Apr 27, 2010
Music
Avi Buffalo
Behold: proof youth is not wasted on the young. While you were whittling away your high school years on high-schoolish things, Long Beach four-piece Avi Buffalo was busy crafting breezy pop anthems that would land them a deal with Sub Pop before any member could legally drink.
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Apr 26, 2010
Music
Fang Island
Are they an indie-rock band playing prog, or a prog band playing indie rock? The Brooklyn-based Fang Island has a positive vibe to their sound that seems a bit incongruous compared to the bent-over intensity of many bands playing a progressive type of rock, but their debut album leaves no question that these guys could hold their own in a rumble with Porcupine Tree.
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DC
Written by Geoff Johns; Art by Francis Manapul; Colors by Brian Buccellato; Letters by Nick J. Napolitano
Apr 26, 2010
Comic Books
Web Exclusive
The debut issue of Geoff Johns’ new Flash series draws most of its dramatic energy from a murder case that the resurrected Bary Allen must solve. Under the cover of having been in witness protection, he returns to the Central City Police Department’s crime lab. No sooner than he does, a mysterious man drops dead in the street wearing a Mirror Master uniform. The relaunched Silver Age hero finally feels fresh for once, and Adventure Comics artist Francis Manapul keeps the art as obliging as Johns’ dialogue. Even Allen’s romantic relationship with Iris gets a fresh coat of paint.
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Apr 23, 2010
Books
Web Exclusive
Depending on how quickly neurons begin firing when one hears the term “Krautrock,” the genre of experimental music that germinated and gestated in Germany from the late ‘60s through the ‘70s may mean little other than a reference to Kraftwerk and Can.
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Apr 23, 2010
DVDs
Michael Fassbender
“Let’s be quiet,” Hunger director Steve McQueen says, raising his index finger to his lips during a video interview. “Let’s shut up and just look, observe, before one makes a judgment of anything.” At that moment in the interview—included as a special feature on this Criterion release—McQueen is explaining his decision to abandon dialogue throughout much of his impressive and sometimes disorienting debut feature, which depicts the disturbing events leading up to the starvation and death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in the Maze Prison outside of Belfast, Ireland in 1981.
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Apr 23, 2010
Music
Web Exclusive
As Pantha du Prince, German producer/DJ Hendrick Weber’s approach for getting under his listeners’ skin seems deceptively simple. Rather than spearing the cerebral cortex with massive beats and jarring chunks of samples, his music works like a slowly dissolving capsule. It’s gentle but insistent, and by the time a full dose enters the bloodstream it should be clear whether this is a buzz worth prolonging or leaving it to wear off.
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Dark Horse
Created, written, & illustrated by Matt Wagner; Lettered by Tom Orzechowski
Apr 22, 2010
Comic Books
Dark Horse
Matt Wagner’s ongoing “study of the nature of aggression,” or Grendel, celebrates its 28th birthday this year, so it seems appropriate to see 2007’s Behold the Devil in a snazzy hardcover. Wagner is thankfully going through his archives and re-releasing some old tales, but Behold the Devil is the Eisner-nominated writer/artist’s first Grendel series in over 10 years.
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Apr 22, 2010
Music
Web Exclusive
This is not a Liars album. This is a sloppy gangbang of artists re-doing songs from Liars’ stellar new album, Sisterworld. There are a couple of bright spots, but the collection just doesn’t jive. I certainly adore most of the artists on the roster here and I doubt this is an attempt on Liars’ part to make a buck; it just feels unnecessary.
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Apr 22, 2010
Cinema
Charlotte Gainsbourg
The third night of the 14th annual City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) film festival, a weeklong showcase of new French films at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles, was highlighted by the Cold War espionage thriller Farewell and the West Coast premiere of Please, Please Me!, from writer/director Emmanuel Mouret (Shall We Kiss?).
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Apr 21, 2010
Music
Issue #30 - Winter 2010 - Vampire Weekend
Plants and Animals’ last album, 2008’s Parc Avenue, was one of the year’s best, a pastoral pastiche of ‘70s-flavored folk-rock grooves, aided by strings and horns, that set a genuine, organic mood of laidback cool. Since releasing the album, the Montréal trio has toured almost constantly, playing over 150 shows in the States and abroad. Perhaps as a result, the band’s new album possesses a distinctly more volatile, rougher-edged sound.
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