My Top 10 Albums of 2016 (in no particular order)

Architects – All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us

Legally, I’m probably too old to listen to Brighton’s favourite sons but Architects keep churning out quality albums so it’s hard to ignore them.  2012’s Daybreaker and 2014’s Lost Together // Lost Forever took them to what I assumed was the natural peak of their math/core sound, having wisely ditched the naïve Dillinger-isms of their first couple of records. I was wrong, as I normally am, and AOGHAU is another triumph for British metal.  Here’s hoping they keep it going after the tragic loss of founding member Tom Searle, aged only 28.

Dinosaur Jr. – Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not

J. Mascis’ slacker-grunge combo have always bothered me.  Capable of both genius singles (‘Freak Scene,’ ‘Whatever’s Col With Me,’ or the grunge-era breakthrough ‘Start Choppin’’) and dull shoegaze album tracks, they have always been patchy for me, but with Mascis’ guitar sound, never less than distinctive. Glimpse shows them consistently at their best, with some absolute tunes on show.  Driving rock riffs on ‘Goin Down’ and melancholy melodies on ‘Be A Part’, all cut through by Mascis’ massive guitar tones and sloppy-sounding but actually perfectly pitched solos.  Showing us how it’s done, and we should be grateful for it.

Bob Mould – Patch The Sky

The world’s least rock star-sounding rock star released probably the best rock album of the year.  Former Husker Du and Sugar frontman Mould has always had a knack for marrying punk riffs to glorious melodies and this record saw him produce some of his finest material in ages. Mould’s influence on my record collection is huge and it’s refreshing to hear him release a record so vital after 30-odd years of influencing other musicians to do so. With songs like ‘The End Of Things’, Mould is still showing people how it’s done.

Every Time I Die – Low Teens

I wasn’t a huge fan of 2014 album From Parts Unknown, a (relative) lack of variety married to a muted production left me feeling unsatisfied after 2012’s fine Ex-Lives, but I always have faith in the Buffalo, NY bruisers to keep the quality barometer high. Low Teens boasts everything you’d want from them: Keith Buckley’s articulate lyrical invention; a barrage of riffs; breakneck tempo changes; and more ideas than you can shake a Cancer Bats record at.  Showcasing full throttle hardcore (‘Petal’, ‘Glitches’), epic slower tunes (‘Two Summers’, ‘It Remembers’, ‘Map Change’), chugging riff machines (‘Religion Of Speed’, ‘The Coin Has A Say’) and the downright weird (‘Fear & Trembling’), Low Teens has a bit of everything and it’s all done so well.

Ginger Wildheart – Year Of The Fan Club

Currently in a career renaissance, having discovered crowdfunding, he’s now managed three fine solo albums on the bounce following 100% and Albion, and long may it continue.  Also releasing the 2^nd Hey!Hello! (bubblegum pop with added riffs) record an 3^rd Mutation (art-noise, industrial kinda stuff) record this year, South Shields’ answer to Lennon, McCartney, Kurt Cobain and that Gallagher dickhead is a busy man (and none of them wrote ‘Geordie In Wonderland’…).  Containing by far and away the best tune of the year in ‘Only Henry Rollins Can Save Us Now’, this is as varied as Ginger has ever been. The folky ‘Toxins and Tea’ and ‘The Pendine Incident’, the wistful ‘If You Find Yourself In London Town’ rubbing shoulders with multifaceted epic ‘Don’t Lose Your Tail, Girl’, which sees Ginger paying tribute to positive female influences in his life.  Any album containing the lines “in the grim North East they all laugh at least” and “ok, calm down, let’s get fucking Zen about it,” deserves to sell millions.

Kvelertak – Nattesferd

Having evolved beyond the barmy Black Metal assault of their first album, 2013’s Meir saw them experiment with 70’s stadium rock, and Nattesferd sees them go full retro.  The triple-guitar lineup allows them to layer up their sound, which works to great effect here with melodic leads cutting through riffs that could have come from early Aerosmith or KISS records.  ‘1985’ could easily have come from a Van Halen album (probably 1984) and ‘Svartmesse’ is a Scandinavian earworm.  Within two albums, these Norwegian psychopaths (don’t believe me? See them live.) have gone from blast beats to catchy choruses. Praise be to the Odinson!

Heck – Instructions

The artists formerly known as Baby Godzilla returned with a new name and the same fierce sound.  Somewhere between anything Nirvana did that wasn’t Nevermind, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, Heck are raw, furious, and full of invention.  Punchy, multi-tempo songs build to a brilliant, 16-minute album closer.  Never a dull moment. More, please.

