Reviews by Time Bomb

The good news is that the figure of the rocker that clings exhausted the electric guitar to avoid drowning in a sea of ​​existential angst in here not there. In its place is a twenty year old who gets up at noon, eat junk food and play with the recorder while his girlfriend is working. And in short, the myth is replaced by a young boy and dog bones that weaves the threads of his creativity, even if the second part of the disc actually the atmosphere is more shadowy, painful. The bad news is that the disc contains no creation of singer worthy to be compared to the repertoire of Nirvana. "Montage of heck: the home recordings", in stores on November 13, is a journey in the imagination and the creative process of the leader of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain. S'accompagna perfectly to the film by Brett Morgen of which is Appendix - not coincidentally, these 31 home recordings have been selected precisely by the director whose heirs have given carte blanche. Morgen started from the songs included in the film and then break away from the traditional concept of the soundtrack and build the album as a sort of mixtape from the end of the 80s to the relationship with Courtney Love and the eve of the suicide of the singer. Purpose: To draw the best out of 200 hours of existing tapes and give the impression of being there with Cobain, while assembling its boxes.

"Montage of heck" is in every way a disc Cobain, having voluntarily excluded Morgen incisions made with the group. Private support of Nirvana and caught in the vulnerability of the household context, takes notes while sound, Cobain appears in its expressive power and with its shortcomings as a musician. It's all very approximate, but as a whole "Montage of heck" says something about the world of the singer. Comparison with similar operations recovery of demos and home recordings, I think, for example, the "Anthology" by John Lennon, "Montage of heck" is presented as a work in line with the poetry of his (involuntary) author who used to manufacture sound collages on audiotape, a conceptual framework which should serve to ennoble the album, but some versions of songs known are negligible, the unpublished barely sketched, the sound experiments of little value. Nirvana music is very far. Here is what the disc contains, song by song. There's also a standard version with 13 pieces (indicated by an asterisk).

"The yodel song" *
In practice, the quintessence of the riff of Nirvana with Kurt Cobain on guitar and acoustic accompaniment to vocals and some yodeling, hence the title. It ends with Cobain that says "This guitar seems forgotten." The tuning and intonation, you'll discover along the way, they are not actually the stronger of "Montage of heck".

"Been a son (Early Demo)" *
It resembles not so much a piece of Nirvana originally included in "Incesticide" than the version included in the box set "With the Lights Out" and recorded only by Cobain for radio KAOS Olympia in 1990. The song seems insecure and whispered to those learning a new song.

"What more can I say"
A collage electric already heard in part during the movie "Montage of heck", a draft of the song where Cobain is measured with a structure that alternates between empty and full parts so dear to Nirvana. The audio quality is poor, but there is the surprise of some sort of falsetto.

"1988 Capitol Lake Jam commercial"
A minute and a half, no music, but the parody of a radio advertisement for the small festival at the Capitol Lake Park Olympia with Soundgarden and Nirvana My Name who participated August 20, 1988.

"The happy guitar" *
An instrumental performed on acoustic guitar in an unusually relaxed, devoid of the tension that usually features performances of Cobain.

"Montage Of Kurt"
An editor of two minutes between little voices, effects, echo, concrete sounds, a song snippet.

"Beans"
A sort of joke sound: baby voice, guitar playing so elementary.

"Burn the rain"
More than a song, a way to tell how he spent his days in the apartment she shared with the singer's girlfriend Tracy Marander in Olympia. It began as a song for voice and guitar, something with feeling of "Something in the Way". Then the phone rings, Cobain stops playing and says, "Hello? No, no, it is at work. Ok ... ". End record.

"Clean up before she comes (Early Demo)" *
We are in the same apartment of Olympia. Before you leave home to go to work, Marander is usual to remember boyfriend do the cleaning. He writes a song already emerged in a slightly more elaborate version of the box set "With the lights out." However, one of the most comprehensive pieces included in "Montage". Apparently, the song was echoed by Cobain Pat Smear and Eric Elandson in a session in March 1994 in the house where he would kill himself a month later.

"Reverb experiment" *
Cobain playing with reverb and distortion of his electric guitar for three minutes.

