Demob Happy

Weird but not wonderful 5/10 There will always be a hardcore of Lynch fans who will love Lynch’s special brand of wierdness for its own sake or otherwise, but I think this film is his weakest to date. Since ‘Lost Highway’ his films have become more and more obfuscated and fragmented, paying little mind to [...]

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A cold December 8/10 The Dean’s December revolves an architypal Bellow protagonist; a high-brow, an academic, whose philosphical preoccupations both blind him to the truth and form the observational perspective of the novel. Lambasted for a magazine article written on urban degradation and crime in his native Chicago, Albert Corde finds diversion but not solace [...]

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“… now you see it’s sucking you in!” 8/10 I found James Murphy’s first album a complete turn-off: the studied cool, the nods and winks to oblique musical references, the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ lyrics. LCD Soundsystem has even been described as dance-punk nostalgia for music journalists. The in-jokery and general calculated irony seemed like cold artifice, dispassionate. [...]

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“Drink till I’m drunk, smoke till i’m senseless” 10/10 Every generation has music that defines their era and in the mid-nineties it was the output of Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead that has the greatest resonance. Like watching ‘This Life’ these albums transport you to a specific time and place: pre-millenium, pre-9-11, pre-Blair… Although they [...]

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“There’s a great black wave in the middle of the sea” 8/10 Neon Bible may not have the conceptual unity of Arcade Fire’s debut Funeral, but if anything it is more funereal, a vast cathedral of sound threatening to overwhelm the listener like a “great black wave in the middle of the sea”. Win Butler’s [...]

Arcade Fire - Wellandthelighthouse [ 3:57 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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“Stroppy little island of mixed up people” 8/10 Was Damon Albarn’s creative split with Graham Coxon the best thing that ever happened to him? Since Albarn called time on the 1990s Blur era with a best-of compliation, Albarn has reached something of a creative peak – irreverently declaring the likes of Country House ‘a joke’. [...]

Good Bad Queen - Herculean [ 3:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Park life 6/10 Lunar Park may be viewed in some quarters as a classic post-modern novel, in that the book transforms from what could be convincingly read as autobiography and then descends into an evidently ficticious horror story. However, a more accurate description might be that Ellis is playing in a comfort zone here, reinforcing [...]

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