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Saturday, February 15th, 2025  

Album Reviews

La La La

Marinero
La La La

Feb 14, 2025 Web Exclusive

The follow-up to Marinero’s (aka Jess Sylvester) sublime Hella Love hails from similar inspirations. While the previous album was a love letter to his longtime San Francisco home, La La La pays tribute to Sylvester’s more recent passion for his new home in Los Angeles.

Horror

Bartees Strange
Horror

Feb 13, 2025 Web Exclusive

What is it that binds people so tightly to horror? While a good chunk of the general population opt to avoid the full-body exhilaration of scary movies and stories, some of us are magnetized towards it.

Phonetics On and On

Horsegirl
Phonetics On and On

Feb 12, 2025 Web Exclusive

Horsegirl’s sophomore album makes for a lovely little Valentine’s Day package.

Classic Interviews

It Hugs Back

It Hugs Back
Indie Rock’s Golden Age Revisited

Jul 17, 2009 Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

Kent, England’s It Hugs Back make smart, positive indie rock that waves back to the major Matador Records and Merge Records acts of the early ’90s while moving forward in exciting new directions. After settling on their name with some advice from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon (after a chance meeting at the Tate Modern in London), the band has slowly built up speed with an increasingly interesting series of releases that recall the intelligence, charm, and humor of acts like Teenage Fanclub and Pavement.

Comic Book Reviews

When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee #1

When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee #1
BOOM! Studios

Jan 30, 2025 Web Exclusive

Writer Gus Moreno (This Thing Between Us) and artist Jakub Rebelka’s (Cyberpunk) new series follows Father Barrera, a disgraced priest reassigned to the isolated South American town of Puerto Cristina to study the rite of exorcism under the tutelage of the mysterious Father Stygian. It quickly becomes apparent nothing is as it seems and Stygian might not be the best mentor. In this promising first issue, there’s more than enough action and character development to hook any fan of religious horror.

Book Reviews

Heaven and Hell

Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Heaven and Hell

Feb 09, 2025

There is a subdued magic in Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s books; however, Heaven and Hell, translated from the Icelandic, is a much different book from his last Biblioasis release.

Interviews

Marinero on “La La La” and the Angeleno Life

Marinero on “La La La” and the Angeleno Life

Feb 14, 2025 Web Exclusive

Some four years and 400 miles from his boyhood home of San Francisco, Marinero’s Jess Sylvester finds himself in the middle of Los Angeles’ most horrific wildfires in memory. Connecting with Sylvester over Zoom at the mid-January peak of the devastation, he shares that he’s approximately 15 miles from the perimeter of the Eaton fire.

My Firsts: Heartworms

My Firsts: Heartworms

Feb 13, 2025 Web Exclusive

My Firsts is our email interview series where we ask musicians to tell us about their first life experiences, be it early childhood ones (first word, first concert, etc.) or their first tastes of being a musician (first band, first tour, etc.). For this My Firsts we talk to Heartworms (the project of Jojo Orme).

Pleased to meet you

HotWax: From School Corridors to Festival Stages

Jan 29, 2025

HotWax reflect on their journey from grassroots venues to major festival stages, the raw intensity of touring, and the power of collaboration on their debut album Hot Shock.

Lists

Seven Music Documentary Films and Series From the Second Half of 2024 to Watch (and Three To Skip)

Jan 08, 2025

Halfway through 2024, we published a list of “Seven Music Documentary Films and Series From 2024 to Watch (and Three to Skip).” Another glut of music documentaries and series have been released since then including the superstar projects Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words (Prime Video), Luther: Never Too Much (CNN), Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken (Paramount+), Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band (Hulu), Olivia Rodrigo: Guts World Tour (Netflix), Elton John: Never Too Late (Disney+) and Yoshiki: Under the Sky (On Demand). If there is one takeaway from the overabundance of the biographical documentaries, it is that it’s best if the subject is not involved. The micromanaging of their story leaves viewers with a manicured and surface-level experience of the artist.

Although, the artist’s complete removal from the process can make a documentary spin into tabloid territory. There’s a lot of scandal on tap. Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter (Max) is the traumatic story of mental illness and sexual assault. While the latter is horrifying, the litigation is still underway. Why are the survivors on film talking about their experiences? Speaking of survivors, IMPACT x Nightline: Diddy’s Downfall (Hulu) is equally horrific and a far more disgusting explanation of the recent uncovering of Sean Combs’ abusive, and illegal actions during his entire time in the spotlight. Secret Life of Diddy: A Special Edition of 20/20 (Hulu) covers the exact same ground with many of the same talking heads journalists and individuals. On the positive side of hip hop, Tale of the Tape (Tubi) explores the world of mixtapes, the skill involved in making them, their impact on the culture and the legends of that scene. While the homemade quality of this short but deep unpacking is charming, it only speaks to people in that space and doesn’t go far in educating the uninitiated.

A brave director with a strong grasp on storytelling can create a compelling product that draws you in, whether or not you are interested in the artist or topic. But it feels like there is a positive correlation between the number of music documentaries released and how many of them aren’t worth pressing play on. Here are seven from the second half of 2024 that are worth watching and three not so much.—By Lily Moayeri

Blog

I Watched 416 Movies in 2024

I Watched 416 Movies in 2024

Jan 31, 2025 By Mark Redfern

As I did in 2023, in 2024 I kept a detailed log of every film I watched, all as part of my quest to watch as many movies I’d never seen before as possible. The ideal was to watch at least one film a day and adding it all up, it looks like I more than accomplished that. I watched 416 films in 2024—17 short films and 399 feature length films.




Cinema Reviews

Like Father, Like Son

Like Father, Like Son

Feb 09, 2025 Web Exclusive

How something like this can be financed in the year 2025 is a mystery that only the producers of the film can explain.

DVD Reviews

A Certain Killer/A Killer’s Key

A Certain Killer/A Killer’s Key
Studio: Arrow Video

Feb 13, 2025 Web Exclusive

Two underrated Kazuo Mori flicks receive their first English-language home video release.

Television Reviews

Disclaimer

Disclaimer
Apple TV+, October 11, 2024

Oct 13, 2024 Web Exclusive

In the first two episodes with which it premiered, Disclaimer teeters between prestige drama and soapy psychological thriller, but writer/director Alfonso Cuaron’s ambition remains admirable.