// Category Archive for: Reviews

Music Review: The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Go Tell It On The Mountain

By Melissa Bratcher

It took until 2003 for The Blind Boys Of Alabama to release a Christmas album, but the wait was worth it. Now, Omnivore is reissuing Go Tell It On The Mountain with bonus material (as they do and do so well) in time for your holiday playlist, and it is a welcome addition.
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Blu-Ray Review: New Orleans Music In Exile

By Melissa Bratcher

Though it was made in 2006, New Orleans Music In Exile, is finally getting a Blu-ray release. The film, made by famed music documentarian Robert Mugge (Last Of The Mississippi Jukes, Gospel According To Al Green, The Kingdom Of Zydeco, among a great many), was shot in the rather immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: two months later. Mugge and his crew had open access to a who’s who of New Orleans musicians and luminaries as they try to pick of the pieces of their lives and careers.
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TV Review: The Walking Dead, “Service”

By Laury Scarbro

Service… with a smile? Negan arrives in Alexandria earlier than he was expected, with a heavily bruised Daryl in tow. He takes out a walker once the gates are opened, but things are all downhill from there. I am of the firm belief that the real reason Abraham had to die was because they didn’t want him upstaging Negan for one-liners.
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TV Review: The Walking Dead, “The Cell”

By Laury Scarbro

If you were wondering at the end of the first episode, “But what about Daryl?” then your question will be answered with this episode, and they may not be answers you wanted. It seems that there is quite a bit of emphasis placed on the differences and similarities between Daryl and Dwight, as well as Dwight’s standing within Negan’s pecking order.

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TV Review: The Walking Dead, “The Well”

By Laury Scarbro

As expected, the second installment of this season was calm and, for the most part, without complication. After the first episode and its emotional wringer, it was actually rather nice to slow things down a bit and live within the illusion that bad things going on outside the walls of the Kingdom aren’t really happening.

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Music Review: Matt Tarka, Surely Late

By Melissa Bratcher

Matt Tarka is a DC-based indie pop time warp. On his EP, Surely Late, he evokes the hazy, early days of college radio (remember that? What do they even call that now?) with powerful melodies, a bit of sugary sweetness, and a delightful propulsiveness that belies the heartache that provides the lyrical matter. It’s a four-song chunk of solid songwriting and catchiness, and an interesting introduction.
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TV Reviews: The Walking Dead, “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be”

By Laury Scarbro

Let me begin this by stating very clearly, this is going to be filled with spoilers. If you have not watched the season seven premiere of The Walking Dead, and you don’t want to know who got Lucille’d, turn back now. While you still can. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can do so here.
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Music Review: Peeling, Rats In Paradise

By Tim Murr

Singer/guitarist Annabelle Lee (ex-Mexican Slang) describes Peeling’s debut EP, Rats In Paradise, as being “about shedding past traumas, transcending pain and finding a way out,” she says. “It’s too easy to become disillusioned; I want to create catharsis and release.” Well, congratulations on succeeding. Rats In Paradise is a wonderfully realized collection. The four tracks, “Magic Eye,” “Leisure Life,” “In The Sun,” and “Wet Nurse” feel very similar to Las Vegas Story-era Gun Club. Even Lee’s vocals remind me of Jeffery Lee Pierce at his most reserved.
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Music Review: The Legal Matters, Conrad

By Melissa Bratcher

What happens when you take sugary Teen Beat harmonies, marry them to chunky guitar tones, and then throw in grownup lyrics? You get a timeless power pop treasure that instantly feels like a classic. On their second album, Conrad, Detroit band The Legal Matters have crafted songs of love and loss and wrapped them in sunny sweet melodies with just the right amount of ache.
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Movie Review: Observance

By Sachin Hingoo

Do you ever feel like you’re about to get sick, but the actual sickness takes days or even weeks to manifest itself? Observance, a new film by Australian director Joseph Sims-Dennett, made on a microbudget and which received acclaim at Montreal’s Fantasia Festival, taps into that unsettlingly suffocating feeling of disease in a major way.
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