// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Blu-Ray Review: Holliston: The Complete Second Season

By Brad Henderson

I dig the Hatchet series and Wrong Turn 2 and much of what Joe Lynch and Adam Green have brought us. They are obviously huge horror fans and that shows on the screen. When I first heard these two got together to make a sitcom I was a little confused because they didn’t seem like the types. I assumed it would be horror-related but really didn’t have a clue where they would go with a horror-related sitcom.

Holliston is about Joe Lynch and Adam Green, aspiring filmmakers who’ve been working on a film for years called Shinpads (“They score, you die.”) They work at a studio that does commercials. Their boss, Lance Rocket, is played by Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. Joe and Adam host a TV show (and podcast) called Movie Crypt on which they play old horror films.

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After You’ve Gone: Thoughts On Burial At Sea

By Paul Casey

Part One

I love Lost. I love Prometheus. I love Bioshock. Suspension of disbelief is a crutch for people who have a failure of imagination. Hammering something down and making it more comprehensible is not an inherent positive. Presenting a story that provokes confusion and forces the brain to engage in a creative way is not a failure of talent or of planning. It is an artistically rich approach that many actively seek out in opposition to what they are told are the true “reality” based goals.

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Music Review: From Hell, Ascent from Hell

By Jeffery X Martin

There was a time, not too long ago, when rock and roll was the Devil’s music. Heavy metal was Lucifer’s tool of destruction and damnation, and if you even touched a Hamer Scarab electric guitar, that was enough to send your soul screaming out of your body into the abyss, where demons would torture your eternal soul with free-form jazz and Zydeco gospel music.

Those were the halcyon days. Black magic and pentacles, hailing Satan on a regular basis (not just on holidays, like we do now), and rock loud enough to cause internal bleeding were normal things. Good times, man, good times.

Thank god for From Hell, a metal supergroup, bound and determined to bring horror-metal back to the forefront. Name-checking the immortal King Diamond, From Hell’s debut album, Ascent From Hell, is part metal album, part radio play. It’s a concept album about . . . well, here. Let me just quote the press release. (more…)

Music Review: The Faint, Doom Abuse

By Melissa Bratcher

Sometimes when a band suffers burnout, they continue to make music anyway and that music usually blows. Omaha’s electro-punk stalwarts The Faint found themselves facing a lack of inspiration and, more importantly, fun after a year of touring for their 2008 album Fasciinatiion and instead of forging ahead and into mediocrity, effectively broke up. And they were sorely missed.

In 2013, they reformed, releasing a four-song 12” they called Preversions. Preversions led to a full-length album, Doom Abuse, and it is amazing. Imagine Kraftwerk fronted by Lemmy Kilmister. Imagine being in a room full of chainsaws hanging on wires and bears are chasing you. Doom Abuse is that exhilarating.

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Music Review: The Mary Onettes, Portico:

By Less Lee Moore

The Mary Onettes’ new release, Portico: is dense with almost claustrophobic layers of synths and jangling guitars. But singer Philip Ekström’s voice has a lighter touch and floats above the music, which gives depth to these songs. Portico: reminds me a lot of The Cure’s Disintegration at times, but far more restrained and condensed. Ekström has an emotive warble like Robert Smith even while sounding almost nothing like him. He talks about death and ghosts and dreaming, all of which fit the music like a hand in a glove. There are choruses and bridges everywhere, both instrumental and vocal, which propel the songs forward, and out of the heaviness that might otherwise weigh them down.
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Music Review: Lowell, I Killed Sara V.

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto and London-based Lowell has the kind of voice that veers dangerously close to being exploited in an iTunes commercial. Which is why it’s significant that her new EP I Killed Sara V. opens with the blisteringly original “Cloud 69.” That music and those lyrics could never be used to sell hybrid cars. The crush of percussion and synths and the descending “oooooh” in the chorus make the heart pound faster. It’s an extraordinary song and unlike anything else I’ve heard.

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New Video: Dub Thompson, “Dograces”

By Less Lee Moore

Photo © Ward Robinson

Based on this interview from The Independent, Dub Thompson members Evan Laffer (drums) and Matt Pulos (vocals/guitar) sound like the kind of 19-year-old guys who play music and have not yet been indoctrinated into only responding to interview questions with pre-packaged sound bites. Which is refreshing.

Also refreshing is their new song and video, “Dograces,” from their upcoming debut 9 Songs (it has eight tracks). It looks like one of those ’70s videos that you used to see on MTV Classic back in the day but then it looks like it might be a new video that was intended to look that way. The song itself is an odd mix of disaffected vocals and heavy bass, with a burst of shiny keyboards serving as a chorus of sorts that will either annoy you or intrigue you. Or both, especially when the band sort of gives up about two-thirds of the way through and leaves the stage. Speaking of which, who are those people, anyway?

9 Songs was recorded by Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, who also plays keyboards for the band at their live shows. It will be out on June 10 from Dead Oceans. In the meantime, if you live in New York, you can catch them on April 3 at Pianos and on April 4 at Baby’s All Right.

New Video: The Cybertronic Spree, “Nothin’s Gonna Stand In Our Way”

By Less Lee Moore

The Cybertronic Spree
Photo © Paul Hillier Photography

If you haven’t heard of The Cybertronic Spree, listen up. It’s a band of Transformers—well, Hot Rod, Arcee, Rumble, Unicron, Spike, and a Quintesson, to be exact—who perform songs from the soundtrack to The Transformers: The Movie.

Interested yet? They also perform these songs live and in full costume. It’s pretty amazing. They recently released a video of an in-studio performance and recording of “Nothin’s Gonna Stand In Our Way” that must be seen to be believed.

Here’s a video of them performing “Instruments Of Destruction” last August at the Horseshoe in Toronto, as part of Nerd Noise Night.

And yes, they do perform “The Touch.”

For the full spectrum of the band’s online presence, check out TheCybertronicSpree.com

DVD Review: Outpost: Rise Of The Spetsnaz