Les Misérables
In case you’ve never tried to read it, Les Misérables is really, really long; one of the longest books ever written. So, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, “there is too much, let me sum up.” In post-Napoleonic France, money is scarce…
Square and Compass, How to Escape
I’m not trying to take credit; honest, I swear to God I’m not. But when I first put on emo-throwback band Square and Compass’s new full-length, How to Escape, I couldn’t help but give myself a little smile and think, “yes; they listened!”…
The Escatones, “Out of Sight Out of Mind”/“East Beach Stomp”
The Escatones make perfect sense for where they’re from. They’re surf-rock, yes, but they’re not surf-rock in the way that bands from places with clear-blue, crystalline water are surf-rock; instead, they’re dirty and messy and weird and a little bit scary…
Rust and Bone
After the searing portrait of the French crime world and the lurid look at a life corrupted in 2010’s A Prophet, it seemed only natural that writer-director Jacques Audiard would follow up with a relationship drama about an underground MMA fighter (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a killer whale trainer (Marion Cotillard), so it should surprise no one…
excuseMesir, With You In Mind
It’s a weird bit of irony, to me, that Modest Mouse no longer sounds like Modest Mouse. Over the past few years, they’ve lost that rambling, shambling, feet-shuffling, smart-but-shy-about-it charm they displayed on The Lonesome Crowded West…
Emmure, Slave to the Game
First off, let’s not sugar-coat this: this isn’t for everybody. I guarantee that the first (and only) reaction a lot of people will experience when they hear Emmure’s Slave to the Game is going to be to twitch uncontrollably…
Sunrise and Ammunition, Tesseract
A very music-savvy friend of mine once commented that he thought the secret agenda behind the whole Chicago post-rock wave of the late ’90s was to make jazz palatable to indie-rock kids. After listening to Sunrise and Ammunition’s Tesseract…
Django Unchained
The time: two years before the Civil War. The place: the deep south. The person: Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave being slow-walked across to auction in Texas. Or at least, he was, until his band is stopped…
Deer Tick, Divine Providence
The easiest way to describe Deer Tick is to simply call them garage rock. They have the sound of a band that you’d expect to see playing in a dimly lit bar, spitting beer on people while more or less trashing the already-trashed place…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
It doesn’t seem like it’s been nine years since Peter Jackson and company delivered the last of the Lord of the Rings films, but after making forays off into other films for a time, they are back to deliver…
The Eastern Sea, First Christmas
Some things just can’t be resisted: koalas, M&Ms, re-runs of Doctor Who, and yes, one of my favorite bands in The Whole Freaking Universe doing an album of Christmas songs. Admittedly, if done badly, this kind of thing generally…
Blackmarket Syndicate, And the Peasants Rejoiced
There was a time when I was really, really into politics; I had a lot more time on my hands back then, both because I worked for a slow-moving Big Evil Company that didn’t give a damn what I did at the office, so long as I made my deadlines…
Omotai, Terrestrial Grief
Whoa. Alright, so I may have been listening to Omotai’s brand-new album, Terrestrial Grief, just a little bit too loud. Final track “Yuri” just marauded and destroyed its way to the end, and now I’m just sitting here…
Crystal Castles, (III)
There is so much music out there these days that I find myself having to limit what I listen to and what I buy, because it’s expensive and because I just don’t have the time to listen to everything. Sometimes it will take me years of hearing about…
Review written on December 4, 2012 | Spencer Flanagan | Posted in Features,Reviews | Leave a comment
Hitchcock
Hollywood has been making movies about itself almost as long as it has been around, but The Director (Anthony Hopkins) never thought he’d be the one on the wrong end of lens, with all of his flaws…
My Education, A Drink for All My Friends
With each release, it’s starting to feel like Austin instrumentalists My Education are drifting further and further away from where I’d had them initially pegged — namely, as a spacerock band, more than anything else, in the same vein as fellow Texans Explosions in the Sky or Co-Pilot. Skyward-pointing guitars, swooping melodies, spacey drones…
The Wiggins, The Myth of Man
Believe it or not, the songs on The Wiggins’ latest full-length, The Myth of Man, are pop songs. Trust me on this; once you scrape away the noise and grime and work your way past one-man-band…
The Manichean, LOVERS
Alright, wow. That’s pretty much what flew through my head the first time through The Manichean’s long-awaited full-length LOVERS, and after further listens, it’s still what rattles around in my brain. Sure, I’ve liked the band’s…
Blue October, Any Man in America
When listening to a Blue October album for the first time, I always like to get a feel as to what exactly the emotional state of Justin Furstenfeld is, so as to see how the songs reflected will sound. The majority of Blue October’s music has been…
Hell City Kings, “Devil’s Law”/“Surfin’ On The A”
