April 25, 2005
Pop culture catch up
Reviews of stuff I've been listening to/watching.
Of Montreal, The Sunlandic Twins: This band has the best vocabulary in rock. Sanguinary? Somnolent? This is the sort of pseudo-electronic poppy indie-rock that your 11th grade English teacher can get behind. While it isn't as good song-for-song as Satanic Panic in the Attic, "Requiem for O.M.M. 2," "Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and other games)," "The Party's Crashing Us" and "Oslo in the Summertime" are standout tracks on this more ethereal, Postal Service-y effort from this surprisingly non-Canadian band.
Maximo Park, A Certain Trigger: Wow, that was a short turnaround for the Futureheads' second LP. Soundalike bands are supposed to be a bad thing, but as the last bluestate setlist shows, we certainly don't mind when we like the original sound. Yeah, the lead singer sounds a little less like Paul Weller and they've tossed in a little more synth, it's more or less the same thing. Pop it in and bop around your room, nobody's looking.
Season 2 of The Wire: A year later, and Baltimore is still corrupt, flooded with drugs and plagued by violence over the black market trade. Big surprise. What is surprising is how much the second season of this HBO series depends on having seen the first. The investigative team, their beefs, the favors they owe and their traction within the department, even some of the drug dealers carry over to this year. It's a different case, but it's intricate, multi-faceted and potentially earth-shaking just like last time. One wonders if the writers would have had so much leeway to continue storylines if viewers couldn't catch up on the plotlines with the DVDs. On the other hand, one also wonders if the story relies on so many unresolved plotlines simply to boost rentals. But I'm not that cynical.
Finding out that Malcolm McLaren and Little Richard are Jewish at Passover seder: Priceless.
Posted by rj3 at April 25, 2005 8:24 AM
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