review

Sarah De Valliere The Healing (independent) The Healing is one of the most beautiful albums I have heard in a long time. De Valliere’s vocals and piano are sweet and lush. Her melodies caress the ears. The music is soulful pop, with touches of blues and jazz, as well as orchestral flourishes. The recording is exquisite; every instrument is clear and crisp. More important, it leaves you feeling beautiful. This is not just an album about healing, as the title...

Purple Rain40th Anniversary Edition This is a weird one. The soundtrack is a banger, but the movie is straight up Prince propaganda. That may be obvious to everyone, but it’s also my main hangup with Prince. Prince the man, as he portrays himself, is what’s preventing me from truly loving his music. He’s just too full of himself. Sure, the music should speak for itself, and the album this movie is promoting (or vice versa) has some incredible songs....

Creation Rebel Hostile Environment I thank the Clash for many things, and one of those things is getting me into Reggae. I grew up in a tropical island where reggae was a soundtrack to your day, not something you actively sought out. Why would you? Is there anything besides Bob Marley? Yeah, that’s the mentality I had, Then I heard the Clash, and I didn’t get it. Then I dug deeper and I had a revelation. Listening to the...

Lisa Frankenstein Look, I don’t know much about Diablo Cody, except that she’s got a niche audience. I saw Juno and thought it was fine. Just fine. I know she did Jennifer’s Body, which has a cult following. She’s also worked non-stop on movies and TV shows both as a writer and creator, so she’s the real deal, right? I think the main draw of Lisa Frankenstein is that it’s got Cody’s involvement… and that 80s aesthetic. The concept sounds...

Pissed Jeans Half-Divorced (Sub Pop) Who says punk can’t be funny and bring the brutality at the same time? I’m thinking of a band that does this as successfully as Pissed Jeans and drawing a blank. And, I don’t count grindcore bands because no one can understand what they’re singing about. But with Pissed Jeans, the content is right there. You have to pick it out, but it’s surprisingly easy given Matt Corvette’s barking growl. At the same time, it’s...

METZ Up on Gravity Hill(Sub Pop) Sometimes I truly think something is the matter with me. I’ve heard about METZ for a while. Way back when their first album came out, they were all the rage. My friends were all talking about them. Especially how great of a live show they put on. Of course, I checked them out and I’m pretty sure I liked them, but I didn’t quite understand the buzz. They were interesting enough where I kept...

Son Henry & T. Rogers Band Grace (Twang House Records) In 2009, American blues musician and lap steel virtuoso Son Henry arrived at a music festival in Estonia with only his lap steel. The rest of his equipment was stuck at Heathrow Airport, where it remained for six months. He was rescued by T. Rogers band, “a group of mad Hungarians,” as he put it. They loaned him equipment and gave him stage time. A lifelong connection was established. Ten...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Complicators’ self-titled album. While it’s very easy for any critic to come off as surprised when a band reassembles a set of well-used, time-honored musical cliches and presents something which works, it’s far more difficult to find the flaw which ultimately causes that very familiar structure to fall apart and/or come off as completely irredeemable.How does one do it? How does one point to the problem which ultimately caused the house...

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm The mind plays tricks on us. Especially, the child’s mind. Haven’t you gone back to something you remember loving as a kid and realizing it’s total shit? Distance is probably what’s making the heart grow fonder. I was having these feelings during the first 15 minutes of Batman Mask of the Phantasm. I remember the cover clearly as a kid, renting it from my video store, and rewatching it relentlessly. I watch movies...

Six Weeks in Russia, 1919by Arthur Ransome I look at Arthur Ransome’s Six Weeks in Russia, 1919 with both awe and disdain. It’s a thin book, definitely, and it’s also probably the last book I’ll be completing for a long time. After getting sick to the point of hospitalization and realizing I’ve taken on a new job which has very little interest in providing work/life balance, I’ve come to the realization that any opportunities to relax and “read a book”...