"Montage Of Kurt II"
Another collage of little voices and noises, a kind of perverse cartoon.

"Rehash"
A riffone heavy and Cobain that mimics a metal singer before repeating obsessively "Rehash". The term also means rehash and the piece has the air of parody of who precisely rehashes the metal. Cobain did not even take the trouble to play the solos: it's called a voice, "Only!". In the final, "Rehash" becomes assonance "Smoke hash", smokes hashish. Bad sound quality.

"You can not change me / Burn my britches / Something in the way (Early Demo)" *
While "Something in the Way" was written toward the end of 1990, this medley of three songs must go back to that period. Cobain is on electric guitar and for the first two pieces he pulls out his hoarse tone, doing an imitation of himself while screaming, then move on to clash terribly in this reference of "Something in the Way". There are interesting passages, but all is far from finished. It is not even clear whether the same Cobain was playing or writing seriously ideas for new songs, or both.

"Scoff (Early Demo)" *
From what little the audio allows you to listen, rather than a demo of the song "Beach" seems a caricature of 37 seconds.

"Aberdeen"
No music, here. Just like in the movies where his words were accompanied by animations, Cobain recounts the discovery of marijuana, its wretched sex life in Aberdeen, the notorious relationship with a girl and the resulting delayed his first suicide attempt. If up to this point "Montage of heck" had the playful character of the sound collage, from this point on, the atmosphere becomes darker.

"Bright smile"
Two minutes slow electric guitar with effects and singing thin, very tall. A little experiment almost British folk.

"Underground celebritism"
A sketch of verse, not even 30 seconds recorded roughly for voice and guitar.

"Retreat"
Another instrumental acoustic guitar, a phrase repeated insistently and soon overshadowed by a string of unrest which Cobain adds some vocalization in the final.

"Desire" *
The draft of a song sung in a whisper, and frankly out of tune. It has its own charm and is seamlessly integrated into the canon of Nirvana. In this version it is slight, but it is easy to imagine arranged and recorded as electrical.

"And I love her" *
Cobain's love for the Beatles and John Lennon in particular is well known, but is nevertheless a certain effect to hear him struggling not only with a piece that is more than Paul McCartney that Lennon, a song for more shamelessly d ' love. The dedication is implied to Courtney Love, but the execution is approximate. However, the thing that, in the hard, more like a real song. It comes out on December 4 on 45s with "Sappy (Early Demo)" on the back.

"Sea Monkeys"
"Paula Abdul is a shrimp in brine," says Cobain in this story without music a minute.

"Sappy (Early Demo)" *
"And if you say your prayers, you do the happy God." Already known in the version of Nirvana in the compilation "No alternative" and in the box set "With the Lights Out", "Sappy" is made here so ghostly guitar and vocals, slow and charming. Reflects just the homely character of performance and recording.

"Letters to Frances" *
More you progress in listening, the more we have the impression to cross the life of Cobain. The boy who was playing with the tape recorder is replaced by the father. Frances is in fact the name of the daughter of the singer, born in August 1992, honored with an instrumental acoustic guitar that Cobain stumbles.

"Scream"
White noise and a scream, all repeated for 32 seconds.

"Frances Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle (Demo)" *
The dedication to the actress of Seattle, which found its perfect fulfillment in the album of 1993 "in utero", is offered here in an acoustic demo that adds nothing to our knowledge.

"Kurt ambiance"
Half a minute of ambient noise almost inaudible.

"She only lies" *
A song to make the point that if nothing else seems to complete the verse. The text seems to describe a relationship complicated (with Courtney Love?): "She does nothing but lie [...] I do not do anything but cry to make her feel guilty." Running very informal makes it a simple fact sound, but promising.

"Kurt sound collage"
Sounds of flowing water and twittering of birds.

"Poison's gone"
The attack promises an aggressive song, development ends by the parties of "Something in the Way", the finale is again bustling. After about 2 minutes the phone rings and the piece ends.

"Rhesus monkey"
A short reading starred at supersonic speed. "If I do not love myself, how do I live and love you? Questions ... questions ".

