we have the previously released Autolux mix of "Everything". Here's something interesting...when I first heard this, it was my least favorite remix from Hesitation Marks (the deluxe edition of which came with three additional remixes). The vocal manipulation done by Autolux made it sound like Trent Reznor was going through puberty right before our very ears. But now? After these other three poops? Although it brings stark relief to some of the silliness in the original ("SHAKE! SHAKE!"), I now have a deeper appreciation for it, especially the ending. At least Autolux tried something different.   

In general, remixes that only sample a tiny fraction of the lyrics from the original bore me, and those that just thump-a-thump-a  tend to annoy me. Going by those guidelines, I may never listen to the first three tracks of this EP ever again.
Here's a test: if you skip two minutes into a remix and the only thing that's changed is the addition of a hi-hat, you've got a bad remix on your hands. However, I see this release as an exercise in perspective: yes, I could just trash it and say it's a bunch of leftover remixes Reznor had lying around that he didn't have a place for...or, I could say that it's the perfect example of how juxtaposition can help one shift their point of view.
And, seriously, none of these are as bad as Olaf Fuckhead's abortion of "Me, I'm Not".

Oh, and the cover art might be the worst, most try-hard, high-school-teenaged-goth, angsty thing that's ever been associated with Nine Inch Nails...and I'm including these:

* Better than Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Blinkbox and Rdio.
Apparently.
I guess.
I don't use streaming music things.

** Unless you know what a torrent is and, as all NIN fans know what a torrent is...yeah. "Exclusive" is such an exclusionary word...

*** ZING!

**** Typo?

Video Game Mouthful

I've finally had some time to play some goddamn video games over the past few months and I know you'd just fucking die if I didn't write about them so you could read my thoughts and feelings regarding them.
So, you're welcome.
Parasite.

Deadpool
When rumors of a Deadpool game sprouted up a few years ago, my reaction was the same as it is every time I hear about something I love going into a new medium: don't fuck it up.
Jump ahead.
After the first trailer for the Deadpool game came out and people started ripping it apart, I was let down, but, I decided to reserve judgement until it was out and the people who were huge into Deadpool (like myself) had gotten their hands on it.
Long story short: they nailed the character, 100%. The writing and the voice (Nolan North, a man I aspire to be) were just spot on. I enjoyed the cameos and, while I bit abrupt, they decided to go with a Deadpool ending to a Deadpool game, and I respect that.
At times, the game got in the way of itself and I was a bit disappointed at how easy it was to kill Deadpool (his healing factor is more aggressive than Wolverine's y'all, **insert tooth suck noise**, but they did a really solid job and I would happily go in for a sequel. I'm hoping the game also served to show how much people really want a Deadpool movie and, based on the whispers of the upcoming X-Force film, I think it may have worked.
Ron Perlman as Cable
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool
Uma Thurman as Domino
We all set?
Good.

GTA V
But first I finally played those two DLC packs from GTA IV, "We Like Sons of Anarchy" and "Yeah, I Guess We Could Make Something Else Up...What About Something Where The Lead Character is Latino And There Is A Gay Guy?".
Here's what happens every time a new GTA comes out (since GTA 3, anyway): I shrug and pay peripheral attention (we all know I'm going to get it), then, as it gets closer and those cinematic trailers start coming out, showing off how beautiful the devs have made it, I get a little more tingly, then, it's released, gets called the best game ever and I buy it.
I play it, am blown away by the graphical improvements, take note of how they are trying, consciously, not to do the same stuff they did in the previous games and then, after finishing the campaign and getting let down by how the payoff is never worth time I invested in it, finish a few more things here and there and then I'm over it.
History does, indeed, repeat itself.
I liked the game a lot, and those graphics and details really are astonishing. The ability to switch between three characters really helped keep things fresh too. Michael's and Trevor's plots were the most interesting although did anyone else notice that there wasn't any resolution between Trevor and Michael? They just sort of decided not to kill each other.
Overall, everything about it was great (although isn't it time for a custom radio station? In this age of Sirius XM and Spotify and all that, wouldn't it make sense in the world of GTA?), but, again, like GTA 3, Vice City (which had the best radio, hands down), San Andreas and GTA IV, once I'd finished what I was going to finish (maybe...87.6% completion when I put it down?), it fell off my radar completely.
I suppose that's natural and, depending on what else is coming out that you're looking forward to, the speed with which one forgets a game can differ, but, still, I yearn...
I'm pretty certain that, by the time any single player DLC comes out (in March or so), I'll have completely lost interest, although I might pick up said DLC and check it out before the next GTA iteration arrives.
I will say I am totally stoked about a next-gen GTA.

Spelunky
Okay. First of all, fuck this game.
How can explain this to you non-gamers who aren't reading this....so, there's this game, Demon's Souls, where you play until you die, you only have one life and there are enemies that can kill you in one hit. From point A to point B, you kill things and gather souls as currency. When you die, all the souls you've collected remain where you last died. If you can reach that point again, you get all those souls back, but, if you die before you reach the place where you last died, you lose those souls and all progress.
Short version: you could play the game for three hours, make two mistakes, and it will have been as if you haven't played the game at all.
Sort of like blacking out from drinking, but, with drinking, at least you may have hooked up with someone.
This game is fiercely defended by certain gamers (one could call them sado-masochists) and, in some circles, is considered a game-changing work.
I borrowed it from a friend, Jim, one of those sado-masochists), played for three hours and then made two mistakes, thus making it seem as if I had not played at all. I set down the controller, removed the disc from my PS3, put it back in its case and set it aside.
It was either that or, literally, throw the PS3, controller and TV out the window.
One or the other.
To put it in Jim's words: you need to learn the rules of the game. Every mistake is yours. If you don't pay attention and follow those rules, you will die.
Spelunky is like that, but worse.
One can win this game in less than ten minutes. If you are quick, yet cautious and pay attention to your surroundings.
There are twelve levels in the normal game, four in the mines, four in the jungle, four in the ice caves and four in the temple. Twelve. You need to get from the top of the screen to the bottom, where there is an exit. You have four hit points but can do stuff to get more, but it takes a little effort.
The longest game I've play has been about fourteen minutes. The shortest, less than three seconds.
I have never won this game.
Fuck this game.
I will pick it up again someday.
I can't explain this to you.


