Electric Eye – Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time

A nice little piece of psychedelic rock was flying trough space and time and landed on our desk. On the one hand, Electric Eyes’ ingredients are typical for the genre: warped tunes and electronic spacy sequences. On the other, the Norwegians try to build up a hard and progressive groove, which works out most of the time due to the powerful and restless drum beat throughout every song.

Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time starts off with 6AM, which already clearly defines the main direction of the LP, although it sometimes feels like being a bit uninspired. Geneva is one of those atmospheric songs that you may imagine being used as background soundtrack of an IMAX documentary about our dear planet Earth. Vocals and samples show up from time to time, as well as sitars and a theremin, creating an ambiance between drug trips and Star Trek.

Tangerine is the first star of this album, building up an uneasy and optimistic atmosphere at the same time, before exploding in an almost post rock like wall of destructive sound. Definitely one of the strongest moments in Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time, if not even the climax of this adventure.

Negative aspects? Maybe monotony. Sometimes the drum beat annoys untrained ears, which would be a problem for the whole genre. The harsh guitar sound nevertheless brings almost every song to a point in the very right moment, as for example in The Road, the shortest song with 4:10.

The forceful sound and the wall of sensory input may sometimes overcharge the listener, although this often reflects one of the major strengths of the record. The closing song is named after the band and floats nicely between Pink Floyd and Sigur Rós before putting a grooving and enjoyable end to this versatile work of psychedelic rock. Give it a try!

Aftershock

Eli Roth teamed up with Nicolás López and Guillermo Amoedo to make a disaster movie and cast himself as one of the main roles, and it becomes clear from the get go that he reinvented neither himself, nor the wheel with that one. The first half of Aftershock centers around three friends’ debaucherous adventures (or their attempts thereof) in Chile. It relies on the “trio of travelling bros looking to get laid in a gorgeous country with prosperous nightlife” kind of humour, which is hardly revolutionary, but it was interesting to see that popular Internet culture references are making their way into film: the word “hipster” is dropped in a mocking way, the Barney Stinson “true story” meme is imitated and a troll face T-shirt is worn by a dead ringer for Zach Galifianakis. Maybe I’m just late to the party, I’m not too up to date on bro-cinema these days.

After the novelty of random meme-dropping in film wore off for me, though, I got a distinct sense of déjà vu that endured until the end of the flick. I honestly feel like I’ve seen this exact movie at least 10 times in my life. The three guys hit it off with three women and they party more or less successfully until about 35 minutes into the movie — then, a monumental earthquake spoils the fun. The transition from light-hearted comedy to full-blown “man vs. nature” gorefest is abrupt, but natural disasters don’t exactly care for smooth, gradual transitions, so I’m not going to lob that criticism at Mr. Roth. But especially once the action starts, his influence is obvious, and the movie becomes painfully predictable. The man notoriously has a penchant for pretty sick and gratuitous gore, and he does not disappoint those who like his work for it here.

Of course, nature is not the only thing man has to fear in the face of chaos and destruction; the second biggest threat will always be himself. And so a bunch of escaped convicts are unleashed to demonstrate this by hunting and torturing the heroes and heroines Roth-style.

The premise has potential, but unfortunately, there is not an ounce of originality in the execution. I did not warm up to the characters and their relationships with each other due to the uninspired acting and consequently could not care less which atrocities might happen to them, so it felt more like Hostel-type torture porn rather than a movie with a bigger message. There’s the overused cliché of the female moral center of the story, the girl with the short hair and conservative clothing, who ends up being the last one standing while the two frivolous, short-dress-wearing ones fall behind. The villains are all one-dimensional, sadistic lunatics, mere robotic devices to further the plot. It’s all been done before, and better.

If you want to watch a decent disaster movie, I suggest you get your hands on Cloverfield, for example, but stay away from this half-assed attempt. Aftershock is a mediocre film if I’ve ever seen one. It’s not bad enough to deserve the label of “trash”, it’s not entertaining enough to be a guilty pleasure — it did absolutely nothing for me, just like it did nothing for Eli Roth’s reputation as a writer-actor.

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

First things first; don’t expect me to start this review with a quote like “They’re back!”. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had never been away and this is not an ESPN sports announcement.

