Tubelord, Editors, FlashForward, True Blood & World Of Goo

Not long after I posted about not having received the Tubelord album yesterday the link turned up in my inbox. For those who are uninitiated in the wonder of the Kingston scamps they peddle a kind of jittery ADD enriched punk-pop. They buy their clothes at the same shop as Danananana(ananana)akroyd to put a metaphorical spin on it. I'm quite enjoying this new breed, they're from my generation after all. The ones who were listening to Blink 182 and Green Day when they were at school. When those bands used to be good as well, not when the colours dulled and the ballads were spun. As a thank you for pre-ordering (read paying for) the album I received an acoustic album. But the main album is pretty good to start with. "Night Of The Pencils" is exactly what punk-pop should be sounding like these days; the unpredictability of Infinity Land era Biffy and all the gang vocals and sing alongs of any of your more recent chart-botherers. The only detractor I can think of is the quality of the audio is a bit shit for me, but that may well be just my brand of headphones and speaker. I'm no expert. Anyway, listen to them, love them. Oh yeah, the acoustic album's good too. They can sing and all.

Editors seem to have been around for a while now. Although they're only now releasing their third album. Their contemporaries Bloc Party, Maximo Park and even Arctic Monkeys beat them to it. They've gone for a change of direction this time, out with Interpol in with Depeche Mode. First single "Papillion" made it seem like an inspired choice, sounding surprisingly addictive for a song so devoid of Editors' signature guitar. Although after listening to the rest of the album I'd say the result was not so inspired. In fact its a little boring. Which is the risk you take when its all monochrome clothing and rambles gloom. But all I've heard this year is records which inspire sadness and depression. There's only so much I can enjoy before it becomes an endurance. Maybe when I'm more in the mood I'll give it a proper listen but for now I'll remember the epic refrain of "Bullets". At least that sounded a little upbeat in its depressing musings.

So Flashforward has been rumbling on for a few weeks now. Rumbling is an appropriate term for it because I'm not really sure where its heading. Which I guess is part of the attraction. Its still walking the tightrope between sci-fi hokum and modern thriller. I'm not fussed either way really but I just know that I'm not going to find out for a while. Its appealing though, I'm being drawn in. The odd departure to Germany aside the drama is bubbling quite nicely. I just pray we get some kind of answer at the end of the season. I've heard ABC likes cutting good dramas short early, if they decide to end this after one season it might even be better for it. Which brings me on to True Blood, no new paragraph. This only going to be brief. Second episode was enjoyable, this is very much about the characters though as opposed to the previous. The central romance featured is starting to get a little Twilightesque (or what I think that would be like) but hopefully it will continue down a few more alleyways. Also the cliff hangers are surprisingly lame. I'll wait till next weeks to see if this one is as poor as I expect it to be.

Finally I come to World Of Goo which is celebrating its first birthday by doing a Radiohead. I paid a measly $2. I'm sorry. I'm poor. That's more than I paid for the Radiohead album mind. Anyway, its basically a little physics puzzle based around gooey blobs of smiles. The graphics are lovely, the sound endearing and the puzzles taxing. But I'm shit at puzzles. I get confused about using my keys sometimes. I've got stuck on many of the Lego games. I have no idea how to use the blind in my room, I've been here for 8 months. I digress, my point is you should buy it. Fund an indie developer a little and enjoy a great slice of left field gaming. Its more fun than Guitar Hero 2. That's for sure.

