// Category Archive for: Reviews

Music Review: Brigitte DeMeyer and Will Kimbrough, Mockingbird Soul

By Melissa Bratcher

Brigitte DeMeyer and Will Kimbrough have written songs, recorded, and toured together for years, but with their album Mockingbird Soul, they are putting both their names on the collaboration. And Mockingbird Soul is a true partnership, one that is evident in their instinctive harmonies, their quietly literary lyrics, and the grace of their musicianship. It’s a beauty of an album.
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Music Review: Foxygen, Hang

By Tyler Hodg

If ELO, ABBA, and the Rolling Stones had a baby, it would be Foxygen, but don’t believe that they are any sort of rip-off. The duo’s latest effort, Hang, is a symphonic powerhouse that not only borrows from music of yesteryear, but also delivers a sense of authenticity and originality that only comes around so often. With a 40-piece orchestra accompanying all eight (typically) upbeat tracks, Foxygen has released one of the most fearless and valiant records in recent times. (more…)

Movie Review: Sad Vacation: The Last Days Of Sid And Nancy

By Melissa Bratcher

Photo © Richard Mann

Do you want to know what surprised me the most about Sad Vacation: The Last Days Of Sid And Nancy? What surprised me was how very young Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen were at the height of their infamy and subsequent deaths. Sid was 21 when he died, and Nancy just 20. They were just babies.
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Blu-Ray Review: Hellraiser; The Scarlet Box Limited Edition Trilogy

By Tim Murr

“The box. You opened it. We came. Now you must come with us, taste our pleasures.”

Those iconic words spoken by Pinhead in the directorial debut of Clive Barker are still chilling nearly 30 years after they were first heard. The film Hellraiser, based on Barker’s own novella The Hellbound Heart, is a harrowing, shocking, graphic slab of supernatural erotic body horror. It divided critics and thrilled horror aficionados and launched a franchise that still, for better or worse, survives today, not to mention the various comic book series and tie-in books from Barker and several others that continue to be published in regular intervals.
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Blu-Ray Review: The Undertaker (1988)

By Jeffery X Martin

The people at the Vinegar Syndrome imprint are like late-night college DJs, the ones who pull out weird and obscure music, sharing songs they had to track down for years after hearing them once in a bowling alley. They’re the hardcore fans, the crazy ones, who not only reference movies you’ve never heard of, but can quote them verbatim. There is a need for people like that in this world, the cultural archaeologists, the keepers of the flame.
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Tyler Talks Horror: Krampus

By Tyler Hodg

Hi, my name is Tyler Hodgkinson and I am a total horror n00b. In this series, I’ll be taking a look at classic, cult classic, and modern horror films with ignorant eyes. Its concept is scary simple. (more…)

The Walking Dead, “Swear”

By Laury Scarbro

Another week of separate story arcs, this episode takes us to a new location altogether: Oceanside. It’s not the most intriguing plot ever created for television, but the unknown will keep you interested. I rather thought that this episode’s beginning felt more like they’d borrowed writers from Fear The Walking Dead. It starts out with two girls on a beach. They’re obviously from another encampment, and they find another girl washed up on the beach. The older one doesn’t want the younger one to kill the girl.
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TV Review: WWE Story Time, “Travelers’ Tales Part II”

By Tyler Hodg

WWE Story Time, a collection of tales from former and current WWE wrestlers set to cartoon depictions, has proved itself to be a decent source of humor and entertainment within its two installments. The issues I had with the debut episode, such as the poorly rendered animation, subdued subject matter, and short length, have not been rectified; however, the stories themselves make the second episode better than its predecessor. For this reason, it’s best to examine the anecdotes individually, and to continue using this format with reviews of future episodes.
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Music Review: Don Rich and the Buckaroos, Guitar Pickin’ Man

By Melissa Bratcher

In the pantheon of great guitarists, there are ones that come easily to mind: Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Jeff Beck, B.B. King. I’d add the Buckaroos’ Don Rich to that list. His style is immediately recognizable, and without his sonic experimentation, Buck Owens’s catalog would lack a certain verve. While Owens was always happy to dip a toe in the rock side, Don Rich’s playing upped the ante. His fuzzed-out guitar work on “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass?” is as fresh and timely as anything recorded in 1969, and viscerally satisfying. This is pretty remarkable for someone who was hired to play fiddle.
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Movie Review: Delusion

By Jeffery X Martin

Horror is usually a young person’s genre, with films filled with pretty people, adorable meatsacks who exist only for the slaughter. Casting a film with ordinary middle-aged folks should lend more credence to a scary movie. If terrible things can happen to your uncle, they can happen to you. It brings the terror home.
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