The Last Five Call of Duty games (before Ghosts)
So, the next generation has arrived.
I guess.
I don't plan on giving a shit until Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes comes out in the spring.
But, as the next generation was starting, people were making lists.
Lists of the best games of this generation, and one of the best games of the generation, according to Kotaku, was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
All I knew of this game was all I really knew of all COD games: first person military shooter, multiplayer lousy with immature, racist, pothead bros.
In other words: not for me.
It takes a lot to get me into an FPS. A really great story (the Bioshock series) or something that isn't running around and shooting dudes (Condemned), but, ten million Elvis fans can't be wrong, right?
So, I went out to my local Gamestop and plunked down three dollars for a used copy of COD4:MW.
I played an SAS recruit named "Soap" MacTavish.
As he never spoke a word, a common and lazy choice when creating an FPS and yet another reason I find them boring as fuck, I did not give a shit whether he lived or died.
I also played an Army Ranger named...something patriotic and generic...Steve Jackson. At one point, a terrorist detonated a nuclear device in Afghanistan, and your Ranger character dies.
Like, for real.
That was a first and was somewhat interesting, but, again, he never said a word and just followed folks around mostly, so I really didn't care.
Long story short (the game was very short, about five or six hours), bad Russian dude who was behind the nuke attack launches some nuclear missiles which get blown up before they hit and "Soap" MacTavish saves the day.
On the whole, nothing really blew me away, it was short as fuck but cheap as dirt and kind of fun, and, as I do like me a game franchise with a universe, I decided to pick up Modern Warfare 2.
This was more interesting; the stakes were raised and things got a lot more global. There is a mission where you're running through a burning, powerless Washington D.C. and I got that same rush as I did when I saw the ruins of D.C. in Fallout 3 for the first time: something about seeing a monument or location you know and that has always been there in complete and utter disarray...it's effective.
This time, you play as "Roach", who, like "Soap" never says a fucking word, although, now that you aren't controlling "Soap" he's talkative as fuck, Scottish, if you can believe it.
Maybe he was just shy as a rookie?
Anyway, Modern Warfare 2 ends with a cliffhanger and, since the third game was pretty much just as cheap, I went ahead and pulled the trigger.
The opening of the third game is great: we're involved in a full blown world war with the Russians and you start off as a (completely silent) member of Delta Force, taking back the New York Stock Exchange from the Russians, then getting involved in a fucking helicopter battle above the city. They seem to have reached the perfect height of spectacle in this one.
Eventually, "Soap" dies and you avenge his death as super badass SAS bloke, Captain Price.
Much like Batman, I feel bad as Price because I'm not good at these games.
Aside from the three Modern Warfare games, I also checked out the two Black Ops games.
In the first BO games, you have a character with a face and a voice! It's so goddamn refreshing that I was almost able to forgive how fucking awful this guy's American accent was. Did they absolutely NEED to cast an Australian actor for this? Jesus. It's all over the place. If this was going to happen with the silent protagonists, maybe it's better they stay silent...
I don't blame the actor (Sam Worthington) though, I blame the fucking director.
I'm a voice actor and when shit sounds awful, it's his job to stop you and say, gently yet firmly, "Sam, you know, we got a lot of Aussie on that last one, could we do another?"
Actors should obey their directors.
As for the story: it was gummy, convoluted and 90% flashback.
Oh, and they imply that you were brainwashed and killed Kennedy.
The sequel to this takes place in 2025 with you as the son of Sam Worthington with Merle from Walking Dead as your BFF and Tony Todd as your commanding officer, in perhaps one of the most overacted roles of his life. The only explanation I can think of is that, because they couldn't see him he thought he would have to act extra hard with his voice?
Again: it's the director's job to explain why that doesn't make any fucking sense.
The weapons are cool because it's the future but, after five of these games, I really found myself losing interest.
In the end, even though the characters were all complete zeroes, I liked the alternate history craziness of Modern Warfare over the pseudo-Fight Club shit of Black Ops.
Might be done with military shooters for the rest of my life.

Batman: Arkham Origins
I loved Arkham Asylum. The story and the game play and everything about it.
It has become the definitive Batman game.
The sequel, Arkham City, took things to the next level, made things open world. There was much more to do, more villains, more stories, more everything.
Some folks thought it was trying to do too much and defer to the original as being the better game.
The third game, Arkham Origins, which is a prequel, taking place after Batman has been Batmanning for two years in Gotham, focuses on his first encounter with the Joker, as well as eight assassins who have been hired by Black Mask on Christmas Eve to kill Batman.
The general consensus was that this is more of the same of what we got from Arkham City, sometimes using some of the exact same environments, but not as good since the studio that did the first two didn't handle this one.
That is pretty accurate.
But, like I said, I loved the first two games and the Batman universe, so I liked this one as well.
While the character designs are great (the designers always try to do something different with the look of the characters, not relying too heavily on the cartoons or the comics or the movies) and the voice acting was really solid (they did not get Kevin Conroy for Batman, but chose to go with a younger sounding guy, nor did they go with Mark Hamill as Joker, but rather an 70% soundalike), I did have a few problems; such as the fact that no one else seemed to be meeting Batman for the first time except for the Joker. I also thought there would something about Batman's origins, but, nope. the game starts with Batman finding out about the assassins and then going to town.
I can see some thin spots here, for instance, how close the fight with Copperhead was to the fight with Ra's al Ghul in Arkham City, how they keep finding ways to poison Batman so they can do something "interesting" with the gameplay and how I spend hours in every one of these fucking games finding every fucking Riddler trophy / datapack / Anarky tag / Cyrus Pinkney plaque because I have a touch of OCD.
Honestly, I felt bad playing this game because I'm a terrible Batman, something that is only sometimes my fault.
Here are some things that defeated Batman in this game: water, steam (there wasn't any ice in this game, but I'm sure that would have been just as victorious over the Dark Knight as in its other forms), wind (instead of just having invisible walls, whenever he gets too close to a boundary, they have a strong gust of wind push him back. A strong gust of wind. This fucking guy beat Superman on numerous occasions), and the one foot gap between the top of a billboard and a roof.
I also loved how, when a guy with a gun spots Batman, rather than rushing in and fucking breaking his face while he's standing there, shocked at the mere presence of the Batman, Batman decides, rather, that it would be a better idea to do the Skanking Pickle and punch the air like a fussy toddler.
Game designers: when you are five feet from a guy with a gun and he turns around and sees you, when you press the attack button, Batman should attack the guy with the gun, not have a dance party.
You fucks.
Then there's Batman's inability to grapnel when you fucking need him too.
HE'S BATMAN GOD DAMN IT. HE CAN GRAPNEL WHERE AND WHEN HE WANTS.
But, that's the rub when it comes to making a Batman video game...it's still a video game. There are invisible walls and inaccessible places and all that. I just wish they would hide it better instead of taking it out of fucking Batman.
Plus, all the cliffhangers were toothless.
There's a point where Alfred dies...until, ten seconds later Batman saves him...because Alfred can't die in the prequel if he's in the later games.
Then there's Bane finding out who you are...until he takes a chemical that is like super Venom...but it causes memory loss.
Really?
Memory loss?
Or maybe this was allll a dream.
And there has GOT to be a way to make collecting all those fucking datapacks (there were two hundred...and I collected them ALL) worth it. An empty fucking room and a little collectible thing worth 100000 XP?
I ALREADY HAVE ALL THE FUCKING XP FOR COLLECTING EVERYTHING THAT ALLOWED ME TO GET TO THIS FUCKING THING!
Christ.
Anyway, aside from all that...good times.
Can't wait for that Suicide Squad game.

