Reviews, Video Games
Review: Final Fantasy XIII - A Bustle in Your Hedgerow
Daniel Casarella :: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 4:36 pm
You know how “Stairway to Heaven” builds slowly and then finally ruptures at around 4:20? It’s a great moment and you get swept away with in the ascending momentum of the song. Final Fantasy XIII, like the Zeppelin song, makes you earn your nut. For instance, the game starts you out in the fine tradition of a simple and new battle system. As you progress hour by hour this battle system gets amended and deepens. It’s a great way to make you master each layer of the complex system before you move on. I’ve also heard complaints that the game starts out too linear and doesn’t open up a vast overworld for you to explore right away. Rest assured it does, just not immediately. Final Fantasy XIII builds momentum steadily as long as you can get into the initial groove. Its about earning your quest, not receiving it from the onset.
Reviews, Should I Listen?
Rainbow Arabia Remix Album
Nick Nicoludis :: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 2:20 pm
The break out LA spouse duo Rainbow Arabia are in the midst of working on their debut album, but that didn’t stop them from releasing a little bit of a teaser. The album, which you can snag via the Rainbow Arabia blog, was put up for download just a few days ago, but some of the tracks on the album have been leaking for a little while now and have been posted on he group’s myspace page and various other blogs. Combine the entrancing melodies and thumping, tribal beats the duo seems to thrive off of with reputable remix outfits, and you’ve got danceable gold MORE »
Reviews
Aloha: New Acres
Colm McAuliffe :: Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 9:30 am
First of all, Aloha’s latest release New Acres boasts a fantastic cover, a black and white drawing of a remote and secluded (perhaps unoccupied?) house somewhere in the countryside. Apparently, the idea was to create the vibe appropriate to a Great Gatsby garden party, sixty years later. Does the record live up to the cover art?
News, Reviews
Ganglians: Daytrotter Session
Nick Nicoludis :: Thursday, March 4th, 2010 3:20 pm
If you’re like me you love live performances. There is something undefinably beautiful about bands performing live. It’s one thing for a musician to be able to put out an amazing studio album when he/she can spend days on single tracks and weeks re-recording and mixing. But, when a band can pull off a live performance that sounds tight and clean the true musicality of the group is shown. The Sacramento Calif. band Ganglians recently performed an ethereal and intoxicatingly vibrant set for Daytrotter.com that is a heady jumbalaya made up of swirling vocals, punchy drums, eerily bright echoed-out guitars and multiple layers of beguiling sound. Read about it after the jump. MORE »
News, Reviews
Tiesto Remix of Muse’s “Resistance” Missing Something
Johnny Sanford :: Thursday, March 4th, 2010 2:00 pm
House music is an acquired taste. It generally needs a bloodstream full of uppers, downers, or both simultaneously. But when I found out that Tiesto would be remixing one of my favorite current rock bands, MUSE, I was excited to hear the results. When I bought their latest album, The Resistance, I was overwhelmed. Apparently, so were the people at NME Magazine, who crowned them “Best British Band,” as we reported here. I took a listen to the Tiesto version of “The Resistance,” and was nonplussed. But I thought, “Is this missing something, or am I missing something?” House music is adored in the UK, but it just doesn’t fly with me. Check out the remix for yourself after the jump. MORE »
Reviews
Johnny Cash’s Final Album Hits the Nail on the Head
Johnny Sanford :: Thursday, March 4th, 2010 11:00 am
American VI: Ain’t No Grave is a triumphant effort by the late and great Johnny Cash. It’s rife with biblical references, stark slide guitar and the lone-gun voice that made Cash famous. It follows the same formula as his past recordings; parred-down covers and an original entitled “I Corinthian’s 15:55.” On the rare occasion that the song needs haunting chimes or the low growl of a single piano note, they are provided at exactly the right time. MORE »
News, Reviews
The New HBO Lineup Still Rocks
Johnny Sanford :: Monday, March 1st, 2010 1:45 pm
Like most people who enjoy cursing and gratuitous nudity, I love HBO. Some of the newest shows in their lineup are definite winners, the likes of The Ricky Gervais Show, The Life and Times of Tim, How to Make it In America and Funny Or Die. These shows all just prove once again how innovative and groundbreaking HBO continues to be. Not that they need much to stand out in the crowded mediocrity of today’s television programming.
