SPOILER ALERT

“The Good Place” is a story-driven show with plenty to spoil for those who haven’t caught up. If you haven’t watched the first season, it is highly recommended you do so before reading the review below.

Michael Schur is running the best show on television.

Sure, that’s a gauntlet-throw. But is it really unexpected? Schur’s as prolific as they come; he wrote for “The Office” and helped create “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Parks & Recreation.” The latter was one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the past decade. It was only a matter of time until Schur — master of the network sitcom — created his magnum opus.

He appears to have done so with “The Good Place,” a half-hour comedy on NBC that manages to squeeze morality and a meta-discussion of censorship into a format usually reserved for laugh tracks. The story follows Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a thirty-something who dies and wakes up in the afterlife: the “Good Place.” It turns out heaven looks a lot like a quaint neighborhood in a Los Angeles suburb, but that’s besides the point. As the audience discovers almost immediately, Eleanor has been misplaced. Through an otherworldly clerical error, she swapped places in the afterlife with a different, “better” Eleanor Shellstrop who died at the exact same moment.

The show’s first season detailed her struggle to become “good” and earn her place in paradise with the help of her soulmate, Chidi, a professor of ethics. It’s a perfect setup for a serialized program, especially since there were underlying mysteries scattered throughout the first 13 episodes regarding the “goodness” of heaven’s other residents. In between laughs — many generated by Ted Danson as Michael, the angelic architect behind Eleanor’s neighborhood — were unanswered questions.

And then Schur hoodwinked us all. The Good Place is, in fact, the Bad Place. The revelation that Michael is actually a demon who designed the neighborhood to verbally torture the four main characters for 1000 years was one of modern television’s great twists, made better by Danson’s shift from loveable idiot to scheming villain. His laugh is nothing short of genius. And it proved that Schur, who reportedly sought “Lost” showrunner Damon Lindelof’s advice while writing the show, could orchestrate a longer story.

The looming question heading into the second season: “What now?”

If the premiere is any indication, the answer is to double down on being meta. Now that the curtain’s pulled back, Michael takes center stage. He’s in hot water with his boss Shawn (played with beautiful dryness by Marc Evan Jackson), who threatens to tell upper management about his failure if Michael slips up again. Meanwhile the other demons just want to rip limbs like normal. Michael has one last chance to make his vision work.

“Take Two,” as Michael calls it, has some small modifications. The welcoming inscription at the neighborhood’s entrance (“Everything is fine.”) now has a small twinge of desperation (“Everything is great!”). Michael’s separated his victims at the start so they can ease into their torture. Eleanor and her cohorts are in the dark.

But in another surprise, they figure it out by the end of the very first episode and send Michael back to square one. We’re on to “Take Three”, and where the show goes from here is impossible to guess. Not even HBO’s “Westworld” could keep audiences this unbalanced.

Somehow, Michael has to make this work while hiding his failures from his boss. Schur has brilliantly managed to make him a bad guy and keep viewers invested in his character. Somehow it’s easy to want him to succeed at creating Eleanor and Chidi’s worst nightmare.

Credit the writers, and the contradictions at the show’s core. “The Good Place” is about bad people trying to be good, and how impossible that may be. And even when Everything ISN’T Great, it’s sure to keep audiences laughing along the way.

Follow Dana Alston on Twitter @alstondalston.

The post Review: The Good Place continues its streak of greatness in its second season premiere appeared first on Emerald Media.

It was a year ago, partway through my bi-weekly Panda Express feast, when I considered ditching my plate of kung pao chicken and cooking for myself on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong; Panda hadn’t lost its sweet-yet-spicy muster just yet, and it would be weeks until I gave up Joe’s Burgers. But the fact was I’d had too much fast food throughout my college career. Approaching the Subway counter was routine and the workers at Chipotle recognized me from at least 20 feet away. My rate of unhealthy calorie consumption was beginning to get embarrassing.