Batman: Arkham City
Origins made me hungry for Arkham City, so I played through that again. Hands down, a better and more interesting game than Origins. I don't know if it's because Origins is a prequel, a thing that will, inherently, never be a good thing or because of Kevin Conroy and the best Joker performance Mark Hamill has ever given or the story and the ending or what but, yeah. Arkham City wins.
I played the New Game Plus, where you start with all your stuff from the previous playthrough and, let me tell you, being able to play a Batman game without having to give a shit about getting any of those fucking Riddler trophies is endless bliss, on the other hand, all those fights without the counter indicator made things a lot more frustrating, especially the fucking ninjas...AM I RIGHT?!?!?!!?
Some highlights I had forgotten: the Clayface fight, the Mr. Freeze fight, every time the Joker speaks, the random thug chatter you pick up drifting around the city, the implications Azrael brings and Nolan North's Penguin.
Very keen to see what Rocksteady has coming up next.

And, what now, you scream, silently?
Well, I have a stockpile of games to keep me sweaty until the PS4 gets streaming capabilities, and a handful of games I want to check out that are now cheaper.

Here they are (along with the reasons I'm probably going to just play Arkham Asylum or City again instead):

Far Cry 3 (it's an FPS, an intriguing one, but an FPS nonetheless. I'm off them for a while. And, yes, I've heard of and played the demo for Blood Dragon. Again, fun stuff, but FPS no no no!!!!)

Beyond: Two Souls (I've heard it's more like a long, interactive movie and riddled with cheap gameplay. But, as it's short, I might check this out next)

The Last Of Us (heard amazing things, but also that it is pitch black, both in tone and in luminescence)

Ashura's Wrath (heard a lot of good stuff; fun, not too much of a time commitment and that it's basically a series of ridiculous QTEs)

Assassins Creed III (story is slow, protagonist is bland as pap and I'm honestly fucking done with this series)

Deadly Premonition (basically Twin Peaks the video game. I've heard the controls (and, from some sources, that the game itself) are horrible.)

Shadows of the Damned (off the wall weird and adult action, gets old fast)

Hitman: Absolution (with all Hitman games, I tend to nail the first few missions, silent assassin like a mofo, but then, shit gets too hard and I give up, just killing everything I can before turning to a FAQ. Plus, the fucking storyline of this franchise seems totally borked. Let's get some continuity here folks! There's also some of that Batman thing where I feel bad at being so awful, this guy, Agent 47 is a SUPER ASSASSIN, but I'll probably try and stab a guy using a dog or something. Also, I get annoyed with the whole, oh, you quietly killed a guy on the fourth floor? Well, now fucking everyone in the building knows about it.  These dicks aren't part of the hive mind, you lazy goddamn programmers!)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Need to sit down and finish this. This was another one that was supposed to be amazing so I bought it on the cheap. Didn't know it was an FPS which totally bummed me out. A lot more interesting that any of the COD stuff, but, again, fucking FPS. I might just slog my way through it as, the last time I played it (months ago), the Illuminati were named as the antagonists in it. Which is awesome. Hail Discordia!!!

Ugh.
Look at all that.
This is valuable time I could have spent playing video games.
You dicks.

A review of tweaker's "And Then There's Nothing"

According to Chris Kniker, close friend to both Jesse Hall and Chris Vrenna, as well as one of the producers of And Then There's Nothing, the intention was to make a Further Down The Spiral to Call The Time Eternity's The Downward Spiral.*

In my black-and-white, cold-and-hard, quantifying mind, remixes fall into four categories: those that work, those that don't, those that are the aural equivalent of a poop-filled condom in a baby's crib and those that redefine, augment or improve upon the original, those that bring a new perspective to it and explore aspects perhaps either hidden or merely implied.
That stated, I've broken down the deluxe edition (which has five more tracks than the standard version, totaling twenty one) of And Then There's Nothing into those four categories.


Those That Work

I'm going to do my best to not focus on Jessicka's awful, tough-girl whisper-talking vocals on the five versions of "Nothing At All" contained within, but rather the sonic beds that support these awful, tough-girl whisper-talking vocals.
I'm not going to try, but I'll promise to try.

First up, the Gary Numan remix which, aside from those vocals I might or might not have mentioned, could have been a demo from Splinter (not quite an album track as it's lacking something, maybe some stronger guitar). The chorus has the same liquid metal synths as used on "Here In The Black" and it sounds excellent, further establishing the FDTS feel.

The next attempt to make these vocals just a little better has been tasked to Front Line Assembly and holy fork do they do a great job. I love the edge on this mix; it's brutal, mechanical, and the softness of Addams voice thrown into this sonic morcellator is something unique, an excellent electro industrial composition.

The fourth and almost final remix of "Nothing At All" comes courtesy of Erie Loch of Exageist, LUXT and Blownload. This is the "Exageist Mix". People unfamiliar with Exageist might think this sounds a bit like Skrillex, but darker in some places and lighter in others. They wouldn't be wrong. As much as the Gary Numan remix of NAA sounds like something from his new album, this sounds like something from Semi Auto Erotic (Exageist's debut album). If you like dark, dubstep electronics, then this might be you favorite version of "Nothing At All".

If any of these mixes had just taken out the verses and kept the chorus (when she's actually singing as opposed to asserting breathily), I would like them a heck of a lot more.
Or if Watts had gotten to lay his meaty hands on the original.
Tee hee.

The Dave "Rave" Ogilvie** and Colin Janz "Grounded" mix has a fresh, futuristic, Asian lounge feel to it, a pretty drastic departure from the dark, throbby original. While it doesn't really fit with the overall theme of the album, it's a solid mix, very light.

KMFDM's "Areas Of The Brain" has more darkness than the original; the inmates loose and destroying the blinding white, antiseptic asylum of the album version. This remix is all broken metal jags and old blood covered bonesaws. Almost more Fixed than Further Down The Spiral.

The third version of "Nothing At All" (the "Alternate Rock Mix") is, well, a more "rock" version of the original. Tweaker's done this before with the  "Take Me Away (Rock Remix)" and it works. It's basically the album cut with some sharper guitar, tougher drums and a few new elements that make it more "rock radio friendly", something that bands have to do these days or they won't get played on K Rock, which, sadly, can still make or break a band.
I think.
I haven't intentionally listened to the radio for a decade or so.

