Oct 16, 2012
Music
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The sixth studio release by Brit rockers Muse is a classic case of art vs. science. The name of the album, The 2nd Law, in fact refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which theorizes that over time, the differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential of an equilibriated system can destroy the system itself. Could Muse be inferring something with the title?
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Oct 16, 2012
Music
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There’s a certain difficulty in writing a Muse review: trash them and you risk incurring the wrath of their fans for invoking those same tired (but still entirely pertinent) Queen references; praise them and you’ll be shot down by anyone who has ever sat through one of their records sober. The good news about new album The 2nd Law is that the band has expanded the pool of artists from whom they shamelessly steal ideas.
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Oct 15, 2012
Music
Night Moves
Colored Emotions is flush with shimmer and twang. Minneapolis trio Night Moves find a sound somewhere between the freewheeling folk-rock of My Morning Jacket and the glammy psych of MGMT. A little bit country, a little bit spacey; like laser-pistoleros in puffy sleeves and cowboy boots.
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Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Oct 12, 2012
Cinema
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In Smashed, Mary Elizabeth Winstead delivers a breakout dramatic performance as Kate, an alcoholic grammar school teacher trying to get sober. Kate and her music writer husband, Charlie (Aaron Paul), live a modest L.A. lifestyle aided by his parents. Whether out with friends enjoying music or at home making love, alcohol is a constant for the young couple.
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Oct 12, 2012
Comic Books
Issue #42 - The Protest Issue
This is a follow-up to 2011’s Zita the Spacegirl, but readers new to the series should have no trouble catching on. In this volume (written and illustrated by Ben Hatke), Zita, stranded far from Earth, learns some of the pitfalls of both fame and infamy as she strives to protect her friends, attempts to save an alien race, and ultimately keeps up the quest to find her way home.
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Published by Single Notes
Oct 12, 2012
Books
Issue #42 - The Protest Issue
As a teenager trapped in a small Florida town, Christopher R. Weingarten fell hard for Beastie Boys’ seminal 1986 album, Licensed To Ill. Blurring the line between a coming-of-age essay (where the fat kid moves to New York and finds redemption as a music critic) and an exploration of Beastie Boys’ influence on moving hip-hop into the public sphere, Every Day I Take a Wee aptly captures the impact of a beloved album on a music lover’s life.
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Oct 12, 2012
Music
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To those of you waiting in vulturous speculation over what might have been Ben (or, for the sake of Former Lives, Benjamin) Gibbard’s post-divorce catharsis record: at ease. Former Lives is, in actuality, something of a scrapbook of the Death Cab for Cutie frontman’s songwriting from the last eight years—hence the collection’s title looking wistfully over its shoulder.
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Oct 12, 2012
Music
Cold Showers
The debut full-length from this glowering <Los Angeles> act is a focused sonic assault that borrows a great deal from Joy Division, early Interpol, and A Place to Bury Strangers to create just under 35 minutes of tastefully restrained post-punk.
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CW, Thursdays 9/8 Central
Oct 11, 2012
TV
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The CW continues with its winning supernatural streak. The latest creatures are beasts of some kind-and the story has next to nothing to do with the fairy tale of the same name.
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Oct 11, 2012
Music
Web Exclusive
Search any decent record store for any remotely genre-transcending record and it quickly becomes apparent that it’s almost anachronistic that record shops still categorise music so rigidly by genre, a practice that surely should have gone out of the window the moment The Beatles’ Revolver hit the stands.
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