This will also be my fourth year in college and dorm food is far from a possibility. If I didn’t start cooking soon, “better late than never” would be long gone. Thus, I thrust myself into the culinary world this summer, spatula first.

How does one jump-start a career in the kitchen? I started by binging “Cutthroat Kitchen” and studying it like a practice final exam. For those unfamiliar, “Cutthroat” is a show that places four chefs in a cooking competition and sabotages their supplies by replacing ingredients or utensils with impossibly difficult substitutes. Most people watch it for entertainment. I was searching for knowledge. Watching professional cooks make ice cream in a cement mixer was hilarious but also inspiring; if they could pull that off, I could make anything I wanted.

For my first recipe, I went with a humble box of mac ‘n’ cheese — you can’t go wrong with Kraft. Simple, right? Wrong. Sure, I boiled the macaroni correctly. But for reasons beyond my current understanding, I ignored the packet of powdery cheese and dumped the noodles into a milky, buttery sauce pan. It was five minutes into my meal when I realized my mac ‘n’ cheese completely lacked cheese.

Not an awesome start.

Maybe the occasional cooking show wasn’t the best form of instruction. I had other resources available that I had ignored. My parents gifted me a cookbook at least 1,000 pages long, but it was more daunting than a film theory textbook. Luckily the geniuses over at Buzzfeed struck gold with Tasty, a Youtube channel that breaks down recipes into bite-sized visual chunks. Maybe it could help a lost soul like me discover his talent. All I needed to do was find a recipe more simple than boxed mac ‘n’ cheese.

That’s an impossible task. But after 15 minutes of browsing, I found a pasta recipe that seemed durable enough to withstand my ineptitude in front of a stove: fettuccine with tomato, broccoli and pesto. Literally all that was asked of me was to boil pasta and cook broccoli and tomatoes, adding a generous cup of pesto.

After a couple hours of pep talking myself into confidence, it turned out really well. Sure, I may have over-pestoed the vegetables to the point of near poisoning, but the meal was edible and healthier than anything I had eaten over the past three years.

Point being: cooking isn’t that scary, and food exists outside the EMU. If a hapless goof like me can whip up some fettuccine, the average student is probably capable of earning a Michelin star. Think outside the pizza box, and the pasta-bilities are endless.

The post Alston: Cooking Outside The Pizza Box appeared first on Emerald Media.

Atlas Genius is looking forward.

It’s easy to get that impression while talking to lead singer Keith Jeffery. The alt-rock band from South Australia reached its commercial peak with the 2013 hit “Trojans” before embarking on a tour with Imagine Dragons. After more touring and a grueling recording process behind the 2015 album “Inanimate Objects,” the duo — made up of Jeffery and brother Michael — released “63 Days” in July. It’s Atlas Genius’ first single in two years and a return to comfort for a band that has been strung out on tours for much of its recent career.

Atlas Genius will play Portland’s Hawthorne Theatre on Monday, Sept. 25. The Emerald spoke to Jeffery about the band’s current pre-album tour and a new social media campaign they hope to jumpstart based on “63 Days.”

Emerald: You’ve been on tour a couple times before. I remember seeing you open for Imagine Dragons back in 2013. It’s safe to say you’re pretty experienced touring. Does that change the experience, being semi-vets?

Keith Jeffery: When you’ve been doing it for three or four years, if that makes you a veteran, you’ve done enough. You know how to handle yourself on a tour now. You know how to pace yourself. Because it’s pretty fun. The first couple of times you go on tour, you’re going out getting pissed every night after a show and you’re eating terrible food and you get worn out pretty quick. I’ve been doing — I don’t know how many American tours we’ve done, maybe seven or eight? You know how to pace yourself. And also you know what to look forward to and know what to brace yourself for.

E: Yeah, because you guys had pretty modest beginnings. You had this big hit song “Trojans” come out of nowhere in 2013, and a couple years later you’re on tour. I can only imagine you were a little nervous at first.