Improving on the simple, clean effectiveness of "Wasted Time" is something I would think rather difficult. Did Rob King and Adrian Terrazas-Gonzalez succeed? For the first half, I would have said no (the whispers of "wasted" and "time" were not impressing anyone), but then, about halfway through, when the sweaty saxophone bursts through the wall like the freaking Kool Aid man and starts making panties drop...what was I saying?
Oh, yeah.
The second half is pretty cool, the first half not so much.
Whatever the case, it certainly stands out.

The final track on the standard album is the Aaron Zilch mix of "Fine". The first half is dark, steady, and contemplative, getting a bit more bassy around the middle before building amidst a flurry of bright, glimmering synths before finishing with some ragged drums and finally, winding down and disappearing. On its own, not a great ending to this great remix album, but, when you add on the super moody and stripped down Rojer Faust mix from the deluxe edition (which I would put in the fourth category), you get a nice eight plus minutes of development and exploration. Personally, I would have substituted this for the Zilch version.

The start of Joe Haze's "Grounded" mix could easily be compared to the beginning of "Closer To God", but it soon diverges, becoming more melodic and soft (if remaining a bit creepy). I actually enjoy the vocal treatment on this one, the repurposing and switching of the meter. Two tracks into the bonus material and I would rather have had these on the remix album proper. This continues the theme of Further Down The Spiral very nicely. This isn't quite up there with the "Hoarding Granules" mix he did with Beavan, but you can clearly see what he contributed.

The final track of the deluxe edition is yet another remix of "Grounded", this one by Perileyes & Encanti and damn it is funky. One might break their neck while listening to this. There's some great juxtaposition between the softer, almost vocals-only moments and that razor / laser dubstep programming. The vocal manipulations are really interesting as well. This ends things on more of a Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D note than that of Further Down The Spiral, but, I'm still very happy with it.


Those That Don't Work

Sort of a dressed up drum cover of "Grounded", the Dave Lombardo mix didn't really work for me. There is some interesting stuff here, but, it really just sounds like he held onto one or two elements from the original and then just played some (kind of sloppy) drums over the rest. It changes the feel of the song and, meh, it just doesn't really work for me.

The final "Grounded" mix (3KStatic) is the longest on the album, clocking in at over seven minutes. I can't think of many remixes over seven minutes that I enjoy as the remixer usually uses their time to show just how great they think one very tiny and specific part of a song is for an inordinate and unnecessary amount of time, wandering into the land of self-indulgence.
Like this.
I'll be honest though, even if this were only four minutes, I still wouldn't like it. kaRIN singing "ahhhh-ahhhh-AHHHHH-haaaah" isn't the most interesting part of this song.

A very possible reason these two don't do it for me might be because I enjoy the original so much.
Can't improve upon perfection.

3KStatic has a chance to redeem their earlier flop here with a remix of "Fine" and, instead, decide to dig their hole deeper with a messy, echoey, dub version. You can see the weed smoke billowing off of this one. True, a robot comes in at the end, but I've already left the party.

The fifth "Nothing At All" mix is a straight up thump-ah-thump-ah club remix and I am eternally grateful that it wasn't put on the disc. It's just absolute garbage for folks like me who don't do clubs or club drugs. There are some cool textures in the quieter moments but less diarrhea is still diarrhea.


Poop Condom In A Baby's Crib

Hey, every body of work has to have an asshole. This is that asshole....
The Army of the Universe mix of "Ponygrinder" focuses on the only problem with the original version (the obnoxious phone operator samples), and finds a way to make it even more obnoxious, specifically by spending the majority of this track just hitting the sample button like a retarded kid with a Casio so you get solid blocks of "go back a step, go back, go back, go back, go, go, go, go, go back a step, go back, go back. go back, go back, go, go, go, go".
Flush.
Then wipe.
Then flush again.


The Reason There Are Remixes

"Pig-Grinder" is what happened when Raymond Watts of <PIG> kidnapped "Ponygrinder" and held it captive in his nightmarish, S&M musical basement for eight months. It's an amazing reinterpretation of the original and sets the tone perfectly for the album.

Ah, Rasputina, never have trouble picking you out...
Say what you will about the temperament of Melora, but the stuff she does is always fascinating. This is a remix like Benelli's version of "The Frail" from Things Falling Apart is a remix, that is to say, a top-to-bottom recreation of the original. If you need specifics, picture "A Bit Longer That Usual" covered by cello-and-tambourine wielding medieval minstrels. Boom. I recommend listening to this and then the original; it's fun.

The Sean Beavan and Joe Haze mix of "Hoarding Granules" starts like someone turned off the lights and pumped fog into the original, but then, once the lights are switched back on, the listener looks around and sees a straight up industrial slaughterhouse. One of the more hardcore industrial remixes on the album, this feels like something from some non-existent album combining the harsh rigid drum programming and screeching guitars of Broken and the dark textures of The Downward Spiral.a track from the Broken session.***

Along with the nineteen remixes on the deluxe version of And Then There's Nothing, there are two brand new tracks as well; "All In" and "Limerence". The first starts off sounding like the drums from "Nothing At All" chopped and twisted, and then evolves into something that might be at home on a John Carpenter film score, and the second, which has the feel of someone dreaming of icy pools while listening to "At The Heart Of It All" (until the man howling and woman whispering "ecstasy" come in).
While the former sounds like a leftover from CTTE, "Limerence" has a distinct 2 a.m. wakeup call feel to it. It would have been interesting if CTTE had featured more tracks like this.

In the end, despite the handful of tracks that didn't work (for me), the majority of this album achieves exactly what it set out to do: to dig deeper into Call The Time Eternity, to explore and exploit its nuance and to light up its dark corners as well as find the dirt buried underneath it.
Honestly, I'm just happy to have fourteen new tweaker remixes. That Linoleum EP really gets old after a decade plus of listening to it.





* If this sentence didn't make sense to you, you might not want to bother reading this

** Long time mixer and engineer for Nine Inch Nails and member of Kniker's Primitive Race collective

*** Which makes sense as Beavan worked on Broken, Fixed and The Downward Spiral

It was late and I watched "R.I.P.D." and "In Time"

And I took notes.


R.I.P.D.!!!!

About two minutes into R.I.P,D. and I'm screaming "Kevin Bacon did it!!!!" into my screen, let's see if 32 years of not being surprised by movies starring Kevin Bacon have taught me anything...

Didn't know this was a fun, Men In Black romp kind of thing, I thought it was some overly dramatic crime shit like Cradle 2 Tha Grave or that other one starring DMX and Steven Seagal's ponytail.
See? Advertising doesn't work on me.

Ryan Reynolds should be America's ambassador of smarm and jackassery.
He should also be Deadpool.

Has someone already described this as "Beetlejuice" meets "Men In Back"?

Their "camo" intro was pretty amazing. Well done.

