Via delle Grazie is the latest effort from the Netherlands’ Red to Violet. Waiting for the Sun is a carefully-crafted piece of indie rock. The band is able to open up into a post-modern type of rock that is influenced by 90s alternative rock (Sean Lennon, Hedley) and the more emotive acts of the 00s (Brand New, Dashboard Confessional). The band’s instrumentation is smart, while they maintain an intensity to…
Jack Kerouac is a difficult author to transfer to the big screen, but Big Sur is a title that imbues the silver screen with the inimitable Kerouac style. The title benefits from accurate scenery, language, and overall zeitgeist captured during the feature. Big Sur focuses on Kerouac’s life in the months immediately following the success of On the Road. Rather than bask in his success, Kerouac attempts…
Rewind This! Is a title that looks to showcase the unique qualities of the history behind video cassettes. While home entertainment has moved past the VHS and DVD formats, there is a specific allure to the era that allowed smaller film companies and those with a passion for film the ability to cheaply and easily get their titles to a wider audience. Rewind This! focuses on interviews with those that…
Starting off the disc with an instrumental track, Surrounded moves into the second track, “Exit Serenade” with an almost Richard O’Brien-esque (think “Little Black Dress”) opening. Allowing their music to act as a second set of vocals during some tracks (“Exit Serenade, Diesel Palace”), Surrounded, specifically with Marten’s vocals, spoken out with the most care, act almost as Dylan-esque ornaments on an incredibly rich song. Moving onto an emo-jam type…
“Always Never Again” starts off with “Born Into The World” , a track that has the unique distinction of mixing Flood-era They Might Be Giants with Chromeo. This, coupled with a lush production and a lack of distorted fuzz, is probably what will hook the most individuals. The fact that organi and inorganic provide such a harmony is something that cannot be denigrated; acoustic guitar and bass work perfectly…
Supermodel Suicide is influenced by the geometrically-taken bands that have found their way to fame in the last few years (The Killers, Franz Ferdinand). In fact, the first track on “Might As Well Just Kill Us Now” “1996” has more than a passing similarity to the latter’s “This Fire”. The same general sound dominates during “The Unheard Testimony of Johnny Danger”, even if the audible comparison to other acts…
The flow is great on the first track on “Stand Up”, but the laid-back backing beat is pretty anemic. It may work well with the flow, but the retro sound is just not working for Superiority Complex. Something more intense and faster tempo would work much better for the act. The introduction for “Stand Up”: is just too much to contain; the layering is a good idea in theory…
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a sequel to 2010’s Max & the Magic Marker that released across the Wii, Playstation Network and a variety of touchscreen devices. Developer Press Play has gone exclusively to the Xbox One for their 2013 sequel (with an Xbox 360 version reportedly in the works for 2014), and their outing represents one of the few post-launch downloadable titles available on the Xbox One to…
Funky Bouriel has a funk meets New Jack Swing flair that immediately draws listeners in; Madame Freak’s vocals pull double duty in the furtherance of the narrative and in the creation of the overall flair of this track. Ow!!! brings Follow The Crack into a bold new direction; a small amount of scat-like singing opens up into an eclectic mélange of early-nineties dance and Chic-like pop. Ride It straddles…
The film reinvigorates both the fight club and the young virtuoso gains valuable skills from the master genres, with Keanu’s role as Donaka providing an anchor that allows individuals to moor themselves on. Keanu’s Donaka pays Tiger Chen (Chen Hu) for eir skills, erupting into chaos when Tiger Chen learns that ey is a pawn in an underground fighting league. The action is fast-paced and realistic, while the grimy scenery…
