Mumford & Sons, Volcano Choir & Deadmau5

I thought I'd have a think about what I've been listening to for the last week. I'm fairly sure all of the records are new(ish) releases but its hard to tell with Spotify. They tend to just appear with little to no fanfare. Anyway, Mumford & Sons are part of that nu-folk scene that's been cropping up from London for the past few years. Noah And The Whale, Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn; you know the score. They share a lot in common with the first in that list really, although the songs are a bit more of a bluegrass style than the straight folk pop of Noah and co. They're definitely made for big things, by that I mean of course mild indie cross-over success. The album certainly has the singles on it, "Little Lion Man", "The Cave", "Roll Away Your Stone" all have the hallmarks of quality on them. They'll be the darling of Radio 1 shortly enough.

Volcano Choir are a misleading entity. Anyone with broadband and ears should swoon with joy when anyone utters the perennial audible delight that is Bon Iver. So when hearing that Volcano Choir are a little side project of his you are not surprised when you find yourself frantically hammering the keyboard in search of "VOLCANO BON IVER" or whatever. The similarities between the two records however are few and far between. This has more in common with modern American oddity bands than the flannel-shirted musings of despair. Its an alright album, it certainly starts well and ends badly. On its own merit its enjoyable enough, but on the coat-tails of old Justin Vernon this will probably end up under-listened in most people's music library.

Something a little bit different is the Canadian knob-twiddling rodent Deadmau5. Probably the darling of the electronica scene right now or 6 months ago depending on the timing of my appearance to this party. I'm not sure if he's revolutionised dance music, but that's usually the only thing used to describe someone new in this genre. No matter what the tag line for his success is the album "For Lack Of A Better Name" is fantastic. Pretty much every track is a winner and the (possibly only on Spotify) inclusion of a mixed version of the record is a well-judged implementation. It'll get you dancing, or at least you should.

On a side note, the Tubelord album should be with me today. Its not, I'm not even sure how I'm receiving it (steady now). Oh well, tomorrow. There's always tomorrow.

The Prestige & The Invention Of Lying

Its pretty much officially Autumn now here in cold and windy Cornwall. I've taken to swanning around the house on my many free days in a dressing gown and pyjama bottoms. Like some buffoon living off an estranged ancestors inheritance. Still, its a shame I'm comfortable to live with. Cosy and warm shame. Which very tenuously leads me to The Prestige. It is very much a film for the twilight of the year, the colours are dulled somewhat and the dress code is all coats and top hats. Not that top hats are more common place in the colder months, its more a necessity of a period piece like this. The film shares the many twists and turns of Christopher Nolan's earlier classic Memento and in some ways a similar narrative structure with past and present mingling often. I enjoyed as a whole, the performances were enjoyable and the general plot interesting. There is the complaint that there is perhaps one twist too many, the ending being a little hard to stomach given the way the film progressed before. However as an Autumn warmer for the mind its not a bad choice. The use of Thom Yorke's Analyse over the credits has also stuck with me afterwards, although maybe because the film's score was so forgettable.

I had a little trip to the cinema tonight to see Ricky Gervais' latest effort. Its not often I go to the cinema. Even though the one here is an independent one, I'm sure some people have bigger screens in their houses. Its best to point out now that this film isn't bad. The main problem with it is that the basic idea doesn't really have the legs to carry it. Which is why the film is such a hit and miss affair. The plot basically revolves around the ridiculousness of religion. Lambasting God, Moses pretty much the whole deal. The only thing that escapes ridicule really is Noah and his ark. Although that one is perhaps to easy a target anyway. These scenes work well, with the old Gervais comedy shining through. The scene in which Gervais appeases the fear of his dying mother is also surprisingly touching. But there is also a fair bit of filler with more than one clichéd and boring montage and a romantic storyline that may be too sickly for some (me included). Spotting the many guest stars also proves fun, Ed Norton, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Christopher Guest, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Tambour, Jason Bateman and of course Barry from Eastenders. Admittedly some of those were in starring roles. Just wanted to make the list a bit longer though. There are worse films showing, many of them here in Cornwall but if your cinema chooses to ignore 500 Days of Summer, Adventureland and Zombieland then you're better off watching this than pre-ordering your tickets for the industry circle jerk of Jacko's freshly buried corpse.

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.

Gaming Tuesday

The first real gaming moment of my week was getting one of the 10G achievements in ODST in Firefight. What I didn't realise however is that I spent around 4 hours doing it. 4 hours! I could have watched 2 films in that time! I could have done something that wasn't so relentlessly repetitive. Still I did it, I was proud. Had to melee two hammer guys and then a rocket launcher guy in the back. It was touch and go at times. That was the last time I played ODST as well, probably for a while as well based on that experience.

I picked up Fifa 10 as well, I don't mind paying for Fifa really. It's one of the few games you know you're going to get your money's worth on. I've been playing 09 right up until when I bought this one so they've got to be doing something right. Firstly I threw myself into manager mode as Newcastle. Playing on Professional difficulty used to be too much of a challenge for me in 09 but now I found it quite rewarding to play. Although not winning every game, getting a hard earned 1-0 win against Liverpool in the FA Cup was very satisfying, all though mystifyingly losing 4-0 at home to Bristol City was not. I decided to give online a whirl as it seemed the logical thing to do really. Squeezed in four games last night, I played as Tottenham (not sure why) in all of them. First game I led 2-0 up until the 90th minute when the other player quit out. I wasn't impressed. Second game I got beaten by Arsenal very convincingly 3-0 I think. Third game, also against Arsenal, I swiped a convincing 3-1 win. I was very happy with it to say the least. The final game I got outplayed by a resolute West Ham and lost 2-0. So, apart from the sour start I found the games very rewarding and also with absolutely no lag as well. I'll need more time with it to decide if it is the best football game I've played, but I've already ploughed more time into it than I did with ODST or Riddick (sorry, gave up and sent it back). Which means they're on to a winner for me really.

