Wild Beasts - Boy King Review

Despite being the band behind two of my album's of the year, I never found the time to review the past two Wild Beasts albums, even though, no surprises, they're one of my absolute favourite bands, ever.

Best described as Kate Bush's eccentricities with David Bowie at his most flamboyant and moulded into indie-rock, the Kendal four-piece have come far from their baroque-pop debut but still retain all the gratuitous amount of clever wordplay and vocal performances that craft them as a strange but unique band amongst their more generic compadres.

Ghostbusters Review

You might wonder why so many films now are remakes or reboots of old franchises. Usually; it's because the original films are old and with modern technologies and hindsight, their stories can be expanded and made into something better.

Remakes can work. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, John Carpenters' The Thing, Scarface, True Grit, The Fly and many, many others have proven that remakes can work, given the right circumstances, attention and love.

But a question that lingers is; if a film has a legitimate problem, in that, even with all new technologies and hindsight, if it has no chance of surpassing the original, is it worth remaking?

Ghostbusters Review Prologue

I have no problems with being proven wrong and taking a delicious, if familiar, slice of humble pie. Surprises are one of the great things in film because, with such low expectations (or no expectations), a film can suddenly radiate on it's own merits instead of it's own hype.

A Few Words on... Aphex Twin - Cheetah EP

Named after a synth released in the eighties that was as cumbersome to use as it was unusual, Cheetah is the latest release by Richard D. James since his decade long hiatus ended with the release of Syro, one of my favourite albums of 2014.

Biffy Clyro - Ellipsis Review

When listening to Ellipsis for the first time, I felt something might be wrong the moment Friends and Enemies finished. I knew Biffy Clyro's direction into a more mainstream sound had put off people (although I loved Only Revolutions and Opposites) but this song in particular, sounded too generic and familiar, in that it was like every-other soft pop-rock song of the last thirty years.

Blood Orange - Freetown Sound Review

I'd like to think that Dev Hynes' personal revelation that he's actually black was something like Richard Pryor's discovery in See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Of course it was probably never that funny. For years, Hynes' old project of Lightspeed Champion literally championed ode's of nerdom and lovelorn lust...and occasionally complaining at why his best friends were listening to crunk.