// Category Archive for: Reviews

DVD Review: Hunting The Legend

By Brad Henderson

Ever since The Legend Of Boggy Creek there has been a plethora of Bigfoot films. Luckily Bigfoot is something I’m slightly obsessed with, so I love how this has become a full-blown subgenre that is still booming to this day.

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Music Review: Tom Freund, Two Moons

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s a gorgeous easiness to Two Moons, the latest album by singer/songwriter Tom Freund. It’s a sunny, low-key, nostalgic record that was funded by a PledgeMusic campaign. It’s the kind of record that you put on after a dreadful day, one that uplifts and feels like a perfect secret, full of fine musicianship and sagacious lyrics.

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Music Review: Anders Parker, There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart

By Melissa Bratcher

You know those TV shows that have artful music direction, like early Supernatural or Friday Night Lights or Parenthood (Jason Katims, I salute you!)? The ones that use quietly epic, devastating songs that push Matt Saracen’s story forward or underscore Sam and Dean’s struggle beautifully in a way that mere words can’t do, perhaps with an acoustic flourish? Anders Parker has written that record. There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart is packed with songs that have a quietly epic quality—the kind you feel deep down in your heart and guts.

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Music Review: Marc Almond, The Dancing Marquis

By Melissa Bratcher

As a young record buyer, all I needed to know about decadence, I learned from Marc Almond. His records taught me about Jacques Brel, euphemisms for masturbation, the grand alienation of aging out of your passions—you know, the stuff of life.

Now, ages later, it’s delightful to know Marc Almond hasn’t tamed his decadent leanings, and that both his writing and voice have gotten better with time. He was always a fine writer, able to capture a moment or a mood with an artfully placed word and a bit of cleverness. He wasn’t always the greatest of singers, though he did show that with passion and a well-versed torch song, you could overcome any vocal limitations. Don’t dream it, be it, and all that.

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Music Review: Louis Prima, Jr. and The Witnesses, Blow

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s got to be tough to be in the same racket as your old man. If you were brought up in his footsteps and following his path, and heaven forbid, if you have the same name as him, then there’s always going to be that comparison, that competition. Then imagine if you were a musician and you made the same kind of music that your Pops made, and that he was one of the greatest jazz/swing musicians of all time. You’d really have to bring your A-game always.

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Music Review: Young Widows, Easy Pain

By Jeffery X Martin

Imagine being thrown through a fortieth story window. Hear that rush of wind in your ears, the whistling and howling blotting out everything but your own panicked shrieks, your clothing ripping and flapping in the wind, pounding out a flat parachute rhythm as you continue to plummet, a failed bird, picking up speed, the ground rushing towards you (or vice versa) and even if you aren’t precisely sure where you’re landing, you know it’s going to be hard and it’s going to hurt. There’s nothing to do but resign yourself to it, embrace it, and let whatever happens happen.

That description fairly accurately echoes the first sixty seconds of Easy Pain by Louisville band Young Widows. There are still nine more songs to go.

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Blu-Ray Review: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

By Brad Henderson

Breakfast
Should one try to understand Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? No. Should one watch Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? Yes.

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Blu-Ray Review: In The Blood

By Brad Henderson

I have and will always be biased when Gina Carano plays the lead or has a major role in a movie. She’s always been a favorite of mine and I get super giddy whenever I watch anything she is in. When I heard about her new film In The Blood I was freaking pumped.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Machine

By Brad Henderson

Sci Fi on a budget is one of the hardest tasks in filmmaking. One thing you constantly worry about is how the effects in your film will look. You don’t want them to look cheap and cheesy because that’s a good way to lose your audience quickly. Also, when it comes to this genre, you need a story that is original and not a copy of a copy.

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Music Review: Glenn Tilbrook, Happy Endings

By Melissa Bratcher

Not everyone can write a song about the News International phone hacking scandal and make it sound jaunty. Glenn Tilbrook, however, can and did.

On his fifth non-Squeeze album Happy Endings, Tilbrook took a different approach—going acoustic. The result is a warm, witty, sometimes slight album (but what does Glenn Tilbrook have to prove at this point? The man can rest on his clever laurels all he wants.) that is always engaging. It’s a lovely sounding album, as well, with lush strings and clever percussion.

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