KJ: There was a very steep learning curve. We’d been playing as musicians before that but it’s one thing to be playing in bars or in your hometowns and to go to the States in two years and other parts of the world…There was a pretty fun learning curve there.

E: Do you have a favorite city?

KJ: Some cities are always fun. We always have good shows in Chicago. It’s funny: different cities have different personalities. You’ll go to each city and generally you’ll find there’s a certain personality to the crowd every time you go back. Portland, Oregon, has a really energetic crowd. You go to other cities and they’re a bit more subdued. When you’re playing Boston or Philly, they make you work. They’re not going to to give it to you on a plate. You have to prove yourself there. In the Midwest, there are certain parts that are a bit more out of the way and they’re just appreciative that you’re there. It’s kinda nice. You start off and they’re just happy you’re playing.

E: Let’s talk “63 Days.” It’s the first bit of music you’ve released in two years.

KJ: Yeah. That crept up. I didn’t realize it until we released it that it had been two years. You know, you do a bunch of touring, and during the last two years of touring we were writing. But by the time you actually record and finish and release stuff, it actually takes longer than you’d think. I was surprised when we counted it out and it had been two years. But it’s nice to have it out, and it’s the first of a bunch of music that’s going to be coming out from us over the next four or five months.

E: When your last album “Inanimate Objects” came out, you talked a lot about “second album pressure.” A lot of artists consider a sophomore effort to be a “make or break” record. Are you feeling the same way about your upcoming release?

KJ: No. I think what do you do is you go and make a bunch of fuck-ups on your second one. You let all the pressure get to you and then you get out of the way, and then you can relax to be honest. The second album was painful because of the reasons I mentioned before. All of a sudden you’re back in the studio and yet you’ve got all that pressure coming from what you’ve just done. It just wasn’t an enjoyable time. It was just weird. After talking to a therapist you’ve got a much better idea of why that was. At the time, it was just fuckin’…It was weird. Now, it’s much more enjoyable because you kind of make the mistakes doing it, but I feel much more confident in the studio.

E: You’re launching a social media campaign called #63DaysofLove.

KJ: Well, the idea is to encourage people to make a 63 day commitment to spreading love and kindness and bringing people together. It’s inspired by the song, [which is about] separation and miscommunication and misconceptions, and then it’s about putting the time in to communicate and heal. And that’s what we’re trying to do with this 63 Days of Love campaign.

E: Was it inspired by anything you saw in the world?

KJ: I think it came from just watching the news the last six months to a year. Living in America, as we do now, and seeing there’s obviously a lot of disconnect between certain groups in the country and all the environmental disasters we’ve had, hurricanes, et cetera. And noticing all the disconnect here and a lot of good people who are otherwise on the same page but are looking for the bad in each other, rather than trying to focus on what we can do as a team.

Part of the campaign is encouraging people to take part in a soul stare. It’s a meeting of foreheads, and Conan and I just kicked it off with the first official soul stare. We’re trying to encourage everyone to do it so soon it’ll be everywhere.

The post Q&A: Atlas Genius’ Keith Jeffery talks touring and 63 Days of Love appeared first on Emerald Media.

If you’re looking for a sign that Hollywood’s in bad shape, try this: “It” may be this summer’s biggest film.

That’s not completely surprising. Stephen King — whose 1,000 page novel is the basis for Andy Muschietti’s new film — is a household name. Past King adaptations have a decent track record. But in a summer populated by superheroes and Transformers, it’s wholly unexpected that the movie industry is in the midst of a huge box office slump. You might run across a few articles projecting “It” as the savior of a terrible season for film.

That label’s accurate. “It” earned over $123 million in three days and shattered box office records for an R-rated movie. The good news: it’s completely deserving of the success, with an array of likeable characters and enough jump scares to keep audiences cowering in fear. Even with a final act that slows its narrative momentum, it’s a must-watch for horror fans.

