• Anomalisa

    March 23, 2016 - By 

    The line you’re going to read a lot about Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman’s second film as writer-director, is ‘fake but real’. A stop-motion animation that’s nonetheless bursting with humanity. This is a fair assessment; like Kaufman’s work with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Synecdoche, New York, it’s a technically idiosyncratic look at very complicated emotional experiences, approached with curiousity and compassion. But this undersells just how stiflingly artificial the atmosphere of the film is; how deeply, deeply unreal the perspective of its protagonist feels. From the get-go, as the lonely customer service specialist Michael Stone drifts through the usual travel rituals – flight,…

  • Battles w/ Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith @ The Button Factory, Dublin

    March 24, 2016 - By 

    The Button Factory plays host to the first night of Battles’ European Spring tour tonight, in support of their latest album La Di Da Di. Having sold out not too long after it was announced last year, the desire for the trio’s return to Dublin is immense. Tonight’s sole support, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith takes to the stage first with an impressive array of synths, sequencers, connective wires and blinking lights, evocative of a young Delia Derbyshire at the BBC radiophonic workshop. She begins with a series of robotic loops, which advances into Laurie Anderson territory as she distorts her vocals through…

  • Lego Marvel Avengers (Warner Bros., Multiformat)

    March 23, 2016 - By 

    … in which a giant of videogames and a giant of cinema join forces and bring about the destruction of the known world. Or something like that. It is frightening to think just how many of these titles Traveller’s Tales have cranked out to date and how many they will no doubt continue to crank out in the future. It is not surprising, really, given not only how hot a property Lego is at the moment but also just how enormous the Marvel fan-base has become in the past five years. The problem, however, is that reviewing a new Lego…

  • Solar Bears @ Lavery’s, Belfast

    March 21, 2016 - By 

    Gigantic at Lavery’s is a Belfast institution. For over a decade now it’s been a valuable club night for those of us who would rather spend a Friday night dancing to LCD Soundsystem or The Juan MacLean over the more typically pedestrian fare on offer in most clubs of a weekend. It’s also been refreshing for its tendency over the years to play material by local artists alongside the usual international acts, so the recent monthly gig nights at the club have been an inspired move. Not to mention, with music industry release dates now standardised to Fridays on both…

  • Underworld – Barbara, Barbara, We Face a Shining Future

    March 21, 2016 - By 

    “Barbara, Barbara, we face a shining future”; these were some of the final words spoken by Underworld frontman Karl Hyde’s father to his anguished wife on his deathbed. It’s a simple, yet beautiful phrase brimming with melancholic hope. Underworld’s decision use this as the title of their ninth studio LP, their first in sixth years, makes a great deal of sense as it not only works as a tribute to Hyde’s father but also as the rosetta stone to understanding the whole disc. Every song on the record has this genuine sense of foreboding and menace, manifested in the form…

  • Reverberation Psych Fest Launch @ Grand Social, Dublin

    March 18, 2016 - By 

    Following on from its well received debut last August, the announcement that a second Reverberation Festival is scheduled to take place next month, was music to the ears of the ever growing Irish Psych loving fraternity. In anticipation of the festival, the inaugural appearance of Holy Wave to Dublin, is billed as the event’s official launch party. First up is This Other Kingdom, a four piece who play a mix of bombinate-esque shoegaze fused with psychedelia that can draw you in their world so effortlessly, it’s hard not to be converted there and then. Just picture The Black Angels fronted…

  • Mick Flannery w/ Lee Southall & Only Child @ Leaf Tea Shop, Liverpool

    March 18, 2016 - By 

      Only Child, in the form of Alan O’Hare brings me a great deal of joy. There’s nothing in the world like a scouse lad getting angry about the state of the world, inept politicians and the deep divide between people and cultures. Alan brings all that and more with a healthy dose of sentimentality and love, the true talent of a poet brought to bear. The number 86 bus from Penny Lane is not a spectacular journey but one that sparked memories of countless trips into town for Alan, such a trip your reviewer took not half an hour…

  • Lust for Youth – Compassion

    March 15, 2016 - By 

    On Lust For Youth’s breakthrough LPs, 2012’s Growing Seeds and 2013’s Perfect View, the band made music that sounded like a normal dance record left to warp and decay for a few years inside a nuclear reactor for a few years. There were beats and melodies, but they were pushed deep beneath fog and murk and cloaked in nausea and sick tension, with only a few ghostly hints at the music as we normally hear it appearing from time to time. It was concrete cold and frontman/ mastermind Hannes Norrvide’s ability to make something that sounded so alien to the…

  • Dead Stars – Bright Colors

    March 14, 2016 - By 

    A four note, staccato bass opening can’t help but throw you head first into Pixies territory. That niche was so intricately carved that even gesturing towards its opens up the floodgates to a whole host of connotations and comparisons that the majority of bands who do so buckle under. But Dead Stars opt to do so on the inaugural track of their second LP, Bright Colors, and you can see why. It’s a fitting place to begin, the group’s sound is entirely indebted to Frank Black as well as Evan Dando, Rivers Cuomo and Fountains of Wayne. There are shifting…

  • The Bonnevilles – Arrow Pierce My Heart

    March 13, 2016 - By 

    One word that is regularly attributed to bands that fall under the rock ’n’ roll, blues or garage-punk monikers is ‘raw’. By that I mean there is more often than not a pure and unadulterated rawness or dirtiness, as it were, related to an artist’s playing style that it can be classified as such. When it comes to Lurgan duo The Bonnevilles’ latest album Arrow Pierce My Heart, it is clear as day this term can be used when pinpointing their homage to these genres. Andrew McGibbon Jnr. and Chris McMullan have come out swinging on what is their third…