The Fall Of Troy – Ok

Having disappeared after 2009’s In The Unlikely Event, Washington state’s own Muse-on-crack returned in triumphant fashion with Ok.  The title is misleading; far from mediocre, this shows off the full range of Thomas Erak’s extensive guitar skills and the band’s formidable rhythm section. Seemingly impossible riffs welded into catchy, unique tunes like ‘401-K’ and ‘Suck-O-Matic’ with Erak’s manic yelp and slacker croon over the top.  Also, they decided to give the album away for free, making it the year’s best bargain.

Ihsahn – Arktis

Former Emperor man Ihsahn has been churning out solo albums for several years now, and not one of them has interested me.  This, his sixth offering, might change my mind, such is the quality and variety on display.  Not a hint of the symphonic black metal with which he made his name, Arktis is eclectic, exciting collection of tunes covering several genres. Hard to pin down and hard to predict, vocally and musically this is a beautiful experience.

Black Peaks – Statues

Brighton is apparently battling Leeds for the title (given by me) of England’s Seattle, and its latest export, Black Peaks, are destined for greatness.  Part Mastodon, part Reuben (whose singer Jamie Lenman guests on one track), they were a breath of fresh air in 2016.  Downright bizarre riffs, time signatures and textures are cut through by Will Gardner’s versatile vocal delivery.  Songs like ‘Saviour’ and ‘Glass Build Castles’ were complex enough to mark them out as unique, but catchy enough to be Karrang! Radio hits.  Like Marmozets a couple of years back, this is a band with immense promise.

Gig review: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Nottingham Rock City, 21/01/17

It’s never a nice thing when a band you like decide to break up, but when The Dillinger Escape Plan’s guitarist and founder Ben Weinman announced that 2016’s Dissociation album would be their swansong, it made a strange kind of sense.  There were no petty spats, no ‘musical differences’ (read: petty spats) and no embarrassingly public fallouts; they’ve just decided that enough is enough.  Weinman’s reasons made sense: not wanting to keep doing it when people were over it; not wanting to descend into self-parody; not wanting to try to push a pretty extreme band for longer than age would allow.  They wanted to leave dead horses unflogged and I respected that, even though I didn’t really like it.

Cruelly avoiding Newcastle on their farewell tour, we piled into a car and headed to Nottingham’s fine Rock City venue to see them off.  Hard to pigeonhole, Dillinger have had several labels thrown at them and have done their best to avoid them all: math-core, math-metal, metal-core, and whatever other hybrid terms lazy hacks could muster.  At times nodding to the likes of Nine Inch Nails or Faith No More as much as their whatever-core predecessors Botch and Coalesce, Dillinger simply sound like Dillinger.

I’m pleasantly surprised to see that Rock City, while not filled to capacity, is respectably busy for a band that isn’t exactly easy on the ears.  Apparently preferring Jack Daniels to support bands, we managed to miss one and a half of the supports and arrive midway through Ho99o9’s (pronounced ‘Horror’, apparently) set.  A live drummer and no other instruments that I could see, they were basically two guys stomping around the stage and shouting.  Wikipedia lists them as ‘experimental hip hop’ and when was Wikipedia ever been wrong?  The dense, mostly-bass noise that accompanies the vocals was pretty cool, it’s just a shame that they didn’t bring anyone with them to play it live, and it did get a little repetitive after a while.  Call me old fashioned, but that’s just cheating.

Dillinger, fronted by the impossibly ripped Greg Puciato, walk on to minimal lightshow or fuss and kick into recent single ‘Limerent Death’.  The rolling riff gives way to some NIN-like quiet moments before the accelerating tempo of the ending and some frankly savage screams from Puciato.  ‘Panasonic Youth’ is next, showcasing the breakneck tempo changes and baffling time signatures that make them such a unique prospect.

Puciato has developed into a fine frontman (hard going, since he technically replaced Mike Patton in the band) with a versatile range, which he shows off effortlessly tonight (how many of these [blank]-core bands have the drummer do the clean vocals because the singer can’t?).  Capable of a controlled falsetto, a fierce scream, and a distinctive clean vocal, he’s a ball of energy on stage.  In fact, it’s exhausting just watching them, such is the intensity of the show.  Weinman is a hyperactive presence (probably reflected in his writing style), seemingly unable to play a full song without mounting an amplifier or launching himself across the stage.  Not missing a single note while doing it, by the way.

