// Category Archive for: Reviews

Music Review: Various Artists, All About The Girls

By Melissa Bratcher

Croydon Municipal, as I have mentioned frequently, is an amazing boutique label. An offshoot of Cherry Red Records, Croydon Municipal is run by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley, who culls his gargantuan record collection to curate brilliantly themed, thoughtful compilations (like his Popcorn Girls collections, or the current Songs For Swinging Ghosts). On All About The Girls, the theme is lost girl group gems, and it is a delight through and through.

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Blu-Ray Review: Contamination

By Jeffery X Martin

When I stated on Facebook that I was watching the 1980 Italian horror-fi movie, Contamination, I got heat from a couple of people.

“Why?”
“How come you’re watching that?”

And I thought, I’ve built a career out of watching horrible films and writing about them. There’s no reason why this should be a surprise.

Then it struck me: maybe there are people out there who don’t intentionally seek out and watch films they know aren’t great. Wow. That floors me. It leaves me wondering how to recommend Contamination, which is a gigantic piece of shit that I adored.

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Music Review: Various Artists, Songs For Swinging Ghosts

By Melissa Bratcher

Attention humans: be prepared for your record collection to become marginally spookier, but a whole lot weirder with the delightful new release from Croydon Municipal/Cherry Red Records (and just in time for Halloween), Songs For Swinging Ghosts.

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Music Review: Blitzen Trapper, All Across This Land

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s something enormously comforting about a new Blitzen Trapper album. They’ve got a certain sonic texture, that coupled with lead singer Eric Earley’s distinctive, weatherbeaten rasp and slice-of-America lyrics, make them easily recognizable and inimitable. While they have experimented with looser, sparse sounds, their latest, All Across This Land, has that classic Blitzen Trapper feel. It rocks, sometimes gently, and the songs are immersive and evocative, conjuring up dusty back roads that stretch for miles, blue collar desperation, and youthful yearning.

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Music Review: Patty Griffin, Servant of Love

By Tyler Hodg

Patty Griffin is a musical treasure. There is no modern poet that can come close to the brilliance that she puts out, and her music stands high above almost everything else. But all that is great has to fall at some point, right? In the case of Patty Griffin, that theory has yet to be proven. Her latest album, Servant of Love, is yet another entry in her fantastic catalogue.

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Movie Review: Men & Chicken

By Less Lee Moore

In Men & Chicken, Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) and Gabriel (David Dencik) are brothers whose father has just passed away. He’s left them a videocassette revealing that not only is he not their biological father, but the woman they knew as their mother wasn’t their biological mother. He also reveals that the name of their father is Evelio Thanatos.

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Music Review: Wand, 1000 Days

By Less Lee Moore

And the paintings are now dead
And they looked into your eyes
And the patterns that they set
They will live inside your mind.
—Wand, “Paintings Are Dead”

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DVD Review: A Plague So Pleasant

By Jeffery X Martin

Anyone with a decent camera phone and at least two acquaintances can make a zombie film. It’s that simple. Because of the simplicity of the basic set-up (don’t get eaten), we’ve gotten a lot of zombie flicks that are the same thing over and over. Eat that leg. Yank out those entrails. Cut off those zombie heads and for the love of all that’s profitable, don’t stray from the formula!

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Comic Review: Jim Shepherd: Negotiate Nothing

By Tyler Hodg

To many, the name of musician Jim Shepherd isn’t significant. Aside from signing with Rick Rubin’s American label just two years prior to his death, he spent the majority of his career underground, recording his and others’ music to no quantifiable success.

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Music Review: The Pollies, Not Here

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s something amazing going on in Alabama. The bands coming out of the Cotton State are incredible right now. From the Banditos to St. Paul & the Broken Bones to, of course, Alabama Shakes, to the Drive-By Truckers and that nice fellow Jason Isbell, there’s an earthiness and a rootsy flavor in the music, and these bands are breaking in such an exciting way. Add to that list The Pollies.

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