Little has changed from King’s source material in terms of story. “It” follows a group of teenagers in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, as they struggle against a malevolent evil. Each of them has vices. Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is still coping with the death of his little brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) at the hands of the horrific Pennywise the Clown (a brilliant Bill Skarsgård) which happens in the film’s opening sequence. Beverly (Sophia Lillis) has to face her abusive father. Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) was raised a hypochondriac.

Pennywise haunts each of them by preying on their fears. Eddie is chased by a leper and Bill sees Georgie slowly decompose in front of him. These sequences are generally well-shot and constructed, even if Muschietti—whose debut in “Mama” was standard horror fare—relies heavily on jump scares as the film progresses. The scenes between the unnerving moments are what make the film tick. The chemistry between the actors is immediately palpable, thanks to each of their abilities in front of the camera. Finn Wolfhard (“Stranger Things”) is a highlight as Richie, the group’s motormouth.

What exactly is Pennywise? “A manifestation of pure evil” is an easy guess, though the film doesn’t have a straight answer. When the film’s three screenwriters are content with withholding explanations and the film maintains its scare-to-character balance, it all works quite well. Muschietti is a skilled horror director with a deft ear for clever sound design and a knack for manipulating an audience with fiendish glee.

Problems arise during the aforementioned final act, when the kids are forced to confront Pennywise head-on. It’s at this point that Muschietti ditches simple uneasiness and doubles down on the jump scares. Pennywise’s lair is little more than an oversaturated haunted house, and the film’s length – nearly two-and-a-half hours – ensures that viewers are all but exhausted. It’s a marathon that makes audiences numb to even the most frightening images.

Muschietti’s vision and technical prowess are hard to fault. The film is well-shot, well-casted and features a number of fine performances. If one film resurrects the corpse of the Hollywood blockbuster, let it be this one. It’s better to stomach a bad ending than an entire season of bad movies.

The post Review: ‘It’ finds a balance between scares and childhood camaraderie appeared first on Emerald Media.

“War is hell” is an adage that’s driven generations of war films. But few capture the  existential dread felt by soldiers like Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.” A re-telling of a legendary evacuation from the beaches of France – where Britain suffered its largest WWII defeat – the film is steeped in the threat of death. Soldiers are killed by artillery fire and air raids often. The mere sound of the German planes is enough to make 400,000 men at arms, stranded and without cover, fear for their lives. It’s only a matter of time until the enemy reaches the beaches from the mainland. Until then, there’s little to do but wait for evacuation. Hope seems lost.

For 106 minutes it feels like an inescapable, malevolent force. Not a single German soldier appears onscreen, but no one is safe.

Nolan has been a connoisseur of big-budget filmmaking since his “Dark Knight” trilogy, and he maintains a loyal fanbase thanks to that series and headier projects like “Inception.” His talent behind the camera is undeniable, but so is his tendency to over-explain and over-analyze. This habit turned 2014’s “Interstellar” from a project with great visual promise into a dull expository slog by its ending.

“Dunkirk” feels like a response to those criticisms. Nolan works almost entirely with visceral imagery here. Gone are patches of clunky dialogue that usually threaten to torpedo his films. Instead, he structures one of humanity’s greatest war stories — the escape of over 400,000 troops across the English Channel — around three perspectives. “The Mole” follows a pair of soldiers (Fionn Whitehead and Damien Bonnard) as they wait for rescue on the beach for almost a week. “The Sea,” set over a day, focuses on a middle-aged Brit (Mark Rylance) piloting his yacht across the Channel with his son to aid in the evacuation. “The Air” takes place over an hour as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (Tom Hardy) battles German planes over the water.

These stories only occasionally cross narrative paths. Outside of those moments, the film feels like a patchwork of different perspectives on the same event. Characters have names but are largely unrecognizable; they could be anyone. Their personalities are less important than the horror of their experience, communicated in part thanks to the film’s haunting sound design. Gunshots rattle the theater, and the score — by Nolan regular Hans Zimmer — is built around an eerie drone. The effect is one of perpetual unease. 

