Blu-Ray Review: The Barrens

By Less Lee Moore

As someone who has never seen any films in the Saw franchise, I was unfamiliar with writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman until now. The legend of the Jersey Devil has been covered on both The X Files and Supernatural, so I was curious to see what a film about the creature—and one starring True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer no less—would be like. I was not disappointed.

Although The Barrens is not technically a horror film, it has elements of horror: monsters, paranoia, insanity, and just enough gore to be convincing. Unfortunately, dramatic thrillers with horror elements usually disappoint genre fans looking for scares or splatterfests. This is a shame, because The Barrens is a great movie.

The film was shot on Super 16 and the difference between this format and digital is obvious immediately. It has a wonderful gritty and grainy texture and shows off some incredible lighting set-ups to their fullest extent. My only complaint would be the overuse of flash edits in some of the scenes, but I realize that at least a few of these were necessitated by budget restraints and weather conditions.

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Music Review: School Of Seven Bells, Put Your Sad Down EP

By Less Lee Moore

The only downside to a new School of Seven Bells EP is that I’m in no way tired of Ghostory, their full-length release from February of this year (reviewed here). This is a good problem to have.

Put Your Sad Down opens with the 12-minute-plus title track, which takes a while to build, but has a beautiful payoff, an extremely skillful hybrid of straight-up dance music and SVIIB-style dream pop. It’s what My Bloody Valentine might sound like if they hadn’t broken up after two albums. The lyrics are straightforward and sexy; “Put Your Sad Down” is the rare song that sounds exactly like what the lyrics imply. The song’s intensity eventually tapers off only to dial it up again with an impressive subtlety and finesse.

“Secret Days” (listen here) signals a shift to pre-Ghostory SVIIB, with a heavy drumbeat and decidedly South Asian influence in the music, and a wordless vocalized chorus that’s pure magic. I wish I liked “Faded Heart” more, however. It sounds like a clichéd remix of a superior song that’s buried somewhere inside, although that core does show the anthemic pop sheen of Abba.

The next song, “Lovefingers,” is a cover of the 1968 song by Silver Apples from their 1968 self-titled debut album. Here the original’s psychedelia is replaced with a spooky, Middle Eastern mysticism with wonderful results. The repetitive pulse of “Painting a Memory,” the EP’s final song, nourishes a hypnotic dance beat with more South Asian sounds in Alejandra Deheza’s vocalizations. It also shows that the band sounds best when they give themselves enough time to let the ingredients of their recipes simmer for a while.

Although Put Your Sad Down isn’t as consistently excellent as Ghostory, it is after all an EP and one with an overwhelming ratio of hits to misses. It’s definitely whetted my appetite for the band’s next full-length release, whenever that may be.

Put Your Sad Down is out today from Vagrant and can be ordered from the band’s website.

Assemblog: November 9, 2012

Sinister, 2012

New this week on Popshifter: I give a wrap up of Toronto After Dark; Chelsea reviews The Red Machine, reminisces about ’90s Boston band Tribe, and raves about Sophie Auster’s debut EP The Red Weather; Danny wonders if Creedence Clearwater Revival’s new Ultimate box set will prove they’re the American Beatles; and Julie praises Firewater’s International Orange! as well as their recent concert in Cleveland.

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Toronto After Dark 2012: Wrap-Up & Award Winners

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto After Dark 2012 is over and the award winners have been announced. You can read the full list of winners on the Toronto After Dark website, but I’d like to call special attention to the films I saw and reviewed.

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Assemblog: November 2, 2012

Post Halloween blues by sachiko-no! on Flickr

I’ve got the post-Halloween blues! It’s been a long and exhausting month, and even though I skipped out on last week’s Assemblog, I’m going to have to skip this week’s, too. Sorry everyone. But we do have a lot of articles from this week for you to enjoy.

New this week on Popshifter: My review of the delightfully weird Wrong (for all my Toronto After Dark Film Fest coverage, go here); Jemiah describes The Ganzfeld EP from Matmos as a “pleasing appetizer” to their upcoming full-length; Cait has fun with the hilarious and nostalgic reissues of Zacherle’s Monster Mash & Scary Tales; Chelsea explains NaNoWriMo for the uninitiated; Elizabeth discusses fan-funded TV in this installment of “TV Is Dead, Long Live TV;” and I review three quite different but worthwhile new releases: ESP’s self-titled EP, Majeure’s Solar Maximum, and Wazu’s Robobo.