"Do Re Mi (Medley)"
One of the last things recorded by Cobain, already known in the demo of 4 minutes and a half of 1994 included in the box set "With the lights out." It is interesting not so much from the musical point of view, but for the transport that Cobain puts in the first part where his voice takes on a tone almost nasal and for the character torn and almost exhausted of the second, divided neatly by the first and evidently recorded in a ' other occasion. At the time of writing these lines have not been widely detailed notes on the origin of this and other songs of the album, but it is known that Cobain recorded the latest version of "Do Re Mi" at his home in Seattle on March 25, the day when Courtney Love, his managers, friends and a therapist organized a comparison to convince him to detox. He had just made heroin. He looked at them one by one in the eye and said, "Who the fuck are you to tell me this?".

Close your eyes. Start the first seconds of "Plastic". Welcome back to the '80s. If then the "Restless", the clock moves a bit 'forward, until the' 90s, but the world is always that of the New Order. And if you open them, and look at the cover of Peter Saville, with its distinctive graphics that marked all the productions of Manchester band, the dream is complete. The only thing is that you will awaken in all likelihood that the cover're probably seeing on a smartphone or on a computer screen, not on a vinyl or CD

New Order are back, and despite all manage to be equal to themselves, without embarrassment. Yes, without embarrassment: why Peter Hook is gone - psychodrama, if you follow a little 'the story of the music, you will know it - but that there is still unique bass sound. And even if someone else plays it, there is: it is the sound of New Order, and is a tool, not a voice. In short, not likely to make the effect of certain bands that change the singer, and the substitute sounds more like the original.
Moreover, "Complete Music" - the first solo album of the band in over 10 years, I do not exaggerate with that sound. It does not remove it, but diversified: there is also a funky bass ("People on the high line"), in others it seems also that of U2 (the phrase of "Academic").

It is read that the New Order have chosen to make a record more danceable than the rock of the last two with Peter Hook ("Get Ready" and "Waiting for the sirens 'call'). And listening to "Music full", it is true: there is more electronic - not as much as in that masterpiece of "Technique", but we are a bit 'less guitars. But that's not the point.
The point is that the New Order can write songs, they know the arrangement, they know the structure. Here nothing lasts less than five minutes, but it all sounds fresh, there is never tired. Even in the most caciaroni: especially "Tuttifrutti", with an unlikely spoke in Italian to frame the back-disco rhythms, but also the haunting "Stray dog" with a spoken almost horror of Iggy Pop. There is only one time that jars a bit ', and is the final "Superheated", which seems far too a Killers song, and not only because there is the student Brandon Flowers as a guest.

You may be wondering if the New Order are still relevant in 2015. Certainly they will not be longer as they have been in that period between the 80s and 90s, where they practically invented a genre. But who cares: after 35 years almost no artists are as relevant to the peak of his career. But if he can re-emerge from a complicated history making records like this "Complete Music" runs every doubt. Beautiful songs, which sound like them, and only them. Not enough?
TRACKLIST
Restless
Singularity
Plastic
Tutti Frutti
People on the high line
Stray dog
Academic
Nothing but a fool
Unlearn this hatred
The game
Superheated

Overseas it is the disc's most anticipated of these weeks: if we were in marketing, the operation of Ryan Adams would seize called "win-win". Everyone wins. A "Cover Album" of "1989" by Taylor Swift, a singer-songwriter rock that takes the best-selling pop album of the last year, and turns it into a tribute to the rock sound of the '80s, the ones where you did the' former country star of Reading, which instead was inspired by the synthpop of that period. The Swift is seen accredited by one of the biggest names in rock of the past 15 years (and in fact is supporting the project, saying that Ryan Adams is one of the names on which it was formed); Adams is visible outside of the niche. Listeners will appreciate the irony of Adams, and those of Swift rediscover songs you know by heart. Put us that, if the discs covers have now broken boxes, redo the entire album is something decidedly less common, and more outlandish: those reggae of Easy Star All-Stars, those crazy Flaming Lips, the "Record Club" Beck - and little else (including a tremendous version of Macy Gray d9 "Talking Book" by Stevie Wonder). It also put us Adams has wisely told live on social media. The game is over..