"Eternal Affairs" - Jesus.
As in: "Oh, Jesus, that's a bad pun", I'm not implying that Jesus is the head of Eternal Affairs...although I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it?

Jumping right to the Apocalypse? Wow, where do you go from there?

There must be hundreds of old, Chinese men ready to swoop in when James Hong finally dies...in 2036.

This was damn fun.
Looking forward to the sequel?
(checking IMDB)
Never mind.
(checking wiki)
Wow. Had no idea this movie was being considered for this year's Worst Picture AND Worst Actor.
I didn't really see a difference between how Reynolds acted in this and in, you know, everything else. Can someone tell me when / if Reynolds has ever been considered good in anything?

IN TIME!!!!!

They explained the entire premise in less than a minute, now we have two whole hours to check out this world.
Well done.

Going in, I've heard the world is awesome but the movie is shit.
Let's see what the horse's mouth has to say.

How could any world allow a fine piece of ass like Justin Timberlake to die that young?!
Also, the fact that he's playing 25 even though he's 32 means he's taking MUCH better care of himself than I am.

Great device to have a lot of hot young things run around and act weird.

The flipside of "eternal affairs" from R.I.P.D. are the new meanings to the old, overused adages and idioms about time, i.e. "don't waste my time, clean your clock", good stuff.

I like the look of this as well, nicely shot.

I feel like a lot of this started with puns...
Puns and weed.

PETE CAMPBELL IS IN THIS!!!!!

Pete is the PERFECT 85 year old 25 year old. Well fucking done, faceless Hollywood casting agent.

Even in the future. Even in an alternate timeline. JT makes them panties DRAWP.

The chick, Sylvia, looks a bit like an alien if you stare at her too long, like a word that stops making sense when you say it too much.

The hand fighting was a bit weird, especially because JT turned into James Bond for a moment, killing three guys in two seconds. I thought he wasn't a criminal.

Also, almost forgot to mention: Scarecrow, what?

Yeah, world and its rules were interesting but I actually didn't think the movie itself was that bad.
At least Scarecrow didn't reveal he was JT's dad.

And, again, PETE CAMPBELL!!


Thanks for being a spectator to my wispy, late night driftings.

A review of nine inch nails live: tension 2013 - OR - Fuck Every Show I've Ever Seen Ever

I attended both the Brooklyn, NY show and the Newark, NJ show on October 14th and 15th, respectively.

Here are the stand outs from each night:

Piggy - This is the first time the lights break the fourth wall, for lack of a better term. Up to this point, the lights have been utilized on the stage to highlight portions of the stage, but, here, they strafe out into the crowd in rays in time with the song's deep synth noise. Always with the gradual progression...

All Time Low - And here, specifically at the end, is where shit gets real.

Disappointed - CONTINUED REAL SHIT. 

Satellite - You know how you'll listen to a new album and there are songs that you just know will not be played live? This was one of them and when I heard the opening, I actually did a tiny, little girl hop. Then the ridiculous real-time wireframe visuals came up and...well, I kind of just stood and stared.
Holy fucking shit.
Roy, Rob, Trent...take your dicks out of my brain.

In Two - Not as surprising as "Satellite", but still surprising. The all out assault of lights on this was just stunning, breath-taking. And the added harmony during the break down is, without a doubt, my favorite use of the two backup singers. The results were absolutely beautiful.

A Warm Place - My very first thought was: Holy fuck! "A Warm Place"! I'd never heard this live before and I am so happy I got the chance. This was less like listening to a song as it was being swallowed whole by a song; a living, breathing womb. Utterly amazing.

Somewhat Damaged > Wish > Burn - Excellent choice of arrangement. There was so much visceral anger in these three songs that I found myself acting like some belligerent little pit shit for a moment. You can really tell Trent's been working on his vocal control with "Somewhat Damaged" and "Burn". Also, a quick note on "Wish". For a while now, this has been on my list of songs I could do without at a Nine Inch Nails show. I mean, I've been to 13 NIN shows since 2000 and it's been played at every one. So. I added it to the list, knowing that I was going to hear it yet again and that I was going to sing along and pump my fist at the appropriate time, but that my heart wouldn't be in it. Then, I saw it live and was swept up completely. And here's what I have come to realize: hearing "Wish" played live gets old, but seeing "Wish"played live? Tori Amos used to open her shows with an eight minute version of "Precious Things". It was...amazing. When her album, To Venus And Back, came out, the second disc had this eight minute live rendition on it as track one and I could never listen to the whole thing. You need to see it.
All this to say: please ignore any further complaints about the inclusion of "Wish" on future setlists. Thank you.

The Day The World Went Away - One of my favorite NIN songs. Any time I get to see this live, it feels like a gift and this time was no different. Just incredible.

There were some substitutions the second night, namely "Reptile" instead of "Piggy" (and I'm going to side with "Reptile" on this one. Goddamn does this still destroy the world live), plus "The Big Come Down", "Into The Void" (another favorite and another one that worked very well with the backup vocals sung by women), "Echoplex" (good to hear, but seemed to lack something) and "I'm Afraid Of Americans" (which was so loud, so deliciously loud...). In most cases, you could tell which songs were interchangeable by their lack of visual accompaniment.

The first and most startling aspect of my time at these shows I have to mention was the complete and delightfully shocking abandonment of the tried and true (and boring) three-part live formula*. This is the first Nine Inch Nails concert since the year 2000 where I've had no idea what to expect** and the feeling was just sublime...although I was pretty sure "The Hand That Feeds" was going to precede "Head Like A Hole".

Along with that, the vast number of "swing songs" has been impressive. At this point in the tour, we've heard about thirty-five, including the entirety of Hesitation Marks except for "Everything" and, according to Reznor, there are still around five or ten songs to be revealed over the next month.
Damn.

Then, we have the new additions to the tour line up, specifically, sleepy bass god, Pino Palladino and the two female, African American back up singers, Lisa Fischer and Sharlotte Gibson. I'm mentioning their race because this was something I was concerned about, that they would add too much "Gawspel" to the mix and, in some cases, that was a problem. It was not a problem on "Into The Void", however, as the album version actually featured an African American back up vocalist who added a lot to the original track. Their contribution was most felt, for me, on "In Two". Their presence transformed the bridge of that song into something just perfect. I only want to hear the live version now. As far as what else they lent to the tour, I'll need to hear a clean concert recording before I can really determine. Off the top of my head, I think they stood out in a negative way on "Disappointed" and "Black Noise" and blended perfectly on the aforementioned songs. Overall, I think they should have functioned as texture and not overtaken Reznor, which, in a few instances, I feel they did.