There’s been a lot of talk and anticipation about Daft Punk‘s upcoming release Random Access Memories. It first started with a 10 second guitar loop leaked somewhere on the internet until the first single Get lucky came out. Expectations were high, as people seemed to be a tad disappointed about their last release, the TRON O.S.T. , thus this album cannot be viewed as a regular album but a movie soundtrack instead, but people nowadays don’t need much input / change to quarrel.

Concerning the quarelling, Random Access Memories managed to perfectly split Daft Punk fans in two parties. The age of maximal techno / electro is long gone and climbing into the brostep / dubstep bandwagon would have been a fatal decision for a band that characterised an era for electronic music in the mid-nineties and as the new trend dictates it, disco and funk will be the next big thing; apparently.

In my defense, I have to say that I’m a disco kid, mostly influenced because of my parent’s music taste in younger years. What effect will Random Access Memories have on me? Will it work?

The opener Give life back to music dropped my jaw instantly. The sound, the groove; simply EVERYTHING has changed. Is this really Daft Punk I’m listening to, while unconsciously moving my hips in utter gusto? The guitar had me from the very fist second!

Surprisingly, the next track The game of love changes the pace to a smooth, sweaty groove that reflects the hot and horny mood disco has on people (or even couples). The vocoder may be a bit too much, but if you give this song 3-4 listens it becomes a subtle grower.

Giorgio by moroder is a masterpiece to me. What could be better than a “pseudo-documentary” intro with disco mastermind Giorgio Moroder speaking about his early stages as a musician, than to completely tear up the “interview” with a nasty synthesizer arpeggio that is addictive as hell? Right, a berzerk groove robot playing drums and a totally cheesy but awesome guitar solo at the end that catapults you to planet Disco Ball. This is a monumental ode to the emergence of disco music. It can’t get any better, or can it?

Just like the second track Within is what we used to call a slow, when we were kids. A welcome cooldown after a hot climax. The cigarette after; underlined with subtle E-Pianos, vocoder and slow percussion. Why not?

I am going to be completely candid with you, dear reader. I am not going to review any other song of the album, otherwise this review will risk to become another TL-DR review out there. Random Access Memories really is a cool album, but only if you’re into disco and if you’re willing to ACCEPT the big change of sound Daft Punk underwent. Don’t expect Homework Part 2. Just as in movies, remakes don’t touch the nerve of time; deal with it. The fat basslines are gone, there’s much more guitar on this release than on any other record and yes, this is pop music. Sceptics will welcome tracks like Get Lucky and Lose yourself to dance and won’t resist the urge to dance their asses off while considering tracks like Beyond as elevator music, but that’s understandable. Trends come and go and just as punk rock, disco never died. That’s awesome!

Hope to see you sinners on a greasy dancefloor next door, pumped with testosterone and nasty thoughts!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I]

The Convois – Ocean’s Tale


Have you ever gone to a small gig to maybe watch some of your friends play, but aside from them you didn’t know any other band that was set to appear that night? Well, exactly that happened to me last Saturday when I went to Soul Kitchen in Luxembourg for the Locals Fest 3. As I entered the venue I was surprised by a band that completely blew me away in the course of their set: The Convois! Despite a rather small crowd the band gave their everything and delivered a stunning performance. It was clear to me that I wanted to write about their music and so I asked them for their debut album Ocean’s Tale!

The band plays a very melodic type of hardcore that should be appealing to both newcomers to the genre as well as veterans. The ten songs feature some pretty intricate guitar work that shouldn’t bore you any time soon. The same can be said for the drums, which have some pretty nifty fills here and there. Instrumentally speaking there is simply nothing negative that can be said, to be honest.

The main thing that struck me however are definitely the vocals. I have to preface this by saying that when they played live they had a female singer, along their front man, which immediately peaked my interest because it’s a rather rare, but very refreshing, sight. While she had a rather prominent role in their live set, she only features on a couple of songs on the album…while it takes away a bit of the diversity of the songs it doesn’t hurt them at all. This is due to the fact that the lead singer has immensely good clean vocals and even better screams.