"1989" in the version of Ryan Adams is a record that funzona on different levels. Confirms one of the golden rules of the music: if the songs are good - and those of Swift are - work with any arrangement. Then there is the game of recognizing quotes: Ryan Adams has made an almost philological, reproducing the sounds of British rock '80s, early' 90s, peppering the songs of quotations more or less explicit. In no particular order, they feel references to Smiths (and their followers, like Gene and Sundays); Cure, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Toad The Wet Sprocket, the Pixies, REM, and the whole "college rock" of that period, the Replacements, Chris Isaak, The Psychedelic Furs, The Smithereens, 10,000 Maniacs, the Curch, and who knows how many others. In short, if you grew up in that era, it is a trip down memory lane.

Not everything works, in this album. It works well when Ryan Adams has fun, and overturns the songs: there are refinements to applause. And then you have found the most trivial, especially when Adams simply do acoustic versions of pop songs: once ok, but after a while 'playing tired.

The risk in general is that it becomes an album especially for journalists, bloggers, nerd or for fans of the genre. The fact is that - this is the last level - this version of "1989" is a good album regardless. Here it is, song by song.

"Welcome to New York"
Beat tastieroni and open the original version, with the voice with effects that comes shortly after. Ryan Adams immediately puts the record straight and takes over the song with an intro acoustic 12-string, a button down nearly by U2 and the power that comes on the chorus, and a coda with keyboards. Partly as a song by John Cougar Mellencamp - if he put the reverb on the drums, the game would be complete - and end up as one of the Church.

"Blank space"
The original version played all the rhythm built by scanning the words. Here Adams plays it safe: an acoustic guitar and voice that slows the text. On entering the final bows and keyboards. It 'the first reference to "I'm on fire" Springsteen - that will be developed to perfection in "Shake it off" - and in general the acoustic rock of that era.


"Style"
The original version was a perfect exercise in style on the sounds of pop-rock radio, between the 80s and 90s. Here Ryan Adams is a game similar to the previous song by subversion: the fast, "pump" the song with electric guitars that seem to come from Bryan Adams, rock FM radio at that time.


"Out of the woods"
The layering of the original sound (batteries, tastieroni, sampled voices and-effected) becomes a ballad reminiscent folkeggiante certain things acoustic REM of that period ("Swan Swan H" and so). It does not work, though: because the beauty was the rhythm of the words of Taylor Swift, and here instead Ryan Adams sings like a lament. Beautiful opening the tail end, reminiscent of the last melancholic Smiths - but the game is the same as "Blank space".

"All you had to do was stay"
Part with a low almost Pixies ("Gouge Away"), then enters a guitar that more can not be more than 80, in addition to the 12 strings on the chorus. In here there are so many things that it is hard to mention them all: U2, The Smiths, college rock (the last Replacements, The Smithereens ...). Beautiful version but ...

"Shake it Off"
... Not as beautiful as this. Here is Ryan Adams is to be applauded: take the infectious pop original and sounds like it's Bruce Springsteen to mid 80s. "Shake it off" seems a cover of "I'm on fire", with the rhythm made from chopsticks, the phrasing of the guitar, the voice, the keyboard a bit 'plasticky ... Brilliant. And enjoyable.

"I wish you would"
Even here, the game is repeated: the pop effect is slowed down in an acoustic version and minimal, with a guitar in the background that seems to come from the Cure "Disentegration" or something of the Psychedelic Furs. Another beautiful instrumental coda.

"Bad Blood"
Begins with an acoustic guitar to "Wonderwall" - that Adams has reinterpreted years ago, with the same method of stripping often used here. Ryan Adams turns syncopated pop mid-tempo rock almost perfect, always with the small guitar-Cure to the Smiths in the background.

"Wildest Dreams"
Another version of applause. The original was dark, almost gloomy, with keyboards and strings. Ryan Adams opens with an arpeggio guitar by Tom Petty or early REM which supports the whole song, it makes solar. The tail end with electric guitars that weave is pure class.

"How you get the girl"
Another track simplified with an acoustic guitar and voice a bit 'whiny, with some arch. Nothing of that.

"This love"
In the original, it is a ballad, one of the few quieter moments of the disc. Also here is a ballad, but almost ghostly, based on the piano, and a little 'guitar. The melody works perfectly on this basis.