I also loved the visual references to past NIN stage setups, such as the Fragility v 2.0 "waves" during "The Wretched", the Fragility v1.0 lighting pods in "Somewhat Damaged", and, of course, the NIN logo (and the new version of said logo) during the end of HLAH from the 2006 Summer tour.
But, while Reznor, Bennett and Sheridan seemed well aware of and connected to past incarnations of NIN live, the show itself seemed to lack cohesion. While each song was, for the most part, jaw droppingly impressive with regards to the visual set up and the light programming, I didn't feel like this was anything more than a really amazing resume for Moment Factory; an opportunity to show the world how fucking awesome they are.
Is this a bad thing? I mean, I had an amazing time, I was awestruck by some of the things I was seeing, so, do I really need to feel that story had been told? I might be less concerned with this if the tour weren't named. Even after seeing two shows, I still don't get where the "tension" was supposed to be.*** I really , really hope this decision wasn't based solely on the merchandise...a lot of which had the words "tension" on it.
Perhaps if there had been one, static set piece that worked as a thematic anchor or more of a tie in with the Mills visuals from the album....

Okay, now, as this is a place where I go to piss and moan and find fault with the things I love, I suppose I'll have to find something to bitch about.
...uh...well, aside from the tiresome but completely unsurprising (and necessary?) inclusion of "The Hand That Feeds" into "Head Like A Hole" (which amounted to a single hair in an otherwise delectable meal)****, the fact that I didn't hear "Various Methods Of Escape", "I Would For You" and "In This Twilight" (my favorite songs from their respective albums) and the lack of cohesion I mentioned earlier...you guys, this was a unique and incredible experience for me, and will be for you too, if you manage to catch it live.

Before I wrap up, just a quick word about Godspeed You! Black Emperor!, who opened for NIN both nights.
I didn't know anything about these guys except that people seemed to have vague hatred for them. I did a little research, as I like to be at least somewhat familiar with openers and kept finding EPs, but no full length albums...until I looked a little closer and saw that these four and five and six track "EPs" were full length albums, most of the songs clocking in at around twenty minutes or so.
Ah ha.
They worked, overall; there was a hugeness and a great calm at the heart of their thirty minute, two song set, although I'm not sure if I'd call what they do self indulgent or hilarious or brilliant.
Probably not that third one.
Whichever their motivations for doing what they do, they seem dedicated to it.
Might interest you, if you are patient and / or into pot.





* Part one ending with "Gave Up", part two being all quiet and moody and visual, and part three starting with "Wish".

** 100% visually and maybe 80% on the setlist, thanks, primarily, to some cunt mouth from the This One Is On Us twitter account who POSTED ON TWITTER, AFTER HAVING COMMENTED ABOUT NOT WANTING THE SHOW TO BE SPOILED, SPECIFIC DETAILS ABOUT THE END OF THE SHOW. If they had just posted the spoiler, this would have been less shitty, but specifically mentioning it and then doing it? Fucking dick.

*** Unless you count the pre-show music, which included 80's horror movie soundtracks, selections from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score (cool to hear on such a huge speaker setup) and other ambient, sparse electronic stuff.

**** And we're talking, like, the hair of a really attractive women whose hair you wouldn't mind eating...like Deborah Ann Woll.

A review of Nine Inch Nails' "Hesitation Marks"

Some early thoughts and impressions.

"Eater of Dreams" is an amazing track and should be four minutes longer. While there is nothing else on the album even vaguely related to the nightmares of H.P. Lovecraft, I still think the noises contained within this track would be at home coming from the inside of a Great Old One.

"Copy Of A" while it's grown on me, I still don't feel that there is a lot here. Also, I'm still bummed it isn't "Copy Of A (ay and not uh)" as I think that would have been more interesting subject matter (clones, the future etc.).

"Came Back Haunted" remains a strong single, but, if not handled correctly it could become a "Hand That Feeds". Moving on.

I dug "Find My Way" a lot the first time I heard it played on the Fuji live stream (and thought that it sounded a bit like something by Depeche Mode), and the studio version has so much more to offer. The background chants and drifting voices are chilling and add that touch of spiritual yearning addressed in the lyrics. I wish there were more stuff like this on the album.

"All Time Low" is the first song on the album that I don't like (as of right now, August 26th, it might grow on me). I don't hate it, and there are a lot of cool sounds in it, but there's just some stuff about it I don't dig. One thing that comes to mind are the lyrics that seem a bit remedial ("Hey! / Everything is not okay!" Really, Trent?). Something about it reminds me of "God Given" (another track I've never really liked). The second half, however, I love. I love the changes and the vocals and everything about it. Very divisive. I hope it grows on me.

"Disappointed" is really solid, but Reznor just sounds...I don't know...tired? I like all the instrumentation; the dancy beat, the plucked strings and the erhu melody but those last two minutes where nothing really happens are kind of confusing. Reznor mentioned during some interview about how he was worried that some of these songs might sound unfinished, like demos. While nothing else really feels this way, those barren beats at the end definitely seem to be missing something.

I like "Everything". I like it a lot. It's positive but rough, which is believable coming from Reznor at this point in his life. It isn't about how great "everything" is, it's about how, after "everything" he is, somehow still standing, shaking and shaken, but whole. I also like the nod to his earlier works and tour with the bright multi-part harmony of "wave goodbye". The song soars and makes me soar with it.

"Satellite" sounds like a track from Strobe Light and I kind of love that. It's a dark dance track that might feel at home as the "edgy" track on the new Justin Timberlake album. The subject matter is pretty on the nose as far as current events and the lyrics are, indeed, a bit silly, but your ass is shaking too hard to notice. The build at the end is nice too.

At the moment, "Various Methods of Escape" is one of my favorite tracks on Hesitation Marks. The quality and content of Reznor's vocals in the verses are something I've never heard before. The sonic textures stand out as well. I'm hoping this makes its way into their live set. I want to be swallowed by this song.

"Running" is another one I'm not crazy about. It feels...too sparse? And Reznor's voice doesn't go where I want it to...which is a ridiculous comment to make, I know, but, you asked, right? The little stabbing guitar line is abrasive, but not in an interesting way. It just sounds abrasive. Again, I'm not 100% sure I hate this; there are good moments. More time is required. The whole thing is just annoying me now.

"I Would For You" starts off with a beat sounding like something from Niggy Tardust, then rises from the cloggy synth mud to a cresting chorus, to one of the only times on the album where Reznor actually raises his voice to scream. Something about the chorus reminds me of "A Stranger In Moscow" by Michael Jackson...which is a weird god damn thing to say while reviewing a Nine Inch Nails album. This is another favorite for me.

My jury is still out on "In Two". There's so much happening here and I don't know if I like it or not. The sound is so hard it becomes unfocused at times, that along with the the robot (?!) vocals and then the high, chanting falsetto, then, just as I'm catching my breath and getting into it, everything drops out and things begin to build again from scratch...
Gah.
I need some more time with this.

