// Category Archive for: Reviews

Music Review: Charlie Faye & The Fayettes

By Melissa Bratcher

You may be hard pressed this year (or any year) to find an album that is more fun and delightful than Charlie Faye & the Fayettes’ self-titled album. It’s a tribute to the best groups of all: Girl Groups. It’s a love letter to the Shangri-Las, the Shirelles, the Ronettes, and those ladies on the Red Bird label, with sugar crush harmonies from leader Charlie Faye and her Fayettes, BettySoo and Akina Adderly. It’s packed to the edges with ear catchy melodies and joyous vocals, even when the lyrics get less-than-light.

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Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

By Tim Murr

My first X-Men comic was The Uncanny X-Men #234, from September 1988. From then on I was hooked, collecting every new issue for the next eight years along with as many back issues as I could afford. The Uncanny X-Men was one of the best mainstream comics out there and this was the era when Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr. were doing Daredevil and Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle were doing Detective Comics, so that’s really saying something. I stuck with the X-Men until their books narratively crashed and burned and didn’t come back until Grant Morrison made it all better.

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Movie Review: Dark

By Sachin Hingoo

I thought I caused the 2003 blackout.

It was the end of a day at work, and just as I hit “save” on the document I was working on so I could leave for the day, everything went dark.

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Comic Review: B.E.K. Black Eyed Kids #1

By Tim Murr

What’s creepier than creepy kids? Children Of The Damned, Children Of The Corn, The Brood, Pet Semetary—these are unsettling movies, because the epitome of innocence becomes the epitome of terror. Those cute little creatures that say silly things, making funny observations about a world that’s all new…to have them murderously turn against you is still one of the most fertile concepts in horror. It is not only the idea of killer kids, but also the idea of fighting them, or God forbid, killing them. It’s such dark and taboo territory.

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Music Review: Joseph Tonelli, Dust And Snow

By Melissa Bratcher

Boulder-based folk singer Joseph Tonelli makes intimate, introspective, heartfelt music. His new album, Dust And Snow, is seven tracks of reflective, hushed songs done in true DIY style: recorded in his living room, then sent to a friend in Italy for production and instrumentation.

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Music Review: Daniel Romano, Mosey

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s difficult to call Daniel Romano’s new album, Mosey, a follow-up to last year’s country-flavored If I’ve Only One Time Askin’ (review). It follows the prior album, but stylistically, it’s an exciting left-hand turn.

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Music Review: Big Thief, Masterpiece

By Melissa Bratcher

Nearly every person who will write about how Big Thief’s debut for Saddle Creek, Masterpiece, will note how nervy it is to name an album that… blah blah blah. I wanted to write that, too (because we’re all so very clever). And then we’ll all come to the same conclusion: it’s a pretty apt title.

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Music Review: Voyag3r, Are You Synthetic?

By Tim Murr

Following up 2014’s Doom Fortress (review), Detroit, Michigan’s Voyag3r returns with a spaced-out concept album called Are You Synthetic? Artist and Acid Witch singer Slasher Dave provides the gorgeous album cover, outdoing his iconic cover for Doom Fortress. Musically Voyag3r continues to give fans what they want while growing and evolving.

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Music Review: The Monkees, Good Times!

By Tyler Hodg

Nearly everyone has a personal anecdote about The Monkees, but in their 50th year, a commemorative album destined to be a throw-away discount bin item is sure to create an entirely different set of memories. Good Times!, the first record from the band in 20 years, is a collection of new and unreleased (but recently finished) songs that few people asked for, but many will enjoy.

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In Case You Missed It: May 9 – 20, 2016—Please Stand By

By Less Lee Moore

It’s Good News/Bad News time. The good news is that I am submitting a chapter to an upcoming book anthology. The bad news is that the deadline is quickly approaching and I need to finish!

This means that Popshifter will be going on a bit of a break until June. In the meantime, please enjoy the following articles that you might have missed over the last couple of weeks.

What about movies? If you’re looking for something to see this weekend that is the exact opposite of The Nice Guys, you might try Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise. Tyler Hodg enjoyed the videogame adaptation of Rachet and Clank, while Christine Makepeace was appalled by the sexism in documentary All Dolled Up.

If you want music recommendations, look no further than Popshifter! Melissa Bratcher enjoyed the self-titled debut of Big Star’s Jody Stephens with Luther Russell, a.k.a. Those Pretty Wrongs; adores by Ominivore’s reissue of two albums from The Blind Boys Of Alabama; thinks the latest album from Gregg Martinez, Soul of the Bayou, is a charmer; and is thrilled by the way On The Ropes shows that the Honeycutters keep getting better.

Tim Murr thinks Black Absinthe could be as big as AC/DC after hearing Early Signs of Denial; Tyler fondly reminisces about Sloan’s album The Double Cross on its five-year anniversary and praises Royal Tusk for adding some spice to the frequently stale genre of rock on DealBreaker; and Eric Weber describes his history of discovering Divine’s music in his review of the Cherry Red Records anthology, Shoot Your Shot.

Finally, Sachin Hingoo catches us up with what’s happening on Lucha Underground.