"I know places"
Other small jewel: the pop syncopated takes veins westerns, with "twang" and guitars to Chris Isaak, and a couple of steps with electric guitar arpeggios to REM.

"Clean"
Electronic pop turned into pop rock textbook: this is the song that seems more "Smithsiana", with an embroidery of guitar straight out of "There Is A Light" that never goes out "- and the melody that is not too far from that masterpiece. The Smiths had to be the main inspiration of the disc, said Adams are just one of many, the most obvious here, for a record that, apart from a few moments of tired, it's fun and enjoyable regardless of the fact that it covers.

They never hid their roots, the Editors. Throughout their career they have quoted liberally Joy Division, the Television, U2, REM, the synth-pop. But they have always had the courage to change, to make it clear that it was not just one thing, only a strand. And they have always had the songs.
"In the dream", the fifth album of the band Tom Smith, once again changing the cards on the table, and does it with class - succeeding in the full game.

It 'a dark album, "Dream On", from the cover, and the first notes. Forget guitars: here are the master plan and electronics, although in a much more delicate than tastieroni of "In this light and of this evening", returning only on rare occasions such as "Life is a fear" . The beginning of "In Dreams" seems a kind of Nick Cave was born 20 years later, while "Ocean at night", with the progression, it might seem quietly a song by National.

But the more we go forward in listening to understand that these are not the New Order or Depeche Mode. They are simply the Editors, playing with sounds that build tension not only with the dramatic voice of Smith, but still using the beat from synth-pop 80s (Erasure, Yazoo, Bronksi Beat and so), but in a more minimal, along with strings and acoustic instruments.

The result is fascinating, different from what you expect from the Editors, yet very much in line with their music. Perhaps lacking hymns, epic song, those are so far always managed to put in the lineup in each disc, it was the stadium-rock of "A ton of love" (in "The wieght of Your Love"), which were the dance -pop of "You Do not Know Love".
But there it is: "In the dream" is a kind of synthesis of the soul of this band darker, and a fascinating work regardless, for writing and originality in the arrangements.
TRACKLIST
No harm
Ocean of Night
Forgiveness
Salvation
Life is a fear
The law
Our love
All the kings
At all costs
Marching orders

Maybe you thought of living in horrible country. Deluded: it is much worse. They say Pierpaolo Capovilla and its in a job that recapture the energy and powerful wild Shop of Horrors, what was missing in some songs on the album three years ago, "Brave New World". In here is the best sonic vocabulary of the band of "empire of darkness", enriched by sounds of keyboards destabilizing. Stamps are bright, strong colors, the rhythmic violent. Monstrous riffs alternated purposes rumorismi. The verses are often recited and sung choruses in the style widely tested by Pierpaolo Capovilla. Acceleration is dizzying, visceral sounds, musical phrases obsessive. Joined by new members Batelli Marcello (guitar) and Kole Laca (keyboards), who already accompanied them live, Capovilla, Jonathan Mirai (guitar), Giulio Ragno Favero (bass) and Francesco Valente (drums and percussion) Musicano twelve stories that, lined up, offering a portrait of that seems hopeless and instead calls for action. It sings the loss of these years, the feeling that all is lost, the anger in front of the wreckage. It is a hard square, hard, dark, devoid of irony. The tone is apocalyptic fury mitigated by sarcasm.

Fourth studio album of training, the most overtly political of his story, "Little Shop of Horrors" tells the harmful effects of the myth of well-being, the danger of social exclusion, the weight of the work in "useless lives" of people, the 'effect of the drugs, the 2001 G8 in Genoa, conformism, the therapeutic value of music. It takes issue with the PD of Renzi in an appeal "to politicians and militants of common sense" that the party would return to the values ​​of the Constitution. Only in the queue to the disk you get rid of the shadow of financial speculators, double agents and "fascists in uniform" to live "A day in the sun", which resembles a final positive or at least a truce. Where it comes the hyperbole takes the moral blackmail here is a picture of a model on the runway as opposed to photos of a Kurdish fighter with guns on their shoulders, here are the refugees who flee from certain death while the rest are "here to make us our cocks ". We are disinterested and indifferent, says Capovilla, and those who rebel looks like the protagonist of "Punches and supplications", a piece inspired by Antonin Artaud: "If I were God, I would make a clean sweep, but I'm not an asshole that any drunk and quarrelsome looking at you wrong at the bar and be careful, because I hurt you. " Not the alcohol to make angry, is the sense of helplessness.

