Reviews
Better Call Saul Recap: There’s Proving and Then There’s Knowing
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 4, “Hit and Run.”] Case Summary After last week’s seismic installment, Episode 4 of Better Call Saul was a bit more easygoing, even if things grow more and more uneasy for everyone. As the old saying goes, it’s not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you, and while things actually do seem to be going pretty well for Kim Wexler and Saul Goodman, attorneys-at-law, Kim at least is not sleeping easy these days. The centerpiece scam this time focused on Jimmy and Kim’s ongoing campaign to ruin Howard Hamlin’s reputation, which pays off last week’s key-copying adventure. While a blissfully ignorant Howard sits down for therapy, Jimmy uses his duplicate key for Howard’s car for a wild little bit of sketch...
Redveil Comes of Age on learn 2 swim
Most people at rapper-producer redveil’s age are working on an identity outside a prescribed cycle of routines–at school, at work, at home–to ready themselves for the independence and uncertainties of early adulthood. On the Maryland artist’s latest project, learn 2 swim, released on his 18th birthday, this search has been a public as well as a personal journey. He’s overcome struggles with insecurity and self-doubt while attempting to build his own unique sound across the self-produced album. His first album, Niagara, was released in 2020 when he was just 16. An abstract hip-hop mashup of noisy samples and soulful vocal loops with earnest and introspective raps, redveil launched himself into conversation with his older, more established peers–including his personal inspiration Tyler, the ...
Florence + the Machine Dazzles at Intimate Los Angeles Show: Recap + Setlist
Florence Welch is almost always moving when she performs. With the exception of the occasional sip of water or a dramatic pose at the end of each song, the bewitching British singer-songwriter is constantly on her feet, her body nimbly maximizing as much space on stage as humanly possible, all while singing with unshakable gusto. Many were lucky enough to both witness Welch’s captivating moves and hear her signature guttural mezzo-soprano alongside her backing band The Machine at the 2,000-capacity Los Angeles Theatre on Friday evening (April 29th), the first stop on her 2022 North American tour. Of course, Welch’s flailing, skipping, twirling, and air punching served more than just a function of spectacle. Florence + the Machine’s upcoming record Dance Fever (out May 13th) drew inspiratio...
Paul McCartney Kicks Off His Tour in Spokane With a Little Help From His Friends
The emotion started welling up during, of all songs, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Something about the sight of a gaggle of teen girls, singing the nonsense chorus of that White Album classic started to crack my critical resolve. By the time Paul McCartney hit the chords of “Hey Jude,” already two-plus hours into the opening night of his 2022 American tour, the tears were soaking into my face mask. This was not the reaction I anticipated having after a long drive to Spokane, Washington to be on hand for the kick-off of this 16-date run of shows. Going into the evening, I was carrying with me a not-too-small amount of Macca fatigue. Even during a global pandemic, the man was everywhere. Unpacking his career amid artful lighting with Rick Rubin. Straining to keep his former band together while...
Melody’s Echo Chamber’s Emotional Eternal Offers a Cure for a Dour Present
When we first met Melody Prochet, the Paris-based singer-songwriter wasn’t mourning love lost; she was patiently feeding lost love to a sonic kaleidoscope and minting a DayGlo, beat-assisted species of shoegaze as lush, warm, and candied as Cam’ron’s 2002-2005 wardrobe or an interactive Yayoi Kusama installation. Her project’s 2012 debut remains a psychoactive magic carpet ride of an LP where sentiments matter far less than the euphoria the surrounding music evokes in a listener: smeared effects bubbling out of caldrons, glistening guitars rambling along in multi-tracked splendor, reverb forever, infinite hooks. Fans of Stereolab and My Bloody Valentine might find common cause in the yearning of “I Follow You” or the sprawled elation of “Mount Hopeless.” Prochet sings with a breathy intens...
Bloc Party Relishes in Their Signature Sound on Alpha Games
When Bloc Party released their debut studio album, Silent Alarm, in 2005, it garnered the kind of praise that young, bright-eyed musicians fantasize about. Earnest comparisons to legendary acts like Blur, U2 and The Cure were just the beginning. They, alongside bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads, were considered an intricate part of indie rock’s revival in the aughts. Syncopated rhythms and feverish vocals — paired with a distinctive approach to quality craftsmanship — made for dancefloor gold. This momentum would continue with Bloc Party’s subsequent full-length albums, A Weekend in the City (2007) and Intimacy (2008). Both records were soaked in the same kind of urgency and passion as their wildly successful debut. It noticeably came to a halt on their fourth album, though, t...
