• The XX – I See You

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    The XX are a band that harness negative space within music to create an atmosphere so chillingly retrospective that in most cases it need only be listened to underneath moonlight. The trio slid anxiously into the industry with their debut, XX, an album that, unbeknownst to them, would become an international success. The suave blend of spacious indie-electronic beats provided by Jamie (xx) Smith and the minimal vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim proved them to be the perfect vessel for conveying the vernacular of heartbreak and loss. Following this was 2012’s Coexist, an even more stripped back, sparsely…

  • David Bowie – No Plan

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said Final Sentence of Franz Kafka’s The Castle History is littered with the infinite possibilities teased at within the unfinished work of great artists who died before their time. Think of Elliott Smith’s From A Basement On A Hill, David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King or George Sluizer’s Dark Blood; all released in an awkwardly assembled form, stitched together from whatever fragments the artist had left behind. While they vary wildly…

  • Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3

    January 10, 2017 - By 

    By releasing their fiercely political – and wickedly funny –  sophomore record Run The Jewels 2 at the end of 2014, MCs Killer Mike and El-P couldn’t have picked a better time to explode into the mainstream. Having kicked around just outside the rap mainstream for as well-respected solo artists during the 2000s, their 2012 joint tour lead to Run The Jewel’s self-titled debut the following year, although it’s party vibe gave little warning for it’s hard-nosed successor: El-P’s production rattled with the same intensity of The Bomb Squad, while Killer Mike spat angry truths about racism and social equality…

  • Gone Is Gone – Echolocation

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    There are three Ts at the heart of Gone Is Gone: Tony Hajjar, Troy Van Leeuwen, and Troy Sanders. For the uninitiated, that roughly translates to At The Drive-In, Queens Of The Stone Age and Mastodon occupying the same aural space. That’s the kind of lineup that makes a certain type of music fan’s eyes bulge out like a Looney Toons Character. It’s the stuff that dark, metal-inflected dreams are made of. Add to this trio multi-instrumentalist Mike Zarin and you’ve got the recipe for dark magic. Unfortunately, while their debut LP, Echolocation, has this threads and whispered hints of…

  • Dead Rising 4 (Capcom, PC / Xbox One)

    January 5, 2017 - By 

    Nothing says knockabout fun like a zombie apocalypse! As unlikely as it might seem, this wilfully silly premise informs Capcom’s sequel, in which the hapless hero Frank West is once again drawn back to the fictional city of Williamette, which, for reasons too perfunctory to repeat here, has once again been overrun by the undead. Only one man, it seems, is capable of rerouting zombiegeddon, and that man is a jobbing photojournalist with more pithy quips than Ash Williams. There are several things that Dead Rising 4 gets right. Firstly, the sheer number of the slobbering, groaning, shambling onscreen at…

  • Nine Inch Nails – Not The Actual Events

    January 3, 2017 - By 

    It’s not unlike Nine Inch Nails to blindside you. The release structure for albums like The Slip and the Ghosts series have been very much an ad hoc affair and their latest, Not The Actual Events, is no different. The record, announced with the introduction of new full-time member Atticus Ross, owes a great deal to NIN’s past as well as Reznor and Ross’s soundtrack work over the last decade. While the EP isn’t groundbreaking, it’s been a welcome Christmas treat or long time fans. Proceedings blast off with the incendiary ‘Branches/Bones’ and it’s as though the last ten years…

  • Dishonored 2 (Bethesda Softworks, Multiformat)

    December 29, 2016 - By 

    Freedom. Many videogames claim to offer it yet few actually deliver it. Sure, designers have figured out ingenious ways of presenting the illusion of freedom, as the folk behind this year’s debacle of No Man’s Sky learnt to their great cost. The PR machine behind the release of that game promised millions of planets to explore, almost infinite species to discover, countless resources to gather, all of which were supposed to add up to billions – yes, billions – of hours of gameplay. This is pure silliness of course. Not even Peter “Insania” Andre would believe such an outlandish claim.…

  • Rusangano Family w/ Bantum @ Dolans Warehouse, Limerick

    December 29, 2016 - By 

    To label this piece as a concert or gig review would be a disservice. This was not a simple performance, but in fact a stunning political rally, challenging all conflicts and controversies that arose from the wretched 2016. It’s hypnotic to watch a crowd, lined wall to wall of Dolan’s Warehouse, chanting and raving to these ballads of change. But however mesmerising the sights of the crowd were,  taking place on stage was an even more enthralling show of shouting and a dance of rhythmic stumbling, begging you to question how their throats could withstand such passion, or their limbs…

  • Collateral Beauty

    December 21, 2016 - By 

    Like a sharp boot to the arse on your way out the door, David Frankel’s Collateral Beauty closes a miserable, baffling year with a miserable, baffling Christmas Carol, a clump of holiday treacle so toxic they should hand out hazmat suits with the tickets. Will Smith stars as Howard, one of those charismatic marketing guru types who misinterprets selling products as a noble creative calling. It’s been two years since the death of his daughter, and he hangs around the office in a solemn, silent funk, ignoring important company business and building elaborate domino displays, only to dramatically topple them…

  • Watch Dogs 2 (Ubisoft, Multiformat)

    December 20, 2016 - By 

    Possible responses to a question about computer hacking: 1)    Love it, bae! I stole my dad’s password on Amazon and I ordered the new Maroon 5 album without him knowing. Hacking FTW!!! 2)    Are you trying to arp poison my LAN? 3)    Derp. Derp. Derp? Derp. 4)    Pool’s closed. If none of the previous phrases make any sense to you – and why would they? – then you are most likely to be bamboozled by Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft’s sequel of sorts to its open-world hack-‘em-up from two years ago. Although widely vaunted during its long gestation in development limbo,…