“Dunkirk” is labeled a war film, but it really belongs in the horror genre. Blood and guts are absent, which helped the film earn its PG-13 rating. Don’t think for a second that that softens the experience. Terror comes from what we don’t see. The screams of drowning soldiers are arguably more harrowing than their open wounds. Nolan’s hydrophobia — many of his films feature death by water — is on full display, but he exhibits remarkable restraint; not once does the violence feels exploitive.

This is a film that demands to be seen in a large format. A smattering of theaters across the country — only two in Oregon — are projecting it in 70mm, which renders the seaside landscapes like humongous canvases. IMAX screens are more plentiful, and worth the extra price of admission. In a career marked by visual extravagance, this is Nolan’s best-looking film.

What makes “Dunkirk” truly remarkable — beyond the masterfully handled tension and terror — is the film’s humanity. War has rarely been this frightening onscreen, but the enormity of saving someone feels uniquely monumental.

“Dunkirk” is an emotionally harrowing film, even if Nolan overplays his climactic hand in the final 45 minutes. Amidst the chaos, there’s grace. A pilot sacrifices his escape to save thousands. A young boy takes care of a shellshocked soldier. And a volunteer hands out hundreds of blankets to survivors.

“All we did was survive,” a soldier bitterly tells him. The man doesn’t even look up before replying.“That’s enough.”

Watch the trailer for “Dunkirk” below:

Follow Dana on Twitter @AlstonDalston.

The post Review: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ uses war to find grace in us all appeared first on Emerald Media.

“War is hell” is an adage that’s driven generations of war films. But few capture the  existential dread felt by soldiers like Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.” A re-telling of a legendary evacuation from the beaches of France – where Britain suffered its largest WWII defeat – the film is steeped in the threat of death. Soldiers are killed by artillery fire and air raids often. The mere sound of the German planes is enough to make 400,000 men at arms, stranded and without cover, fear for their lives. It’s only a matter of time until the enemy reaches the beaches from the mainland. Until then, there’s little to do but wait for evacuation. Hope seems lost.

For 106 minutes it feels like an inescapable, malevolent force. Not a single German soldier appears onscreen, but no one is safe.

Nolan has been a connoisseur of big-budget filmmaking since his “Dark Knight” trilogy, and he maintains a loyal fanbase thanks to that series and headier projects like “Inception.” His talent behind the camera is undeniable, but so is his tendency to over-explain and over-analyze. This habit turned 2014’s “Interstellar” from a project with great visual promise into a dull expository slog by its ending.

“Dunkirk” feels like a response to those criticisms. Nolan works almost entirely with visceral imagery here. Gone are patches of clunky dialogue that usually threaten to torpedo his films. Instead, he structures one of humanity’s greatest war stories — the escape of over 400,000 troops across the English Channel — around three perspectives. “The Mole” follows a pair of soldiers (Fionn Whitehead and Damien Bonnard) as they wait for rescue on the beach for almost a week. “The Sea,” set over a day, focuses on a middle-aged Brit (Mark Rylance) piloting his yacht across the Channel with his son to aid in the evacuation. “The Air” takes place over an hour as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (Tom Hardy) battles German planes over the water.

These stories only occasionally cross narrative paths. Outside of those moments, the film feels like a patchwork of different perspectives on the same event. Characters have names but are largely unrecognizable; they could be anyone. Their personalities are less important than the horror of their experience, communicated in part thanks to the film’s haunting sound design. Gunshots rattle the theater, and the score — by Nolan regular Hans Zimmer — is built around an eerie drone. The effect is one of perpetual unease. 

“Dunkirk” is labeled a war film, but it really belongs in the horror genre. Blood and guts are absent, which helped the film earn its PG-13 rating. Don’t think for a second that that softens the experience. Terror comes from what we don’t see. The screams of drowning soldiers are arguably more harrowing than their open wounds. Nolan’s hydrophobia — many of his films feature death by water — is on full display, but he exhibits remarkable restraint; not once does the violence feels exploitive.

