Album Reviews

Weezer
SZNZ: Summer
Aug 09, 2022 Web Exclusive
Oh, the plight of the long-suffering Weezer fan.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought
Cheat Codes
Aug 08, 2022 Web Exclusive
Brian Joseph Burton, also known as Danger Mouse, has been a prominent producer for the past two decades.

Superorganism
World Wide Pop
Aug 05, 2022 Web Exclusive
When Superorganism first started making noise on the indie scene back in 2017 and 2018 they were imagined as “the Internet’s band,” a group whose cut-and-paste indie pop, hyper-online references, and patchwork songwriting approach captured the era’s manic online culture.
News

The Black Angels Share New Single “Without a Trace”
Aug 09, 2022
The Black Angels have shared a new single, “Without a Trace.” It is the latest release from the band’s forthcoming album, Wilderness of Mirrors, which will be out on September 16 via Partisan.
Interviews

Dehd on “Blue Skies”
Aug 09, 2022 Web Exclusive
You can easily apply the popular Homelander-meme to Chicago jangle pop trio Dehd: every setback has somehow catapulted them further towards ballooning notoriety.

Danny Elfman on “Bigger. Messier.”
Aug 08, 2022 Web Exclusive
The oldest recollection I have of Danny Elfman’s music revolves around one scene from 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, when Pee-wee hitches a nighttime ride with a trucker named Large Marge.
Pleased to meet you

Birds In The Brickwork on new album “Recovery”
Aug 09, 2022 Web Exclusive
epic45’s Ben Holton discusses his latest project Birds In The Brickwork.
Lists

Star Trek TV Series Ranked from Best to Worst
Aug 07, 2022
A definitive ranking of every Star Trek series is an impossible task. Some segments of the fandom will always disagree with the ranking. To be clear, this is my—Steve King’s definitive ranking. I’ve watched every episode of Star Trek more times than I can count. I’ve written one or two things about it, and although sci-fi fantasy fans are a persnickety bunch, I tend to take the Bradley Nowell (of Sublime) approach: “I feel like I’m stoned. I feel like watching Star Trek and eating Chinese food or something.” In other words, lighten up, nerds.
This list will fluctuate as new shows debut and others falter. But this is still Star Trek we’re talking about. It’s all excellent. It just varies in degrees. Future seasons may render some of these rankings irrelevant. But for now, it’s the way I see things and I’m kind of an expert on the subject. Prepare to be enraged or to agree with a very stable genius.
Live reviews

Check Out Photos of Fleet Foxes at The Salt Shed, Chicago, IL, August 3, 2022
Aug 05, 2022
Fleet Foxes helped inaugurate the opening weekend of Chicago’s newest riverfront venue, The Salt Shed, located at the city’s former Morton Salt Factory.
Blog

My Chemical Romance – Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of “I Brought You My Bullets…”
Jul 22, 2022
Among third wave emo’s most commercially successful groups, My Chemical Romance emerged with a fury from New Jersey, the state itself being fertile ground for the post-hardcore and emo scenes, having birthed such major genre acts as Midtown, Thursday, and Senses Fail, as well as the lesser known but equally deserving Armor for Sleep and Hidden in Plain View.
Cinema Reviews

Anonymous Club
Aug 03, 2022 Web Exclusive
Anonymous Club, a new documentary on Australian singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett, was filmed in vivid 16mm and based on Barnett’s diaries from 2018 (when her second album Tell Me How You Really Feel came out) up until last year. Named after one of her early songs, the Danny Cohen-directed film is the opposite of the traditional “Behind the Music” style rock star documentary with its ups and downs, celebrating success and comebacks after difficulties, etc
DVD Reviews

Planet of the Vampires
Studio: Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Aug 02, 2022 Web Exclusive
Mario Bava’s colorful sci-fi horror receives an upgraded special edition from Kino Lorber.
Television Reviews

Reservation Dogs (Season Two)
FX/Hulu, August 3, 2022
Aug 01, 2022 Web Exclusive
During the second season premiere of the Taika Waititi co-created, Indigenous, groundbreaking FX comedy, Reservation Dogs, Elora, the most pragmatic and mature of the scheming, delivery truck-robbing Reservations Dogs gang, finally realizes her dream of leaving her dreary, albeit tight-knit rural Oklahoma rez. But her road trip to supposedly glamorous California is not as fulfilling, or even as manageable, as she had hoped.