When the group looked over the scene, about eight years ago, his music played with an anxiety so violent by playing grotesque. The band produced a sinister sound, a kind of noise rock hysterical crossed by a streak of madness. Stuff that was frightening. To wriggle unpredictable and turmoil the new album replaces the fervor and the sermon. Training is still capable of a tremendous impact, and the arrival of Kole Laca is a novelty item like it, but I fear that in here there is more invective than poetry, more prayer that healthy emotional upheaval. It's all established, peaceful, secure. The certainty of being champions of truth is granite, the enemy has always monstrous appearance. Never a doubt, a hesitation, a question mark. "Little Shop of Horrors" is a political map in which the company is divided into good and bad, the exploited and the exploiters. It's all black and white, when the outside world does not offer anything but infinite shades of gray.

Glam. Rude. Revelers. In a nutshell: true British rocker with the label DOCG ... this is, always, the Darkness. And even with this new "Last of our kind", from the first notes, they remain faithful to their modus operandi and their essence. Without compromise - indeed, almost exaggerating the whole thing and bringing it to a higher level.
To start with the right foot, the opener is a typical piece of hard rock taurine (but very hard, bordering dell'heavy, saw the riff) flirting with the American rock to highway, but surprises with a chorus and dark "satanizzato" with falsetto to King Diamond. Intriguing? Exactly.
And yet: how to resist to the second song, the "Open fire" from riff reminiscent shamelessly the Cult psych / tamarri and delightfully crass transition between "Love" and "Electric", in mash-up with a piece of metal in street Pure style Sunset Strip (if you have this Motley Crue of the first two discs, you know what it's about)?
The formula is not new, not upset the music scene (is there really anything that can do that now? And above all: is it necessary?), But it works 100%. Why - what that youth and inexperienced tend to underestimate or disregard - to make tamarri credible and not immediately fall into parody Bagaglino rock, takes cloth. Tanta. And thick.

Perhaps the only slight anticlimax recording with the ballad americanissima and a bit 'too parodic "Wheels of the machine", which mixes castration medieval falsetto riffs typical soundtrack of romantic films like "Top Gun" / "Dirty Dancing "; but the Darkness with a flash of unexpected throw themselves head into the vortex of the Queen sound, immediately unleashing a "Mighty wings" worthy of a jam between Thin Lizzy, Brian May and Freddie Mercury.
With "Mudslide" instead enter territory AC / DC, faced with the filter glam made in UK, for a result of rare boorishness, bordering the junk shop glam darker and fine ... in short, a gem of nostalgia vintage indisputable .
Everything goes on like this, suspended between taurine exuberance on the road and provocative glam Seventies, with touches of metal and rock adrenaline racing on the bumper of the rides of the country: the effect is pleasant, fun and - as the rock occasionally be - exhausting, disengaged.
"Last of our kind" will not change anything in terms of dynamics, balance, taste and perception of the band, but is able to give a dozen splinters rock textbook, nostalgic at the right point, well-chiselled and with a band capable of believe and make believe.
Marginal note: the sporadic presence of drummer Emily Dolan Davies - already left by Darkness, but in the studio for the session of the disc - not at all affect the result. His drumming straight, square and basic goes well with the mood of the album, which does not suffer in the least.
TRACKLIST
Barbarian
Open fire
Last of our kind
Roaring waters
Wheels of the machine
Mighty wings
Mudslide
Sarah o'Sarah
Hammer & tongs
Conquerors
Million dollar strong

