“Stop all the pain. How do you stop all the pain?” Dave’s opens his debut album with an inquisition into his own mental health – and the next 51 minutes are spent encouraging the same self-evaluation from his listeners. Appending certain tracks with snippets of a therapy session, Dave leaves facetious hip-hop skits behind in […]
Sorry to Bother You – Review
If you’re still convinced the industry is stuck in an originality crisis, I’d like to grab your face and point it aggressively towards Sorry to Bother You – an urgent, shocking satire that balances wit and crushingly perceptive socioeconomic observations within one of the most original concepts of the year. Boots Riley directs Lakeith Stanfield’s […]
Review: Alt-J – REDUXER
Alt-J is back, with a dreamy reimagining of their 2017 project, RELAXER, charged with hip-hop, R&B, and escapism. Lomepal, Paigey Cakey, and Rejjie Snow are among an expansive list of features, which showcases different facets of rap, and different languages. This varied, passionate 11-track span succeeds more than it fails, but is equally intriguing and […]
Local elections who?
I’d like to start this with a confession – I didn’t vote in the recent local elections. This was not a choice born out of ignorance, but certainly came from some place of apathy. I had fully intended on voting. It was scheduled in for the evening, right after my busy day of hopping between […]
Review: Avengers – Infinity War
This is one of the most ambitious filmmaking projects of the century – partly because of how brazenly Marvel hyped it up themselves – and it’s handled with all the vision, intelligence, and finesse of masters of their craft. With a film possessing 70+ characters, it had every reason to seem over-stuffed and over-complicated, but […]
Get Out: A monster with human teeth
What Jordan Peele has created with his debut film is a product of genius; it’s a film that feels like a career-defining piece, yet has all the blindingly fresh quality of a first time effort. It is not just a genuinely creepy horror laced with social commentary; it is an impeccably balanced horror-comedy that moulds […]
Three Billboards is sorely misunderstood by its critics
Witty, poignant, and apparently controversial, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri has – since snapping up four Golden Globes and a number of BAFTAs – suddenly established a divisive place for itself in this awards season. It seems there are those of us who like it – looking at you Hollywood Foreign Press – and those among […]
Album Review: The Drums – Abysmal Thoughts
The Drums – now solely comprising of founder Jonny Pierce – have not only just released their fourth album, but have also just released their best album. I realise that’s some statement to open with, especially when their first two efforts – The Drums (2010) and Portamento (2011) – included indie favourites, ‘Let’s Go Surfing’, […]
Review: Sherlock Series 4
It feels like an eternity since we watched Sherlock put a bullet through Magnussen’s skull, and in the three-year wait, Sherlock has established its status as a revered adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle classic with a strong cult following. It is likely a combination of this lengthy wait and devoted fan following that saw […]
Review: Captain Fantastic
Viggo Mortensen vacates his post as King of Gondor to adopt the role of tough, charismatic, survivalist father Ben, who has raised his kids in an idyllic woodland setting, in the most minimalist of ways. Exercise, literature, music, socialism – this seems to be the menu for the cut-off, pure lives Ben wants his […]