To sum it up, I’d say that these thirty-two minutes won’t let you down but if you want to experience The Convois the best way you can, you should head to one of their gigs. You can find a list of them on their Facebook page, and if you need convincing, listen to the song below!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdXwpX4YbGs]

Trash Monday LXVIII


There’s this peculiar thing in human behaviour I just don’t understand. If it were rugs made by exploited children in India, everyone would be appalled and disapprove such perversity. Jordy on the other hand, had a number one hit in France with the tender age of 4 years. Good thing he could keep the earnings for himself, like Indish weavers do…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IiLZ0dvDWU]

Teeth

We’ve decided to do something fun for the whole family: a quadruple movie review. Therefor we chose a movie that none of us really knew but which seemed interesting enough to get a reaction out of everyone.

Teeth (2007) is a horror film which was written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. It premiered at Sundance in 2007 where it was claimed to be one of the most talked-about films. To sum up, Teeth is about Dawn, a high school student, who suffers from a primary sexual characteristics abnormality, which she learns to use as an advantage when she becomes the victim of sexual assault.

——————————————————————————

Rotten Tomatoes describes Teeth as follows: Smart, original, and horrifically funny, Teeth puts a fresh feminist spin on horror movie tropes.

To be straightforward with you, I didn’t like the film at all. The pacing is incredibly boring and stands in no relation to the trashy subject itself. The humour is just miserable. Horror? Sorry but if you see any, you also call Forest Gump a soft porn movie. Two or three bitten off penises and fingers are just not enough. It seems that director Mitchell Lichtenstein has never heard of “creating an atmosphere”.

Furthermore, I have no idea what Lichtenstein wants to tell me. Teeth has absolutely no clear vision. There are simply too many different topics/genre elements in the movie which, to top it all, don’t work. The subject of feminism, which is the most obvious one, can be taken as serious as the subject of sexism in slasher/horror movies. The boys/men are portrayed as primitive sex demoniacs and act completely unnatural.

Furthermore I am pretty certain that the director was unsure about how to explain the vagina dentata phenomenon. On the one hand he throws in a few mythical elements (and I even was expecting some Sigmund Freud too), on the other hand we see this nuclear power plant all the time (nuclear mutation of the vagina?) The ending is representative for the whole flick. Lichtenstein tries to build up a twist ending (which you recognize pretty early), rethinks his decision and follows the path of a rape and revenge movie. Teeth bases on a great idea, wants too much and results in a mess.

-Luc-

——————————————————————————

When we first talked about which movie to pick I was intrigued by this one, because quite frankly: the plot outline had a lot of potential. A young girl has teeth in her vagina and becomes a man-eater… literally. Man, was I wrong! I don’t watch a lot of films of this genre, so I had no idea how bad a movie can be. All I know is that at times I wish I was the one who was subjected to penectomy, because that would probably have been less painful to endure than these ninety minutes of garbage.

The acting was pretty terrible from start to finish, the cut-off penises looked as credible as a pink elephant’s trunk and the music left my ears with a bad case of aural diarrhea. My personal “highlight” was Dawn‘s incestuous brother who was supposed to be the tough metalhead with terribly-done make-up tattoos and a Rottweiler as his best friend. The one thing that this movie has taught me is that people who don’t masturbate on a regular basis will go completely bat-shit-crazy at some point. So in order to keep mentally healthy, choke that chicken (or rub that duck) as often you possibly can.

~Yannick~

——————————————————————————

A good lesson this movie taught me: any movie with a laurel shrub on the poster is no guarantor for a masterpiece. As Teeth tries to caricature America’s prude position on sexuality, with organisations like The Ring Thing, Teeth is nothing but a disappointing attempt to mimic this oddball attitude of (mostly) young Christians. What is really frustrating is the fact that Teeth is too good to be called trashy and too bad to be considered a serious flick. It’s neither dick nor beaver, hence the intimidating teeth. The plot twist, if you can call it so, is as predictable as North Korea’s annual declarations of war and the step-brother’s tattoos are as true as Christian black metal.

I am not a nucular expert, but only because the family lives next to a nuclear plant does not mean that you turn into some kind of penis-eating gargoyle; unless I’m missing out the latest news of Fukushima.

Two things are for sure though: some roles will stick to the actor for a whole lifetime and in this case, Jess Weixler will forever be known as the girl with the toothed gash. And last but not least; I will never ever say “I’ll chop my fingers off for that girl” again.