Garrone's film is a feast for the eyes and mind. It draws liberally from the tradition of ancient fairy Basile and proposes a translation blazing, made solemn landscapes and disturbing, kings and courts who are living with the misery of the people, crenellated castles that stand out on the slopes oblivious of the course of time and a set of -draghi mythological creatures, orcs, witches, fleas Giants- that look like the materialization of instincts and fears of human -desideri possession, power, maternity, fear of old age, death, solitudine-. Environments that host three events -a queen sterile willing to do anything to have a child, a king obsessed with sex that falls in love with a crone of which only listens to the voice, a ruler who organizes a contest whose winner will marry his daughter- are extraordinary and so evocative that, while watching the film, I thought they were digital effects products to the computer. Instead, the film was shot between the Alcantara Gorges (a Sicilian river flowing between high walls smoothed by water), the Castle of Donnafugata in the province of Ragusa, the forest Sasseto in northern Lazio, Castel del Monte and Gioia del Colle in Puglia. In the film Garrone, beyond the grandeur of the exterior, there is nothing ethereal and metaphysical: the stories - along with the facility of the fairy tale anticachectic are carnal, raw, essential in expressing drives that dominate humans, life and death chase, touch, is with / merge, there rises to a privileged condition suddenly or lose everything. There is no sign of intent to moralizzatore- Fortuna-, but even willingness exposing the vices of the weak and the powerful. The introduction of elements of "fantasy" seems well integrated in the work of the director Roman. The opening sequence of the king who plunges nell'acque torrent armor diving in search of the sea dragon appears not only credible, but also engaging and beautiful. As well as several other passages of the film that I will not spoil. The merit of "The Tale of Tales" consists in integrated visually stunning work (with a pictorial taste and exquisite frame) with a narrative that recovers the allegorical dimension of the work of Basile and proposes an excavation on the archetypal dimensions of human nature. Daring operation, similar to that of a tightrope walker who crosses a precipice walking on a rope. An operation, in my opinion, that makes success Matteo Garrone one of the most talented Italian authors in the current landscape.

Good old days when you make a great afternoon was enough free house, the radio on, pants, shirt and sunglasses and to slip away from room to room in "Risky Business." And with the right light and no one around, even end up feeling a bit 'Tom Cruise.
But it's just a minor detail in this case, because when it comes to energy that has moved and stirred the 80s there are genres and categories that take. What made those tumultuous years, cha like it or not admit it, he never lost the power of his recall.
And all this, Brandon Flowers has paid tribute.
It is not a simple impression, but a real statement of intent that formulated with his second solo album "The Desired Effect": distill the 80 in 10 tracks and possibly bring down a tear to the more sensitive listeners. To understand it, among other things it would be enough to look at the video for "Lonely time", the second single of the disc.
The leader of Killers - no, for the umpteenth time: the band broke up, he took a break, then come back - he used the whole arsenal of music and sensory available to package a variety of fun pop-rock songs as, indeed, "Lonely time", you can more or less melancholy ballads like "Between me and you" or "Still Want You" pieces "on the road" that transform the west ring road in the most desolate of American highways, the route to go to work for the adventure of life (try with "Diggin 'up the heart").
In "The Desired Effect" is everything, it was said. So everyone will find what we want. For better or for worse. There are bursts of synth, electric guitars accompanied by drum pads or synthetic marimba used without any fear, the combination of voice / organ, double voices echo (!). In "I Can Change" is Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, in a piece that revolves around the sample of "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat. A "Can not deny my love" is not enough to be a mere means synthpop, but it gives an intro that gives a nod (and the pit of the stomach) to "Twin Peaks" and its main theme.
"The Desired Effect", the desired effect. Who knows what it is, then this desired effect. Certainly Brandon Flowers has created a successful tribute to a decade that many have lived and loved and hated in equal number. An album so therefore, while not shining for some inventive, something moves: they are memories or the simple pleasure of listening to good music; it is melancholy or terror to review the straps of their jackets widen dangerously.
Everything can be in the presence of a job well done.
TRACKLIST
Dreams come true
Can not deny my love
I can change
Still want you
Between me and you
Lonely town
Digging up the heart
Never get you right
Untangled love
The way it's Always Been

