Bonneville movie review (Baltimore Citypaper)

It’s easy to dismiss a film that is obviously targeted toward a specific demographic as artless and creatively bankrupt. And that may very well be a solid instinct. Yet in the case of the old-lady-road-movie Bonneville, it’s hard to find too much fault with a film that’s pandering to an audience that gets pandered to at the cineplex about once every two years. Sure Bonneville is so focus-group-approved that the first sound I heard at my Red Hat-heavy screening was a Woman of a Certain Age loudly demanding “louder, please!” But so what? Old ladies need decent movies too. If nothing else, Bonneville exceeds the Lifetime-movie expectations of Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen starring in a film about a road trip from Pocatello, Idaho to Santa Barbara … to deliver the ashes of Lange’s recently deceased husband. There are plenty of girlish good times had on the road – from late-night cold cream applications to truck-driver flirting – and some surprisingly honest discussions about grief. Of course, these all lead to Revelations About What Really Matters. While Bonneville is certainly predictable and not nearly cynical enough to be enjoyed by anyone under 30, decent performances and storytelling make it the kind of pandering that’s at least tolerable.

First appeared in the March 5, 2008 issue of Baltimore Citypaper.

Silver Mt. Zion: 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Reax)

Expanding ever-larger and ever-further away from their roots in Godspeed You Black Emperor, SMZ sounds more like a bunch of classically-trained, crusty pirate punks on 13 Blues than they ever have before. That description may not be exactly what the Montreal collective has been aiming for, but there it is anyway. With “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound,” the tone of 13 Blues is set: nearly four minutes of gently insistent vocals and sparse instrumentation gives way to an explosion of soaring crescendos built upon crashing percussion and an army of stringed instruments plucking, picking and clawing for dear life. That powertrain of dynamics doesn’t loose its grip; neither for the rest of the cut’s 15-minute duration, nor for the remainder of the album. By the time the crew is plaintively crying “I just want some action” on the second song (the 16-minute title track), the listener has experienced at least a half-dozen changes in tone, ranging from apocalyptic to meditative. All four of the tracks on 13 Blues were worked out in concert over the past two years of touring, and the effect is a more visceral sort of attack. This is what SMZ is best at, and by weaving first-person lyrical stances into their bombastic structures, they manage to be far more emotionally resonant than their more overwhelming compatriots in GSYBE.

First appeared March 2008 in Reax.

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Stuck Mojo: Southern Born Killers CD review (Creative Loafing)

Stuck Mojo is back, but Bonz is not. For many metal bands, a reunion with a different lead singer is notable, but often not a problem. But when your band is a rap-metal band, the frontman is kinda the whole point. And Bonz was an undeniably powerful and charismatic frontman. Newcomer Lord Nelson is stylistically torn between wanting to be a straightforward rapper, a funk-rock singer and a metal growler, making for a too inconsistent vocal approach. The already tenuous stylistic nature of Stuck Mojo’s current sound – which continues to forgo rap-metal clichès in favor of crunchy, riff-based heaviness – needs a strong and believable vocalist to put it across. The WCW-ready paleopatriotism on album opener “I’m American” is probably the low point musically and lyrically; however, solid tracks such as “Metal Is Dead” and “That’s When I Burn” deliver the goods. 2 stars.

First appeared in the March 5, 2008 issue of Creative Loafing.

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The Oaks: Songs for Waiting CD review (Creative Loafing)

There’s much to be made of what surrounds Songs for Waiting. There’s the story of guitarist Ryan Costello selling all his belongings and moving to Afghanistan to teach war refugees how to farm. And there’s the fact that 50 percent of the disc’s profits go to refugee efforts. Though these things are notable, it’s not what surrounds Songs for Waiting that matters; all the good will in the world can’t make up for mediocre music. Thankfully, these 10 tracks of delicate, well-crafted indie pop find the Oaks moving beyond the uninspiring blandness of Our Fathers and the Things They Left Behind and delivering a warm and occasionally epic sound. There’s a deceptively simple vibe to the Oaks’ arrangements; many songs start as simple guy-and-guitar numbers and then blossom into organic set pieces about Dietrich Bonhoeffer or, unsurprisingly, refugees and other victims of war. Thankfully, the messaging is delivered in an unearnest lyrical approach, which only serves to emphasize the uniqueness of the group’s sound. 4 stars.

First appeared in the March 5, 2008 issue of Creative Loafing.