—Less Lee Moore, Managing Editor

Music Review: Wazu, Robobo

By Less Lee Moore

Being old enough to have lived through and enjoyed the fecundity of post punk and new wave music when it originally blossomed in the 1980s has advantages and disadvantages. I feel lucky to have experienced the excitement of those years first hand. On the other hand, I often find myself eyeing with suspicion new bands that fell in love with those same sounds decades later. Hearing “Councillor,” the first single from Wazu‘s new album Robobo provided mixed feelings along those lines.

The song is so obviously influenced by Depeche Mode it’s almost cute: chord changes, heavy guitar, chiming keyboards, buzzing industrial sounds. Still, it’s a fine song and quite good at paying tribute to the originators of the sound.

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Music Review: Majeure, Solar Maximum

By Less Lee Moore

The musical entity known as Majeure is A.E. Paterra, also known as the drummer for prog rock band Zombi (also one of the coolest band names in recent history). Solar Maximum, Majeure’s second album, is proof positive that all those ignorant cranks who think synth-based music isn’t “real” music are just that: ignorant cranks. The depth of emotion conveyed on Solar Maximum is quite real indeed.

Paterra, according to a review in AQ, has mastered an impressive array of analog synths and instruments on Solar Maximum. Score another point in the “synth music is real” camp. In all seriousness, though, Solar Maximum is a seriously good album.

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Toronto After Dark 2012: Wrong Review

By Less Lee Moore

I’m going to completely avoid pun-filled pull quotes like “Wrong Is So Right!” in this review, in part because it would be corny, but also because it would be a sad attempt at competing with the genuine humor found in Quentin Dupieux’s latest film.

The trailer for Wrong conveys all you need to know about the movie itself—man loses dog; man goes on bizarre quest to find dog—but it might help you appreciate it more when you know more about Quentin Dupieux. He’s also known as the weirdo musical entity Mr. Oizo, and if you enjoy his output under that moniker, you’ll definitely like the score for Wrong. Dupieux is also responsible for last year’s bizarre horror “spoof” Rubber, about a killer tire.

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Assemblog: October 26, 2012

Don’t cry, Vlad. You’ll ruin your makeup.

Okay you guys, truth: I’ve been way too busy with Toronto After Dark to do a proper Assemblog this week. It will be okay, though. We’ll make it through together. In the meantime, here’s what’s new this week on Popshifter.

You can read my ongoing Toronto After Dark 2012 Film Festival coverage here, including reviews of American Mary, After, Citadel, and Resolution.

Danny ponders the hype machine in his review of Gary Clark Jr.’s Blak and Blu; I call out the haters in my assessment of Prometheus on Blu-Ray; Chelsea discusses the legendary Rick Berlin and his latest, Always On Insane; Ricky thinks Black Moth Super Rainbow’s Cobra Juicy is their most accessible album yet; Emily defends black cats on Halloween; Jemiah suggests Zombie Eye for the Living Guy as a guideline for the would-be undead; and Emily bids a fond farewell to Ceefax.

—Less Lee Moore, Managing Editor

Toronto After Dark 2012: Top Five Picks – Wrong

By Less Lee Moore

What:

Wrong: An absurd crime thriller about a man and the very strange things that happen to him as he tries to track down his kidnapped dog.

Who:

Written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, also known as Mr. Oizo.

Why:

If you remember Rubber, the movie about a serial killing tire, you’ll want to catch Wrong. If you know of Quentin Dupieux from his Mr. Oizo music and videos, you’ll also want to catch Wrong. The film was declared the Most Innovative Feature at Fantasia Fest. For a three-week film festival, this is huge praise.

The trailer is hilarious and the cast is impressive, including Jack Plotnick (who was also in Rubber), William Fichtner (one of the most diverse character actors around), and Steve Little (from Eastbound and Down). If you’re still not convinced, watch the trailer again.

When:

Wrong makes its Toronto premiere on Thursday, October 24 at 9:45PM.

Where:

Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West.