English countries call them "one trick pony" are the characteristics, those who know how to do one thing, those that have a distinctive strong, like certain animals that respond to a single command.
l Best Coast, in reality, to have two tricks. The first is to put the California, everywhere: in titles, in the atmosphere, on the covers, in the references. The second is to make a specific kind of song, and only that, to repeat: guitars and melodies solar.
The third album by the duo of Los Angeles is no exception: look at the cover, read the title, and heard "Heaven sent", the first single: a power-pop perfect, with a progression that recalls the Go-Go's, the Bangles, the jingle-jangle, and all that world of songs buried by the guitars of the '80s (Jesus & Mary Chain) and 90s (the shoegaze).
The duo's third album is a culmination of the previous ones: the walls of guitars of the first album, and the sonic clarity of "The only place". They left behind the attitude a bit 'low-fi, early, and the more rarefied atmosphere of their second album, with a partial return from the EP already marked "Fade away".
The result? In 43 minutes and broke the record, it seems often to hear the same song loop. But, contrary to what one might think, it is a good feeling. Because, as good "one trick pony", that play Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno know how to do to perfection.
When they go out a bit 'from these tracks, it is even better: "California nights" is slower and psychedelic, with its 5 minutes and passes: the best time of the album, along with "Heaven sent". But it is only a momentary diversion, because the next time you will return to the former pattern. Only the final "Wasted time" was minimal and evocative.
"California nights" is a pleasant drive, just as some pop to women known to be: a perfect listening for the arrival of warm, dreaming of California even if you are sunbathing on the new dock in Milan, or anywhere else Italy.
TRACKLIST
Feeling ok
Fine Without You
Heaven sent
In my eyes
So unaware
When will the change
Jealousy
California nights
Fading Fast
Get outta my head
Run through my head
Sleep will not ever like

Makes an impression to think that those born in the year of release of the album prior to "Sol Invictus" are today, in practice, older ... so they put Mike Patton and cronies to reassemble the files just enough to work new music. But, obviously (and thankfully!) To Faith No More long break has done well ... and a first signal is that, for the first time since 1992, the band did not change training from one disk to another . Then there is the music.

Who follows them from late eighties heard them define the different ways: alternative metal, rap metal, funk metal, experimental metal ... well, with metal adjectives dystonic, indicating an inherently rebellious spirit to the conventions of a genre; and rules / stereotypes that are imposed by accession to it.
So, from the very beginning (when there was Patton on vocals), the point was that you could not fit them. They liked to metalheads, even without being thrash, glam or classic. Liked to metalheads not without being rap, wave, pop or alternative. And everyone - especially at the beginning - they felt a little 'guilty nell'apprezzarli because it constituted a strange spot in their diets music, stuff that was hard to justify ("We care a lot" or "Introduce yourself" included in a collection of thrash and speed were not uncommon to see, in the second half of the eighties: they were guilty pleasures no small feat).

Time, history and talent, in the end, were gentlemen, making Faith No More a sort of cult band that transcends the basic rule (and penalizing) of that status: the relative obscurity and lack of fame / exposure. Cult mainstream? Maybe. And chapeau.
So how has this "Sol Invictus", the seventh round in the band's studio with headquarters in San Francisco? Be ', in the words of a famous advertising eighties ... "It looks good." Indeed, great.
Patton, Bordin, Gould, Bottum and Hudson have made Bingo and returned proud, confident, arrogant enough, but especially in great shape, assembling 10 tracks (for a total of less than 40 minutes duration) rivangano the splendor of the golden age more commercially successful of the FNM and combine them with the instinct she own band, which tends to offset, to the surprise and subversion of expectations. But be careful: this is not "The real thing pt. II "- indeed, perhaps the only song that really could be closer to the mood of the album is the single" Motherfucker "... for the rest, however, we face a band that distills, refines and amplifies (strong than thirty years' experience) its historical strengths - above all, the unpredictability.
The great thing about this album, apart from giving the pleasant sensation of finding a great band - which also could hypothetically make do with the occasional reunion show (Patton, above all, no shortage of commitments and projects to follow) - is joining the 'accessibility of the episodes most commercial of the FNM to the study, research and construction of a multi-faceted sound universe, faceted, never banal. A drive that was not easy to handle, especially after so many years, and was in danger of sinking into a jumble of self attempts.
With an album ... so we can be genuinely happy for the next 17 years abundant.
TRACKLIST
Sol Invictus
Superhero
Sunny side up
Separation anxiety
Cone of Shame
Rise of the fall
Black Friday
Motherfucker
Matador
From the dead