The set draws from their 20-year career, with 5 songs pulled from Dissociation, and a good selection from the rest.  ‘Milk Lizard’ brings a dirty groove, ‘Black Bubblegum’ and ‘When I Lost My Bet’ are all stop-start rhythms and weird tempos, and the dynamic ‘One Of Us Is The Killer’ is the closest thing they’ll do to a conventional song.  Of their signature skittering ‘math’ songs, ‘Sunshine The Werewolf’ and ‘Farewell, Mona Lisa’ stand out as excellent songs as well as absolute monsters.

They slow it down with the piano-led ‘Mouths Of Ghosts’ before destroying the place with a final rendition of older tune ‘43% Burnt’.

It’s impressive enough that they can even remember such complex, fast and technical songs, but to be so tight and together live shows just what and exceptional band we’re losing.  They’re incredible tonight and as the crowd streams out I don’t think any of us will really appreciate how special they were until later.  Sure, we still have bands like Norma Jean, Car Bomb, Heck, Candiria and (presumably) Converge but good as they are none of them quite have what Dillinger had.

And here’s me already referring to them in the past tense.  Shit.

Citizen Jobs: some thoughts on the "best film ever made"

  

Bloggers, internet critics and also people who actually know what they’re talking about often cite Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) as the greatest film ever made.  Critics, amateur or otherwise, often seem a bit stuck in their ways and nobody has ever been bold enough to suggest that the world, in the ensuing 76 years, has created anything to take its mantle.  Let’s look at a few examples: 2001? Nah: they never take sci-fi seriously.  The Lives Of Others? Nah: they’d never give the title to a foreign-language film. Annie Hall? Nah: they’d never take comedy seriously (really, Adam? Really?).  Avengers Assemble? Well…

Personally, I think there are a few films that I would seriously consider bumping ahead of it on the list: The Godfather (1 or 2), Casablanca, It’s A Wonderful Life, Singin’ In The Rain, 2001, Sunset Boulevard.  The best film ever should be entertaining as well as well made, and in the words of Family Guy, “I just saved you two long, boobless hours” by telling you that Kane’s Rosebud is the name of his childhood sled.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not looking for a favourite film here (The Graduate, thanks for asking, although I do have a Top 5), but one that would be seriously considered the best.  This raises the question of criteria: what makes Citizen Kane the best, and what are we looking for in a contender?

Kane is often lauded, and rightly so, for the following: visual style (use of deep focus, Welles’ command of framing); narrative structure (told out of sequence, largely in flashback, and from multiple perspectives, which may not be entirely reliable); a towering central performance from Welles, unofficially playing newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst as a narcissistic tyrant; themes of the corrupting, dehumanizing influence of power and money, and a portrait of a man with immense cultural influence.

Perhaps we haven’t lauded another best film of all time because it was made in a more innocent time; Kane did technical things with film form and narrative structure that had not been done before so it perhaps gets extra points for originality?  Maybe we just haven’t had a film worthy of the title since.

Well I have a contender, if not a title challenger.  Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic is unlikely to be remembered as a ‘best film of all time’ but for me, it ticks all the boxes Kane receives so much credit for inventing.

A visual box of tricks since Shallow Grave, Boyle pulls rabbit out of rabbit out of his virtuoso hat (or should that be ipods out of a roll neck jumper?) to make kinetic and fresh a story that is still in the public consciousness.  Apple’s hits and misses are projected along corridors as characters walk along them; leads Fassbender, Winslet and Catherine Waterston are shot in seemingly impossible reflections in dressing room mirrors as Boyle’s camera dances around them; his shot choices are brilliant, making one-room scenes of people arguing utterly thrilling in a way not seen since 12 Angry Men.  Best of all, though, is a sombre boardroom scene; under lit, with the downpour outside projected in the unlikeliest of places within, it’s a masterful piece of pathetic fallacy.

You’ve all seen biopics, right? They follow a pretty standard format, right? We first see famous person on the eve of a big event, reflecting on their past.  We’re then taken back to see their childhood, fledgling talent, early success, and then the fame years when it all goes to their heads and they alienate their loved ones in a haze of ego and addiction, before final redemption.  It ends with said big event showing that they’ve still got it!  Seen that film once or twice?  Steve Jobs eschews such formula in favour of staging the entire film backstage at three product launches, spanning 14 years.  We see Jobs at various stages of success and relative failure, and his story is told via his relationships to Apple programmer Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) and CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), as well as his sisterly marketing exec Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet).  This allows Boyle to put a huge amount of faith in his audience to follow what’s been happening in the interim and be playful with exposition, and play on Jobs’ incalculable self-belief in the face of good and bad times.