Glastonbury!

Good day today, its not that Frankie Boyle has left Mock The Week. No, that's a reason why its not a perfect day really. I managed to get a ticket for next year's Glastonbury. The 40th Anniversary year as well! I am very excited to say the least. It'll have been 5 years since my first (and only) visit to Worthy Farm next year and to say the least a lot has changed. I'm not 16 anymore for a start. I can't really claim my taste in music has changed much, I remember seeing Bloc Party on the Other Stage while I was there and now five years later I'll be seeing them for the 6th or 7th time here in Cornwall at the end of the month. To make it as good as my first weekend under canvas there's a few things I'd like in no particular order.

1) No rain! It was a disaster in 05.
2) Alright traffic please!
3) LCD Soundsystem to headline the John Peel Stage maybe?
4) Radiohead on Saturday?
5) A Sunday line-up as good as the one this year.

Even 3 of those 5 would make it the best festival ever, but fingers crossed for all 5 eh? Also, picked up Fifa 10 on Friday, already deep inside getting Newcastle back in the Premiership. I'll try and have a proper mess around with it before Tuesday.

Dog Soldiers, Dexter and Family Guy

There aren't many recent horror movies about werewolves as far as I'm aware. Actually after checking the wonderfully unnecessary werewolf movies database there's been quite a few. Including this frankly fantastic description for Big Fish "An estranged son recalls his dying fathers life through the fairytale stories he told when he was a child. Excellent movie, but only a brief werewolf segment.". Anyway, Sean Pertwee is in this film so as you can expect a lot of death is going to happen, including his own. I'm not spoiling the plot, merely pointing out that Sean Pertwee never survives a whole film, he probably gets it written into his contract before every role. As far as British horror movies go this a good one, when it came out people talked about it revitalizing a dead genre, blah blah and all that. Watching it now the werewolves look pretty bad, it's either a guy in a suit or a puppet. But the film still brings up a few twists, turns and shocks along the way. It deserves the four moons it got on werewolf database.

I also managed to catch the first episode of season 4 of Dexter. Why, I'm not sure though. I spend so much time moaning about the show's flaws yet I still return like a victim of domestic abuse. I just can't walk away from it. It opens like every Dexter season opens, a miss-leading little segment about him supposedly getting ready to kill when he's not. Haw haw. That I don't mind though, what really pissed me off about the new season is two things. Firstly they've brought back Dokes, only channelled him through that buffoon Quinn who looks like he should be in The Fast And The Furious (he hasn't, been a load of shit films though). Not only that but they've taken unnecessary romance to a new high with the fat goatee'd detective and the female boss getting it on. That's not even mentioning the love triangle growing with his sister. But all these detractions aside, the new story angle so far is that "the greatest never caught serial killer" is in town and Dexter is really tired. Which actually makes for interesting viewing. I'm willing to stick with it for another season, but my word if they give the Vince guy a love interest as well I'm out. That would be a step too far.

Family Guy used to be the height of hilarity for me, but it's kind of meandered off into it's own rectum of late. Especially when South Park has actually been putting out the kind of episodes that are pretty much the closest thing to satirical perfection. So I watched the season premiere or whatever just because for 20 minutes of your life you can do a whole lot worse. King Of The Hill for example, that show is just terrible. Anyway, its another Stewie and Brian adventure. Which would have been a terrible thing back in the day but they're probably the two best characters in it these days. As you can tell my prose here is beginning to be a bit meandering but that's the general feel of the show, its not quite what it was but its still entertaining. I pretty much summed it up with there are a lot worse things to do with 20 minutes of your life, but when South Park is back they'll also be a lot better.

Gaming Tuesday (On Wednesday)

Been a quiet week's gaming for me this week. Which is not a common occurence for me, I'd go as far as saying its been under 10 hours. Which more says how much I usually squeeze into the average week. Anyway, did manage to finish ODST in that amount of time though. Which goes some way to agree with most people's sentiment that's been floating round the net. It really is too short. Although the single player is still fantastic. Its usual Halo fare, only this time from a different angle. Kind of like re-watching your favourite film to show it to a friend, they see all the little things that you take for granted in your repeated viewings. I'm aware of the stretching on that metaphor but the point is there. Playing as an ODST feels so similar to the old MC yet so different. There's the health packs although if you're good enough you won't lose your shields and you can't dual wield but I personally stopped that after Halo 2 anyway. In many ways its just a greatest hits of Halo set-pieces but who wouldn't want that? A fool that's who. Multiplayer wise Firefight is awesome, although no match-making (!) and also if you didn't already have the maps, you'd be in luck with the bonus disc. Still, its managed to distract me from Riddick (which I feel I have to complete before I can return it to get Arkham Asylum) so that counts as a thumbs up for me.

Probably a good job I posted this today as yesterday saw the release of that knee jerk piece of DLC for Left 4 Dead. Crash Course is only two chapters long (albeit action packed) for a start. This is for shortened games of Versus apparently, which I believe although I haven't got round to playing it on that mode yet. I tried to play through it online with whoever Live paired me up with. This proved a bad idea when none of us knew where we going and spent 10 minutes wandering round the the same area looking for the way through. Twice. We then got slaughtered at the finale, I can proudly say I was the last to die though. For the price of 560 points (just over £4) I'm happy to get more Left 4 Dead as its easily one of the games of the generation. Here's hoping Left 4 Dead 2 can carry on the trend.