This is a film that demands to be seen in a large format. A smattering of theaters across the country — only two in Oregon — are projecting it in 70mm, which renders the seaside landscapes like humongous canvases. IMAX screens are more plentiful, and worth the extra price of admission. In a career marked by visual extravagance, this is Nolan’s best-looking film.

What makes “Dunkirk” truly remarkable — beyond the masterfully handled tension and terror — is the film’s humanity. War has rarely been this frightening onscreen, but the enormity of saving someone feels uniquely monumental.

“Dunkirk” is an emotionally harrowing film, even if Nolan overplays his climactic hand in the final 45 minutes. Amidst the chaos, there’s grace. A pilot sacrifices his escape to save thousands. A young boy takes care of a shellshocked soldier. And a volunteer hands out hundreds of blankets to survivors.

“All we did was survive,” a soldier bitterly tells him. The man doesn’t even look up before replying.“That’s enough.”

Watch the trailer for “Dunkirk” below:

Follow Dana on Twitter @AlstonDalston.

The post Review: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ uses war to find grace in us all appeared first on Emerald Media.

Early in Edgar Wright’s ‘Baby Driver,’ getaway driver and automobile savant Baby (Ansel Elgort), wearing earbuds, pulls up to a bank. Before his passengers (Jon Bernthal, Eiza González and Jon Hamm) launch their robbery, he scrolls through his iPod for the perfect beat —”Bellbottoms” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. While the heist is underway, Baby waits outside and jams in the driver’s seat.

So does Wright, who stages the entire film around Baby’s favorite music. Gunshots and other sounds are perfectly in rhythm, and noises around the characters regularly drift in and out of the musical landscape. It doesn’t take long to notice the effect, which turns the whole affair into a two-hour music video: A bloody, stylish, entertaining-as-hell music video.

Wright is no stranger to copping genres. 2005’s “Shaun of the Dead” managed to combine a zombie apocalypse with a romantic comedy and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” followed Michael Cera’s quest to kick virtual ass using kung-fu and video games. “Baby Driver” isn’t a comedy like the rest of Wright’s filmography. But his usual playfulness is on full display as he hijacks the best of heist and car chase movies.

 The film’s best sequences use long takes and visual gags to keep the audience on its toes. Wright is so in command of his vision here that it’s difficult to find fault in what he’s doing. Add a dynamite cast — including Jamie Foxx as unhinged gun-for-hire Bats and Kevin Spacey as domineering crime boss Doc — and the result is movie magic.

Too bad the movie itself isn’t particularly concerned with narrative. The film follows Baby, who does getaway jobs for Doc to pay off earlier debts. Tinnitus — a result of a childhood accident that killed his parents — keeps his ears ringing. Earbuds are his medicine of choice and the music that funnels from a suitably massive collection of iPods fuels his driving prowess. After a series of heists finally evens the score, Baby is free. That is, before Doc threatens his new girlfriend Debora (Lily James) and ropes him into one last job. 

The “last job” in question goes expectedly haywire from the onset. Tensions in the group rise, leading to a collection of frantic gunfights and action sequences that bleed hipster chic. It’s cartoonishly violent, but not outrageously so. All the while, the soundtrack thumps along and drives the action. Think “Drive,” with a sense of humor.

It sounds perfect. But “Baby” falters when asked to find an ending. The last third of the film’s final act relies on a series of emotional beats established earlier. But making these characters contend with a dramatic arc is a fruitless endeavor. That doesn’t impede Wright’s sense of style — far from it — but it does magnify the film’s lack of substance. It’s great fun. But look too closely, and it’ll leave you empty.