Best of all, though, is that Jobs’ story is grounded by his relationship to ex-partner Chrisann Brennan (Waterston) and the little girl that Jobs denies is their child.  This gives what culd be a very dull story about a computer company a very human and emotional core, and the moments where Jobs opens up to her, breaking his aloof veneer to become a real person for a little while, are truly special.  A biopic, then, that is unconcerned with a start, middle, and end, and while chronological, certainly unconventional.

Written by the peerless Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs is relentlessly paced, with quips and put downs to rival His Girl Friday in its acerbic wit: when challenged on what Jobs actually did for Apple, his priceless response was that he “plays the orchestra”.  Fassbender’s performance as Jobs is not the showy fare that wins Oscars, but has the relentless energy one would expect from a man whose cultural legacy, for better or worse, has changed the world.  While neither a character assassination nor a puff piece, Jobs himself does not come off as a nice man – in his own words, “poorly made” - rather a borderline-Autistic, single-minded man who upsets those who care about him in pursuit of a goal.  Few actors could bring and sustain such energy while still delivering the emotional beats.  As Welles was unafraid to show his Kane as both young idealist and embittered old tyrant, Fassbender plays Jobs at his worst, and as human as he could be.

Steve Jobs even has its own ‘Rosebud’ moment, which is wonderfully underplayed by Boyle.  In a final emotional reveal from Jobs, we find out that he in fact kept and cherished the drawing his daughter did on a prototype Macintosh, despite denying his paternity all along.  Furthermore, the drawing bears a striking resemblance to the design of Jobs’ piece de resistance, the iMac.  We find out, as his daughter does, that he has cared all along.

I doubt for one second that Steve Jobs will ever come up in a conversation about the best film ever made, but when that discussion comes up, even if it’s blogged using a Mac (this wasn’t, by the way), please remember that Danny Boyle’s films does everything Kane does, and better in some places.  So does Kane get extra points for getting there first? Has Boyle, and everyone else since Orson Welles, simply set their camera running on the shoulders of giants?  I’m going to have a listen to my iPod while I decide.

Mission: Imposspielberg, Vol. 5 - Making Lists and Running Away

With the making of both Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, 1993 turned out to be a pretty good year for Spielberg.  Having poked fun at Nazis in the Indiana Jones films, (what better expendable henchman than those responsible for the holocaust?) and 1941, he decided that the subject required a more serious approach.  Adapting Thomas Keneally’s novel Schindler’s Ark, this was clearly as personal a project as Spielberg had undertaken and a chance to tell a story close to his Jewish heritage.  Schindler’s List is also the first of his moral man in an immoral time films, a loose theme he would revisit with Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Lincoln and Bridge Of Spies: the world is going to shit, and somebody has to do the right thing.

For a film set in an ugly time, it’s a beautiful film to watch.  His visual flourishes are nothing short of beautiful at times and his framing, establishing the shifting power relationships between Schindler (Liam Neeson) and Stern (Ben Kingsley – the real hero here) is masterful.  The (mostly) black and while photography adds a certain credibility and a sombre, serious tone.  The few flourishes of colour (some candles, that girl in the red coat), while once hugely effective now seem somehow clichéd and manipulative. 

To cover the bad aspects first, Schindler’s List is an incredibly manipulative film. An argument levelled at Spielberg throughout most of his career; that he pretty much tells you how to feel at all times, is powerfully at play here.  And while you shouldn’t need any encouragement to feel awful that the holocaust happened, and filled with happiness that somebody saved a lot of lives right under Nazi noses, Spielberg telegraphs your emotions right the way through.  Indeed, the closing scenes, including Schindler’s tearful breakdown and the frankly implausible scene where defeated Nazi guards decide to bugger off from duty on hearing the news that Germany has surrendered and a speech from Schindler, are both the most deliberately affecting and least realistic.  And while the film makes clear that Schindler’s intentions were initially to make money from the war, he is never really condemned as a war profiteer, adulterer, nor a member of the Nazi party.