One Nation Under a Stylus
Vinyl Nation, a new documentary from directors Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone, is, as the title may suggest, as much a chronicle about a growing community than it is about the medium of vinyl records. To be clear, the history of vinyl pressing, from its early market dominance to its later decline due to the advent of the compact disc, to its glorious return over the past decade — nearly 42 million records were sold in 2021(outselling CDs for the first time since 1986!) — is thoroughly covered (occasionally bordering on repetitive) by the filmmakers. The focus, however, is more on the collectors. The film opens outside the Mills Record Company in Kansas City. It’s Record Store Day, an annual celebration of independent record stores across the country, and a long line of collectors, obs...
Spiritualized Deliver an Ethereal Space Rock Album With Everything Was Beautiful
At a time when it would be understandable to pack things in, Spiritualized leader J Spaceman (Jason Pierce) found himself thriving in the past few years of isolation. As he’d walk through an eerily silent London, Spaceman found himself inspired by the world “full of birdsong and strangeness and no contrails.” The experience allowed him to create a largely self-referential record run by an overwhelming sense of urgency within the tracks. With that in mind, Spiritualized’s latest album, Everything Was Beautiful, is an homage to themselves. The album is curated like a museum, preserving the best of their sound while polishing the crucial details. Spaceman continues to fine-tune his astral pop sound with shocking consistency throughout the familiar but delightfully hypnotic space rock album. T...
The Staircase Takes a Winding Path Through the Infamous Michael Peterson Case: Review
The Pitch: It’s one of the most infamous murder cases in the 21st century: On December 9th, 2001, Kathleen Peterson (Toni Collette) was found dead at the foot of the staircase in her Durham, North Carolina home, having bled out from a suspiciously large number of head wounds. The only one home was her husband, novelist and mayoral candidate Michael Peterson (Colin Firth), who called 911 and explained through tears that she’d fallen down the stairs. But the event’s strain on the Peterson family compounds as Kathleen’s death opens up fissures between the blended family, to say nothing of the suspicion Michael faces as his wife’s possible murderer. As the trial heats up, and more secrets come out about Michael’s hidden life, the family — and the French documentary crew filming him and th...
Better Call Saul Recap: When You Can’t Run Any Further
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 3, “Rock and Hard Place.” For our recap of Episode 2, click here] Case Summary While other things happen in the third episode of Better Call Saul, “Rock and Hard Place” should be forever remembered as The Nacho Episode, for very good reason. Nacho isn’t the first series regular to perish over the course of the show’s run — that honor belongs to Chuck McGill (Michael McKean). But Michael Mando delivers a simply staggering performance in his theoretical swan song, facing a fate which might have seemed inevitable from the beginning, but is still heartbreaking to watch. Writer/director Gordon Smith delivers Nacho to his end with an episode so deliberately paced that the dread builds more and more with each de...
The Who Kick Off 2022 North American Tour in Florida: Recap + Setlist
When it comes to playing guitar, Pete Townshend makes it look easy. Noodling up and down the frets and whipping his right arm about for a round of his signature windmills, he still looks every bit the rock star who once dramatically smashed his instrument onstage in a bid to outperform Jimi Hendrix at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. “This is what I do,” boasted The Who’s mastermind at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida on Friday night (April 22nd), as he kicked into the recognizable guitar groove of the band’s “Who Are You.” It was the ninth song from a cathartic 24-song set on the first night of “The Who Hits Back!” tour (grab tickets via Ticketmaster), and the band’s first proper concert in more than two years. The setlist mirrored that of 2019’s “Moving On!” tour, and for good rea...
Nicolas Cage Is Back in a Big Way in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
There are multiple Nic Cages on display in the new meta action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: the financially struggling actor with a penchant for lavish purchases and hotel stays that would bankrupt the budget of Vermont; a less-than-attentive father who means well but is quickly losing the patience of his teenage daughter; and, above all, the artist devoted to his craft. Oh, and there’s also Nicky, the Vampire’s Kiss-era Cage who haunts the real Nic Cage, who is there to remind the thespian that he’s first and foremost a movie star. For Nicky, it’s less artsy, more fartsy. So, then, I wonder what Nicky, with his glued-on pompadour and leather jacket, would think of his flesh and blood counterpart’s newest (and welcomed return to) big screen joint? My guess is he would lo...