Gaming Tuesday & Noah And The Whale

My life is slowly being consumed by Fifa 10 in gaming terms. In fact maybe not just in gaming terms. Its only a matter of time before I close my eyes and Andy Gray starts waxing lyrical about how Newcastle have had a tumultuous few years. I'd go as far as saying its my game of the year so far. So far being the case in point obviously, there's a great many games still to be released and Swapgame may actually send me Arkham Asylum soon you never know. In the mean time however I'll have to enjoy Guitar Hero 2 which is what I've received this month. Its not great. Admittedly I've only played through on Easy so far, I'll have a fairer idea when I tackle it on the harder difficulties. But having no licensed songs. Well two that I've played so far, one by Primus and one by My Chemical Romance. Wonderful, right up my street. In fact the track-listing is worse than that of Guitar Hero 3 let alone the more recent releases. It'll be returned in a week I'm sure. I gave the Brutal Legend demo a whirl today as well. For someone who chose to watch Conor Oberst over Tenacious D at a festival once a game with Jack Black probably wasn't for me. But I enjoyed it somewhat, that hack 'n slash genre being an under appreciated one for me. The humour was also a nice surprise, not laugh out loud but definitely endearing. Its on the Swapgame list. I'll probably get it before Batman.

One final point, I mentioned Noah and The Whale fleeting the other day as the lesser to new band Mumford & Sons. I managed to catch Noah & co in Falmouth after a friend got me in. I enjoyed it a lot to be honest. The new material sounds good live, very sweepingly epic in places. Its a shame the mostly freshers comprised crowd only wanted to hear the one hit of "Five Years Time" which they performed begrudgingly in an encore. It may sound rather harsh, but I hope this band lose some of their fame and end up in small rooms of pubs again, because with a good crowd and the same songs it could have been an amazing experience. One to look out for if they come near you, but remember to give the rest of their stuff a chance at least. They do deserve it.

Various Titbits #2

There's been a lot of those hyped American shows lately. Like a constant stream of them. Do we blame Lost? Yeah probably. Haven't been with it for a while now though, I'm going to try and slip back into it. Anyway, True Blood is the latest in this line. Its about vampires, which makes me shiver usually in thought of the gothic HSM shit casket that is Twilight. Werewolves are now cooler than vampires because of that crap pile. Tru(e) Blood though puts a different spin on it though, with vampires coming out of the coffin because a synthesised blood equivalent has been discovered. Which puts an surprisingly sane view upon preceedings. Undoubtedly it being a product of HBO helps this and I'm thankful for it. Its refreshing to see some sci-fi kind of television that isn't completely shit (Charmed, Buffy, Angel, Supernatural - there's a great many more than those too). I'm excited about episode two, Channel 4's fantastic catch up service is also a great blessing.

I really thought that I'd enjoy Generation Kill more than True Blood being the rabid Wire fanboy that I am. But the late time-slot, the crappy stream and the same unforgiving atmosphere as The Wire made this a difficult one for me to slide into. I'll give it another go over the next few days, as its going to be worth watching for just the 8 or so episodes that it is. I guess you forget what it was like watching those first few episodes of The Wire where not much was happening and you're debating why you're there. Looking back, it seems silly that you could have ever comprehended such nonsense.

Its been a really long summer this year for me. My relative inaction was a main contributer to this I guess but television did not help my stupour. But thankfully now its Autumn and animations favoured child has returned. I refer of course not to the horrificly misjudged shit fest that is "The Cleveland Show" but of course to South Park. Starting exactly where you'd expect, they're ripping into Micheal Jackson. Only through the medium of The Sixth Sense. Now I'm guessing that this one may have been in planning for a while, MJ's fate is not fresh by South Park standards. But still, to make shows so consistently funny in such a short amount of time should be applauded. God I've missed you South Park.

Squeezed a viewing of Dead Man's Shoes. A wonderful little film, disturbing all the way through thanks to an amazing performance from Paddy Considine. Its my favourite Shane Meadows film mainly thanks to its simplicity. It gives no other impression than being a story of revenge, a simple tale just well told. I highly reccomend it, its probably one of the better films set in the north of England.

I finish of with my induction tonight into the syrup filled delight that is The Evil Dead. Inspired by the gross-out brilliance of Drag Me To Hell I thought I'd pick up this trilogy and give it a whirl. Its pretty much what I expected, disgusting, hillarious and cheap as hell. Great fun though, you can see why its garnered cult status. I'll see how quickly boredom gets induced in me these next few days to find out about the rest of the trilogy. Considering Swapgame have sent me Guitar Hero 2 instead of any of the 5 games above it on my playlist this seems likely.