What largely keeps the mammoth running time bearable is the quality of the performances on offer.  Liam Neeson, pre-endless wise mentor roles, pre-pre-endless ageing hard man roles, is imperious and makes Schindler powerful, commanding, and determined even as his motives shift throughout.  Ralph Fiennes’ Amon Geoth is a world class shit and could easily have been a pantomime villain in the hands of a lesser actor.  Fiennes’ psychotic beleaguered Nazi commander makes Voldemort look like Hagrid but Fiennes imbues him with a beleaguered, weary realism to a man who randomly shoots prisoners before breakfast; a psychopath, but one under orders from bigger psychopaths.  Best of all, though, is Ben Kingsley’s Itzhak Stern, who brings a quiet humanity to balance Neeson’s grandstanding and Fiennes’ misanthropy.

This is a fine achievement from Spielberg; bottling one of history’s worst atrocities, perhaps too great to comprehend, into a story about one man who did what was in his power about it.  That it gets dewy-eyed is perhaps understandable, given the horrors on display and the director’s personal connection. The whitewashing of Schindler himself is perhaps also understandable given the villainy on display elsewhere and Spielberg’s need for a hero.  The question remains whether such an awful period of history can, or even should, be distilled into a story about one man’s heroic endeavours.  It also makes one wonder how Stanley Kubrick’s aborted Holocaust film, The Aryan Papers, would have handled the subject.  He is said to have expressed relief at not having to go through with it after Spielberg got there first.

Probably needing a rest after such endeavours, Spielberg’s next film would not emerge until 1997, with The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  Taking another Michael Crichton novel, which Spielberg convinced him to write, and jettisoning much of the plot, this ranks among the worst of Spielberg’s films (it’s no 1941, but it’s certainly no Raiders Of The Lost Ark).  A massive fan of the first film, I probably rushed to see this on release.  But with the addition of 20 years’ worth of critical faculties, I can only now see that this is more turkey than T-Rex.

Taking Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm and stripping him of his sardonic wit (and therefore everything that made him interesting), The Lost World throws him onto the island InGen used to breed the dinosaurs for the first Jurassic Park, where he has to save the child he neglected to mention in the first film, and Julianne Moore’s kind of dull scientist ex-Mrs Malcolm.  The 2^nd island concept is good, throwing in an element of the unknown and uncontrolled and playing on the audience’s prior knowledge, but there characters on display are so thinly drawn that we don’t really care what happens to them.  The child, ex-girlfriend and Vince Vaughn’s pointless Greenpeace-type activist are there to a) add peril and b) complete Spielberg’s blueprint faux-family unit.  There was a game keeper in the first film; here, we have an entire hunting party led by Pete Postlethwaite’s (admittedly quite good) Roland Tembo.  As with, say, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, the problem is that none of the characters are sketched out well enough to make us care about them, thus reducing them to raptor food.  Even walking hard-on Ian Malcolm feels like he’s been castrated by concern for his progeny, although Goldblum tries his best.

Structurally, the film suffers as well.  After a rushed introduction to the island, shorn of the sense of awe captured so well in the original, we endure set piece after set piece until just about everyone is dead.  One of these, a literal ciffhanger with a thin pane of glass between Julianne Moore and a watery grave, is actually very good, but the rest of them leave your senses dulled by death after bloody death.  The climax, clearly influenced by King Kong, feels tacked on, with only a few Spielberg gracenotes (T-Rex in a back yard etc.) to save it.  Spielberg’s visual flair is rarely on display, with only the ‘raptors in the long grass’ scene really showcasing his knack for suspense.

The Lost World sorely misses the grounded charisma of Sam Neill, tenacity of Laura Dern, and even the pantomime villainy of Wayne Knight’s Nedry or Martin Ferrero’s slimy lawyer Gennaro.  The best it can muster is Arliss Howard’s Peter Ludlow, whose Mayor-from-Jaws archetype company man isn’t even dislikeable enough for us to care when he’s eaten.  He’s supposed to be Richard Attenborough’s nephew and heir, and Attenborough’s relegation to brief exposition-vendor is an insult to both him and the first film.

To try to figure out why The Lost World fails so badly, you have to look at the first film.  The park was supposed to be a full of fun and wonder, the characters themselves full of awe when they first saw a dino, as was the audience.  When paradise turns into a nightmare, it’s surprising and frightening.  Here, both characters and audience are told that the island is going to be a nightmare from the very start.  That is turns out to be exactly that leaves the whole endeavour somewhat flat and unsurprising. 

Spielberg is capable of so much better, and on the evidence of this, he knew it from the start.