I have a problem with judging books by their covers. Also with judging the quality and tone of Nine Inch Nails songs by their placement on an album. Case in point: "While I'm Still Here". I thought this was going to be the "In This Twilight", "Beside You In Time" or "The Downward Spiral" of Hesitation Marks.* It is not. I do not like it. Reznor's vocals, both the flat, toneless, almost-shouting and the repetition of "ticking time is running out"** just kill me. I'm trying to think of another Nine Inch Nails song I've disliked this much on early listens, but I'm coming up dry. Again, hoping this grows on me. What it is is beautiful, but not its execution.

And then, "Black Noise" swarms up and swallows everything. I'll admit, I wanted this to be cooler, longer, more apocalyptic and not just dark guitar noise...maybe an evolution of "Eater of Dreams"? Oh well. Maybe next time.

So.
Hesitation Marks doesn't sound anything like any Nine Inch Nails album I've ever heard (although some elements remind me of Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and Talking Heads, respectively).
It's difficult and I'm going to need a lot more time with it.
After hearing the first few singles from the album plus "Disappointed" and "Find My Way" from the live shows, I was a bit worried about just how sparse the album would be. I dig sparse, but, come on, if Reznor is back on his "one new album every five years" cycle, then I'm going to need something more... I was also ready to be let down about the incongruous nature of the visuals (the amazing, amazing visuals by Russell Mills) and the sounds I was hearing; everything I'd heard was too clean to be paired with these gritty, blood-smeared images. Did you see the art for "Everything"? I was worried that the art would just be something cool that reminded us of The Downward Spiral so Reznor could further impart that Hesitation Marks was related to it. After hearing the whole thing, however, my fears have been assuaged.

I think I really like this album, even though it lacks a certain softness I've come to enjoy and look forward to on Nine Inch Nails albums, but, then again, it's all about being surprised, isn't it?





* As in the powerful, penultimate climax followed by the slow and beautiful denouement of "Zero Sum" or "Right Where It Belongs" or "Hurt".

** Okay. I will happily admit that a lot of Reznor's lyrics sound like bad, teenage angst poetry, but both his delivery (his passion, aggression, longing, whatever etc.) and the sonic framework in which they are set ameliorate their brooding, overdramatic nature. Usually.

A review of Alessandro Cortini's "Forse 1"

Forse 1 is the aural tour of a huge, lost planet; one replete with mountains and oceans and caverns, each with their own sonic resonance. While nothing here has what would traditionally be referred to as a climax, neither does the sky nor the sea. The creator, Alessandro Cortini, is best known for his work as a multi-instrumentalist with Nine Inch Nails and How to destroy angels as well as the sole member of the electronic project SONOIO. Forse 1 is the first in a series of three album which Cortini composed and created using only the Buchla Music Easel.

The album opens with "Basta", a massive crystal cathedral which slowly fills with solemn light, so bright that it blinds. While the evolution here is subtle, there's beauty in its depths, a reward for the patient and perceptive listener. One can almost hear breathing in the empty spaces...
From the blinding light, we are plunged, blinking, into the cool gloom of "Carta", as expansive as it is subterranean, deep but wide. Even though it's currently the height of summer, one can't help but feel a chill while listening to this.
The journey continues, making stops at the cold, glowing nightscape of "Festa", the dark, restless, troubled shores of "Gira", where something is using that darkness as a shield, hiding just out of view, and at "Resta", which sounds the most like a reference to one of Cortini's SONOIO tracks.
The two tracks that stand out the furthest are "Nebbia" (galactic in scope and regal in tone, a light in the frozen darkness, much like Cortini's music in general) and "Gloria" (the warmest and most nostalgic piece here. Like reliving a memory as it dissolves around you, until you're left standing in the staticy echo of a beautiful day, a shadow with color, tint and hue).
The album ends when, while exploring the lunar plains of "Sera", the moon in question becomes sentient then either eats you or explodes.
Or both.

Cortini's inherent warmth is present throughout the album, quite an accomplishment given the tools with which he has to work.
The BME has that unique the-future-envisioned-by-the-past vibe to it, conveying, at the same time, a sound both dated and futuristic, add that specific sound to Cortini's uncanny ability for taking something buzzing, cold and lifeless, like the BME, and making it sound comforting, optimistic and nostalgic, and you have something strange and wonderful; something big and sweeping and alien and pointy...like being embraced by a robot.
Forse 1 is more than just Alessandro Cortini expertly wielding the Buchla Music Easel, it's him giving it a heartbeat and a soul.

I got to see The Wolverine tonight. And here's how it went.

Remember how X-Men: Last Stand was garbage and Wolverine: Origins was mostly garbage and ruined Deadpool and how X-Men: First Class was pretty good, but, since it was set in the 60's it sort of didn't really have anything to do with the trilogy and also how awful January Jones was?

Never mind.
I just saw The Wolverine and it was fucking awesome.

In a nutshell: Wolverine fights ninjas.

But there is more to this movie than Wolverine fighting ninjas...

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!




The intro was fantastic, opening with Logan in a prison camp at Nagasaki, minutes before the bomb dropped.
Very dramatic stuff, although Logan still has those magic pants we first saw in Last Stand, you know, the ones that can withstand the Phoenix fire?
Turns out they can also withstand A FUCKING ATOMIC BLAST.

After executing her in Last Stand, it seems that Jean Grey is still with Logan, in his mind.
This is done well and I'm glad of it, as the "haunted by the interactive memory of my dead love" trope can get pretty boring and cheese.

Logan's reintroduction to society is pretty great also: it involves a bar fight.

Then, Yukio, the super tight Japanese badass, brings him to Japan and things get...well, Japanese.

Wolvie is offered a chance to lose his healing factor and live the rest of his life like a human and, thankfully, this whole thing isn't the focus of the entire movie. Plus, he doesn't become a totally normal human, the efficacy of his healing factor is just greatly reduced. He can still take a bullet (or a thousand fucking arrows*), but he feels it.

Once Wolverine gets his mojo back, we learn that one of the villains is Viper.
Now, I do not know a lot about Viper; I always thought she was the chick with the green hair who worked under Red Skull and lead...Hydra...later? But, in this world (unless there is a different Viper) she is a hot blonde mutant chemist who is immune to all poisons and also able to spit acid, steal peoples' life force and shed her skin.
Yeah, it was weird, but not bad weird.

The big showdown is between Wolverine and the Silver Samurai, who looks fucking awesome, almost  combination between the Silver Samurai we all know and love and Shiva, and, at the end of it, Wolverine has lost his adamantium claws...and grows the bone claws.

Loved what they did with Yukio (who can now see how people die...) and Mariko, specifically how Mariko wasn't just a kidnap victim the whole time...although she did get kidnapped...twice.
They made her a competent fighter, just not that competent.

It was also nice to see a comic book movie where the stakes weren't so high, as with Iron Man 3 and Man Of Steel.

