// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Music Review: R. Kelly, The Buffet

By Paul Casey

R. Kelly’s thirteenth studio album, The Buffet, is an album of conflicting styles. Up front, The Buffet takes all of the ridiculous sex metaphors from throughout Kelly’s career and amplifies them to an extreme. Like Black Panties and 12 Play before it, things get dark and filthy. You can probably imagine the kind of sexy food metaphors that Kelly employs in pursuit of the perfect dirty song, but here is a quote anyway: “Come and feed me baby / girl put your body on a dinner plate / I just can’t get enough of your buffet and I’m so hungry / baby feed me.”

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Music Review: Giuda, Speaks Evil

By Hanna

Giuda’s third album, Speaks Evil, continues where their previous albums left off: the band is still making cheerful glam rock of the stomping, junkshop kind. Image-wise, they have moved away from their earlier Sharpie style, and gone for something more pared down, heavy on monochrome and denim. Now they look like Crushed Butler, or, if you’re in a bitchy mood, a lesbian mechanics’ union. In any case, they look authentic, and they sound authentic, too. If you play a lot of glam rock, this album will blend right into your playlists and nothing will remind you that this was made in 2015, even when–very occasionally–you wish it would.

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Music Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

By: Tyler Hodg

Finding a franchise that has produced the same number of memorable musical themes as Star Wars may be a difficult task. The sounds of the films have become iconic pieces in pop culture and remain classic tracks after nearly 40 years.

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Movie Review: He Never Died

By Tim Murr

WARNING: SPOILERS!

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Movie Review: People Places Things

By Tim Murr

Graphic novelist and teacher Will Henry is coming to terms with losing the mother of his daughters to another man while trying to carve out more time in his life to be a hands-on father. And then he meets a new and wonderful woman, but with contradicting signs from his ex, he struggles with whom to pursue.

We’ve seen shades of sad-sack Will Henry in other emotionally wrenching comedies like Tree’s Lounge and Box of Moonlight, and like those films, at the heart of People Places Things there is a simple story of a man in need of a sense of peace.

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Music Review: Hedersleben, The Fall Of Chronopolis

By Tim Murr

From the book description on Amazon.com:

“The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire’s thousand-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-traveling civilizations far into the future.

Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruelest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising time-ships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him.

To be allowed to die.”
—The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington J. Bayley

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Music Review: Saber Tiger, The Best Of Saber Tiger

By Tim Murr

The more you learn, the less you know. Sapporo, Japan’s Saber Tiger have been rocking since 1981, making them an official classic metal band. Until I received this album to review, however, I’d never heard of them!

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Music Review: Nat King Cole, The Christmas Song

By Melissa Bratcher

Nat King Cole’s album The Christmas Song is a masterpiece. Year after year, Cole’s dulcet tones fill the airwaves, kindling warm feelings of nostalgia through his tracks. The songs on The Christmas Songs are (save one, the little-heard “A Cradle In Bethlehem”) classics, and Cole’s performances are easy, understated treasures.

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Music Review: Shovels & Rope, Busted Jukebox, Vol. 1

By Melissa Bratcher

When a band releases an all covers album, sometimes the things revealed by their choices are baffling (I’m looking at you still, Duran Duran). When a band like Shovels & Rope release an all covers album, their choices are illuminating.

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TV Review: Master of None, Episode 10: “Finale”

By Tyler Hodg

The season one finale of Master of None delivers a healthy dose of both heartbreaking and laugh out loud moments, but unfortunately, fails to be the conclusion this show deserves. In fact, “Finale” somewhat sours the season altogether.

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