Here’s a breakdown of the new shows on HBO. MORE »
Events, Reviews
Review: Jeffrey Lewis At Glasslands
Amy Rose Spiegel :: Monday, February 15th, 2010 5:45 pm
Our friends at Stuff Hipsters Hate threw a soiree at Williamsburg venue and gallery Glasslands on February 12th. The high point of the evening was watching folk artist Jeffrey Lewis play his sticker-covered guitar and sing along with what he refers to as his “movies.” The movies aren’t really video projects - instead, Lewis breaks out an enormous sketchbook with “scenes” drawn on each page and flips through them, singing a narrative to match what’s happening in the elaborate comics.
Reviews, Video Games
Review: Bioshock 2 - Déjà Vu of a Wet Dream
Daniel Casarella :: Saturday, February 13th, 2010 5:28 pm
I think everyone’s a bit skeptical when it comes to sequels now-a-days. We’ve all been fooled so many times by promise and fancy-pants marketing schemes that we are reluctant to believe part II can be any good. This is the way I saw Bioshock 2 being developed. You want more Bioshock? Let’s cram in an alternative antagonist, add Modern Warfare-esque multiplayer system and replace Big Daddies with Big Sisters . Why 2K Marin thought the name Big Sister sounded as ambiguously imposing as Big Daddy once did is beyond me. For that matter, how Bioshock 2 turned out to be pretty darn good also escapes me.
Reviews
Them Crooked Vultures: No Bullshit, Just Rock
Zach Custer :: Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 2:15 pm
Last night Them Crooked Vultures rocked the Roseland Ballroom for just under two hours straight. They opened with “No One Loves Me and Neither Do I,” and I was immediately elated to see Dave Grohl back behind the kit, a whirlwind of long, dark brown hair amidst two chaotic arms that kept the most powerful beat I’ve seen at any rock show. MORE »
Reviews
Yeasayer: Odd Blood
Adam Kearney :: Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 1:30 pm
“Odd Blood” finds Yeasayer broadcasting expansive, mind-altering rhythms into the ionosphere once again. Their original fusion of electronica, rock, and middle eastern music earned singer Chris Keating, guitarist Anand Wilder, and bassist Ira Wolf Tuton high praise for their first album “All Hour Cymbals.” Their second album follows suit with the same worldly, new age sonics, though now with more lavish production and psychedelic sound effects. MORE »
Reviews
Galactic Funks Up a Full Terminal 5
Zach Custer :: Saturday, February 6th, 2010 2:30 pm
Galactic, as usual, was on point last night. But it was their guest from the Rebirth Brass Band, Corey Henry, who stole the show. MORE »
Events, Reviews
Review: David Byrne, Stories In High Fidelity
Amy Rose Spiegel :: Friday, February 5th, 2010 3:30 pm
David Byrne knows how to make buildings sing. His 2008 installation, Playing the Building, was a study in transforming an enormous, historic ferry terminal into something of an instrument. So when I saw that he would be giving a lecture about how venues and spaces shape how music is written, it definitely seemed worthwhile for a few reasons, first and foremost being that I am such an enormous fan that I, long ago, geekily coined the term “Byrneout” to refer to myself and others with similar ardor for the sprightly silver fox. On a less fanatical note, he clearly knows a lot about how music and space interact and shape each other, so the talk would probably be engaging and authoritative (spoiler alert: it was!).
Reviews
‘Alan Lomax in Haiti’ Field Recordings From 1936-37
Nick Nicoludis :: Thursday, February 4th, 2010 2:15 pm
Haiti is a nation whose history is filled with tragedies like: natural disasters, foreign occupations, and centuries of slavery. Even after they booted out the Europeans in 1804, the situation hasn’t improved much since the days when molasses was still a hot commodity and so were slaves. Finally, after 19 years of U.S. occupation, Haiti gained true freedom in the mid 1930’s.
So, was Haitian culture lost? Eradicated from the face of the earth by greedy European misers when they exploited the native Taino people? No! This 10-disc (that’s right 10!) compilation of Alan Lomax’s field recordings aptly named Alan Lomax in Haiti released by the Library of Congress proves that cultural identify can overcome any kind of horrific tragedy or genocide.
Reviews
Screaming Females: Singles Going Steady
Shannon Hassett :: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 5:30 pm
Imagine my shock when this past July a little piece on the Rolling Stone site popped up announcing the “break out” of Screaming Females and their third album, Power Move. I’m not big on the whole ‘they were mine first’ mentality, but let’s go there. There are three reasons I love this band (before we get to the music, that is): they remain committed to playing self-booked shows and do so constantly, they have not joined the wave of New Brunswick bands claiming they’re from Brooklyn, and they are humble as fuck. MORE »