Eric

——————————————————————————

I went into the film with an open mind because it has undeniable potential. I recognise that it tries to tackle important social issues — most notably, it criticises the puritanical (and, it must be said, characteristically American) attitudes kids are taught in sex ed that end up causing more harm than good. Dawn‘s biology textbook depicts the anatomy of the penis, but the schematic illustration of the vagina is covered up by a large sticker because “girls have a natural modesty”, and so Dawn walks about the earth not really knowing what the female sex organ typically looks like and how it works. Both Dawn and her crush at the beginning of the film have made a sacred vow of abstinence because of their Christian indoctrination. The guy ends up attempting and semi-succeeding at raping Dawn because he is a violently horny bundle of sexual repression after, and this is a direct quote, not having jerked off since Easter.

Those are fair criticisms, but unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The acting is cheesy and the storyline erratic. In combination with technical slip-ups like overstated sound effects, it gives the movie a cheap, silly vibe. Furthermore, as Luc said, I’m not sure what the aim of this movie is. Is it trying to make a point about sexual violence, sexual repression, the sexual behaviour of teenagers, incest or female empowerment? Probably all of these, but it doesn’t work. I couldn’t detect the comedy in it, either. And so it ends up being just another vacuous, ill-executed pseudo-thriller with a few gore shots thrown in on the side in an attempt to make it marketable to the horror crowd.

~ Anna ~

——————————————————————————

To be honest with you, at first we didn’t think we’d all be agreeing but Teeth, despite its great potential, sucks dick (pun intended). Don’t waste your time and forget this movie…

LIGHTS – Siberia Acoustic

Today I want to explore a very different aspect of my musical spectrum…and I want to take you on a journey to Siberia. More precisely Siberia Acoustic, which is the second of its kind by Canadian artist LIGHTS. As with her first synthpop album The Listening, where she released a five track EP simply called Acoustic a few months later, she does it again this time around with her second electronic album Siberia. The acoustic version of it features ten tracks (of the original fifteen) which are all performed by guitars, pianos and string instruments (cello I believe).

It certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but the whole thing has such a dreamy atmosphere that I immediately fell in love with the vibe of it. It’s just something you can either listen to on the side without paying much attention to it and still be pleasantly entertained, or you can actually pay attention to the brilliant instrumentation and enjoy it even more. Especially if you know the original songs, you will appreciate it even more, trust me.

One thing that no one can deny however is that the girl can sing! While I like her slightly auto-tuned vocals on the “regular” albums, because they add to the feel, I much prefer her untouched vocals. But apparently her own voice wasn’t enough, so she recruited help from three artists: Owl City on Cactus In The Valley, Max Kerman on Siberia and last but not least Coeur de Pirate on Peace Sign. I for one wasn’t convinced at all by the guest vocalists on my first listen-through…but I slowly warmed up to them and now I actually like them a lot, especially the latter.

LIGHTS is one of the few pop artists that I deeply respect and enjoy, and I hope you will give her a chance too…you might dig it! Listen to the song below and check out her Facebook page if you want to know more about her music. This review also serves the purpose of urging you to always keep an open ear and mind when it comes to music…simply because it’s a genre you generally don’t like, doesn’t mean you might not like some of it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uneToG4PYgg]

Cold Fur – Altamont Every Night

Post stoner core rock something everything. It has become a popular sport to categorise certain bands and their musical style. Let’s say Cold Fur just play rough and noisy rock’n’roll, with a front singer shouting along the whole album in like 11 different ways.

Melodic guitars and more classic riffs also aren’t missing at all, making Altamont Every Night a perfect coffee substitute right from the opener. The punky Cut Of My Jib doesn’t let room to breathe, which is in fact the case for the whole arrangement of this crowd funding financed album, recorded by Steve Albini himself. There is a certain preference for recording rock music in a very raw way these days, which again perfectly fits for this kind of music. You certainly don’t want to imagine hard or stoner rock bands that sound like clean and polished boy groups.

Songs like Just Like Brian Jones combine macabre themes with a huge portion of “what do I care?” and the crazy horse on the cover looks at you saying: “not a damn!” Here we are, dead in the water, and Pigs On Holiday makes sure that any kind of revival is useless. Songs like The Shittiest Story Ever Told and Fat Vampires From Planet Wolf masterfully finalise this half an hour outburst. Needless to say that also Black Sabbath found its place between core and madness, and you may also think to have found a pinch of Refused from time to time.

A record for those mornings you want to smash your alarm clock.

Recommendations: Altamont Every Night, The Shittiest Story Ever Told, Fat Vampires From Planet Wolf