So.
I dug The Wolverine.
Very well made, satisfying movie.
But.
After the credits...
You know how, in all the recent Avengers movies they'll have a cute little teaser at the end?
Oh, look, Thor's hammer! Hey hey, Loki is controlling that dude!
This time around...

We see Logan in an airport, about to go through a metal detector.
A title appears and lets us know it is two years later.
As he is walking towards the checkpoint, he notices a commercial for a company called Trask Industries.
As he is about to walk through, he notices that things are acting weirdly; the metal detector is freaking out, coins are vibrating, keys rattling in their trays...his eyes widen, he pops his claws and swings behind him...but is stopped...by Magneto.

Magneto: There are dark forces gathering that seek to destroy our kind
Wolverine: How can I trust you?
Magneto: You can't.

At this point, you notice that time has apparently stopped moving behind the two of them.
And up rolls Charles Xavier.

Wolverine: How is this possible?
Xavier: As I told you long ago, my friend...there are others out there with gifts.

In the span of twenty seconds we get Sentinels, Magneto and Professor fucking X!

Fucking take that, shawarmas!





* Effectively becoming The Porcupine.

A review of Joe Meek's "I Hear A New World"

Hoo boy.
I saved the fucking out-of-this-solar-system weirdest for last.

So, a while back, They Might Be Giants had a service called the TMBG Clock Radio, which would stream music (mainly by TMBG but, occasionally, by someone that TMBG dug) and, one such song was "I Hear A New World" by Joe Meek and the Blue Men. It was trippy and reverby and spacey and overly 60's sounding; sci-fi surf rock. Jump forward about a decade to Rough Trade East, where Christina decides to grab some weird albums that she's never heard of, one of which...is this album. Jump forward a month or two to when I finally get around to listening to it.
And, finally, jump forward a few weeks to right this very instant, as I sit, typing this review.
Good.
Let's go!

Rather than break down each song and go on, at length, listing what I did or didn't like about it, I'm going to approach this differently, as the album itself is different from most anything I have ever heard.*
What follows is Joe Meek's musical formula, utilized on each of the twelve tracks that constitute this album.
I discovered this formula after about...oh...two songs.

First, between 20 and 45 seconds of blippy, swooshing space noise.**
Next, (if the song features vocals) chipmunk the hell out of said vocals, throw in some Monty Python sound effects and then soak everything in reverb.
Then, add more reverb.
Finally, give the track a 50's pulp sc-fi title following a strict "(blank) Of The (blank)" format such as "Valley of The Saroos", "March of the Dribcots", "Disc Dance of the Globbots" or "Love Dance Of The Saroos".
Or, you know, something along those lines.***

Congratulations! You have made a Joe Meek album!

WAIT! STOP! Before you chuckle bitterly at my scathing wit, I want to make one thing very clear: I enjoyed the hell out of this album. It was a total gas. Was I annoyed at times? Sure, but not nearly as much as I was pickled tink.

Some notes on specific songs:
Track 2 ("Globb Waterfall"): Is the bridge from "Apache".
Track 9 ("Love Dance Of The Saroos"): Ooooo! Moody!
Track 11 ("Disc Dance of the Globbots"): Is one note off from "Polly Wolly Doodle".

And there you have it.
I cannot stress enough how much I think everyone should experience this album.
A lot.****





* "Different", not "better", not "worse", "different".

** On this album, there is one (1) track longer than three minutes and fourteen seconds...and it is three minutes and fifteen seconds.

*** If you'd like, feel free to add more reverb at this time.

**** But first, find the "Reverb" knob on your set up and crank it to 11.

A review of Deptford Goth's "Life After Defo"

I don't know anything about Deptford Goth and I'm going to keep it that way.
This was yet another find that I picked up at The Drift Record Store in Totnes, simply based on the first track.
I don't think I've been this happy with a serendipitous purchase since I accidentally found Walkmen while looking for something by Eels.

The album starts off great and each track actually seems to get better until about halfway through ("Guts No Glory" and "Objects Objects" being some of the best on the album), at which point the quality drops from excellent amazingness to slightly less excellent and amazing. The first half is just...wow. Everything you need.
Each track is swaddled in soft, warm cotton and has an intrinsic beauty to it.
The singer sounds a bit like Chris Martin, Dave Matthews and the lead singer from Primitive Radio Gods but less whiny.
While more subtle than what I'm used to, I find the simplicity allows me to listen to and focus on how well the elements work in concert.

The first track, "Life After Defo", comes in like a long, slow, calming breath. "Bronze Age" has a strange little noise in the background that makes the song feel handmade and tribal and small and ancient, right before it blossoms like some Asian flower. The harp-like synth sounds like pink pebbles being dropped into a puddle and everything has a slow, sensual feel, like making love.
Things get a bit darker with "Feel Real", which has a more distinctly 80's feel to it.
The simple guitar and bass does so much on "Guts No Glory", a tragic, tear soaked song about dealing with loss. Like a sunrise viewed through fog; fresh and clean and reborn. "Lions" is another high point, pleading with the listener to "say you remember this", sounding a bit like Thom Yorke, but, as I said, the first half of the album is really the star here.

The three words that best describe this album are hope, sadness and celebration, and sometimes they occur all at once.
This was a really stellar find.

A review of Young Magic's "Melt"

Almost done with the Totnes Haul Reviews...
This one was all Chris, but, in the spirit of completionism and all that, I decided to check it out as well.

The whole album feels very mythic and wide open, with the first track ("Sparkly") perfectly setting up the whole work for the listener. The second track, "Slip Time", one of my favorite tracks, has some really great programming and sampling going on, sounding a bit chaotic at times, but bringing everything together beautifully. "You With Air" has a strong feeling of Beck-ishness which is always fine with me.
The entire album feels very barefoot. It also makes me think that I don't want to meet the members of Young Magic. I don't know...something about the wide-eyed earnestness and sincerity inherent in the lyrics and the music itself makes me think I would be rolling my eyes the whole time. Doesn't mean I don't like what they've created here though...
After "Jam Karet", which is a bit clacky for my tastes, the album tends to blur together a bit, although it finishes strong with "Sanctuary" and "Drawing Down The Moon".

Something interesting I picked up on was that, in most of the songs, the music took precedence over the lyrics, sometimes to the point where you could barely hear them. I found that to be a very telling choice; it made me think that these guys are humble, something refreshing in this genre of music.
That or someone fucked up the mix in ProTools*.
Whatever.

This was an interesting album; not for everybody, but with a pretty high degree of aaccessibility.
If I don't seem to really have a strong opinion about this, it's because, as I mentioned before, I'm just sort of doing this to wrap things up, it doesn't reflect on the album or anything.





* Dirty Beaches has a funny story about a ProTools mishap...