Sometimes, simple works best. That’s what I’m liking the most about the new 7-inch from Houston outfit the Hell City Kings; there’re no gimmicks, no hyphenated genres, no quasi-ironic synths, nothing but plain old, straight-ahead rock…
Glass the Sky, Glass the Sky
It’s funny, but Glass the Sky’s self-titled debut EP manages to pull of a neat trick, against all odds. Over the course of six tracks, the band does an impressive balancing act, teetering on the line between serious and playful, and they make it work in both worlds…
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2
Okay, I’ll keep it brief: unsatisfying. Not just The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, mind you, but The Twilight Saga in general. Depending on your relationship to the franchise, that may mean something…
Title Fight, Floral Green
The fact that Title Fight formed in 2003 has a lot to do with why their latest album, Floral Green, reminds me of high school. I’ll ignore the fact that these guys were in sixth grade at the time (and that I was already well into my college years) and move on to say…
Midnight Norma Lane, Moxy Kid EP
Caught wind of this band completely by accident a few months back and was utterly enthralled by their debut Moxy Kid EP, to such a degree that I found myself compelled to listen over and over and over again, skipping right back…
Lincoln
A lot has been written about Abraham Lincoln in the nearly 150 years since his death, to the point where you have to wonder if there is anything that hasn’t already been said. After nearly a decade of trying, Steven Spielberg‘s…
Flight
Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) may not be much — not much of a husband, not much of a father, probably not much of a friend — but he’s a great pilot. When he’s forced to prove it by landing a crippled jumbo jet…
Counting Crows, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation)
If nothing else, Counting Crows needs to be awarded points simply for staying around for this long. After their megahit single “Mr. Jones,” people were quick to write the band off as a one-hit wonder, although throughout the years…
Skyfall
Until just six short years ago, Bond films were familiar and comfortable like an old chair, as each iteration tried to out-Goldfinger the previous one. There would be a couple of Bond Girls with ridiculous names; a briefing with Q…
Snow Patrol, Fallen Empires
The first time that I heard Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” on the radio, I thought that it was all right, but nothing to really write home about. In some ways, I thought it might have been one of those radio-rock-lite bands that already existed. If I had found out…
Indian Jewelry, Peel It
I never thought I’d say it, but after listening to new album Peel It, I think Houston-spawned noise-punk nomads Indian Jewelry may just be mellowing out. Just a wee, tiny bit, mind you, and “mellowed out” for this quartet…
Houston Premiere: Walk Away Renée
Houston-born filmmaker Jonathan Caouette creates a touching take on the road trip movie in Walk Away Renee, the sequel to his lauded 2003 documentary Tarnation…
Eddie Vedder, Ukulele Songs
Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is, in fact, simply Eddie Vedder singing along to a ukulele. However, when you listen to this, you will come to realize the music doesn’t quite…
Why?, Mumps, Etc.
Sometimes, you miss things; it can’t be helped, y’know? Only so much time in the day, only so much musical headspace to fill in. That’s pretty much the reason I was nervous about the new album from Why?, Yoni Wolf’s onetime…
Street Dogs, “GOP”/”Not Without a Purpose (Live)”
I’ve heard plenty of political punk tunes over the years, but not many that state their case quite so baldly or defiantly. Of course, nobody’s ever accused Boston punks Street Dogs of being shy…
My Jerusalem, Preachers
More than anything else, it was singer/guitarist Jeff Klein’s voice that first sucked me into Preachers, the new full-length from Austin band My Jerusalem. The guy rumbles and moans like he’s stolen and swallowed up all the best…
Sinister
Why is it so hard to make an effective horror movie? Shouldn’t we know what it is that scares people? What scares us? Actually, we know exactly what scares us, or what will easily scare us. The problem is…
Argo
In 1979, the Iranian people and the Revolutionary Guard overthrew the Shah of Iran and his government, long considered puppets of the US, and took control of the country. When the Shah was granted asylum by the US, a wave of protests swept the country…
River City Extension, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Your Anger
Okay, so the writeups I’ve seen for New Jerseyans River City Extension make a big deal about how the band’s the only band to ever be asked to play both the Newport Folk Festival and the Vans Warped Tour, but…
Shearwater, Animal Joy
There’s a wonderful, jaw-dropping intensity, not to mention a full-throated confidence, to Animal Joy, the latest full-length from Austin’s Shearwater. The same core people may be at the reins — frontman Jonathan Meiburg…
Goodnight Neverland, Oceans In The Clouds
I first came across Goodnight Neverland when they were coming to The Mink on a national tour. I went online to see what the band out of Clearwater, Florida, was about; little did I know that that search would deliver me my top band of 2012…