Still, maybe that’s the point. Watching the great Kevin Spacey surrender to an over-the-top role is worth the price of admission alone, even if the casting feels secondary to the stereotypes it fills. There’s Buddy (Ham) and Darling (González), the violent criminal lovers. There’s Bats, the crackhead of the group. And then there’s Baby, earbuds in, bobbing his head to the music. Listen with him and everything else drifts away.

Follow Dana on Twitter @AlstonDalston.

The post Review: Music controls the action in Edgar Wright’s ‘Baby Driver’ appeared first on Emerald Media.

Pronunciation is underappreciated in pop music. For Lorde, it’s an endearing strength. The New Zealand vocalist, born Ella Yelich-O’Connor, never wastes a word, using her soft whispers to hang on to every lyric she writes. The result is endlessly listenable, and it makes “Melodrama,” O’Connor’s sophomore effort, a sin to miss.

Make no mistake; her magnetism isn’t new. Lorde crept into the public consciousness in 2013 with “Pure Heroine,” a soft and contemplative record that captured small moments of her youth. Understated instrumentation coupled with her idiosyncratic voice helped the then 17-year-old girl capture the attention of millions. But even after earning two Grammys, her true potential felt untapped. “Pure Heroine” hinted at a talented storyteller and pop star, but whether Lorde had longevity remained in question.

Audiences would have to endure a nearly 4-year wait to find out. After a number of lengthy tours and side projects, Lorde all but disappeared from the eyes of the world. She kept busy during the break: writing, turning 20 and dealing with heartbreak. Finally, she returned in March with “Green Light.” The single, produced by Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff, hinted at a fuller, pop-influenced sound, and signaled an evolution for the artist. “I hear brand new sounds in my mind,” she coos in the track. Then, a rhythmic piano line slowly emerges like a sunrise, driving the track forward.

“Green Light” sits at the start of  the album’s track list, inviting listeners into Lorde’s new world. While the textures and sounds on “Melodrama” are similar to the artist’s previous work, producer Antonoff does a remarkable job keeping things fresh. Tracks like “Sober,” which features chopped up samples and synthesized horns, offer peeks into the heights of a drunken house party which the album is reportedly based. “Supercut” replays the memories of a relationship in montage, using pulsing bass notes and an ethereal outro to connect it to the surrounding tracks. “Liability” is a piano ballad that showcases some of Lorde’s greatest lyricism, recalling the times when she felt unwanted by everyone but herself. It’s heartbreaking and relatable.

The musical variety simultaneously exists inside and outside chart-topping summer pop. There are dark undertones scattered in between every scene-stealing anthem. Lorde’s party isn’t censored by any means, and her accounts of each scene seem almost confessional. She dances, downs drinks and hooks up with strangers, all the while remembering and trying to forget who broke her heart. “We’re sleeping through all the days / I’m acting like I don’t see,” she whispers. “But what will we do when we’re sober?”

It’s a question without easy answers. As Lorde looks back on her time as a teenager, it’s easy to hear longing. “The Louvre” captures the most blissful moments she spent young and in love. But while she sings, “Well, summer slipped us underneath her tongue / Our days and nights are perfumed with obsession,” the music won’t let the rosiness live forever. A mournful guitar carries the track to its conclusion.

As she comes to realize what it means to be a young woman, Lorde seems content with the search for a permanently youthful feeling, even if she may never reach it again. “Send us to perfect places,” she sings on the album’s final track, before concluding,“What the fuck are perfect places, anyway?” For Lorde, and others her age, those places exist only in the past.

Follow Dana on Twitter at @AlstonDalston.

The post Review: Lorde looks back on her youth with ‘Melodrama’ appeared first on Emerald Media.

In 2008, Fleet Foxes raced to the forefront of indie folk with its self-titled debut album. Built upon complex harmonies and the lyricism of founder and frontman Robin Pecknold, the band received acclaim for reviving 60s folk and bringing it back to mainstream popularity. Fleet Foxes entered a hiatus after its 2010 sophomore effort “Helplessness Blues,” but artists continue to display its influence. Josh Tillman — better known by his stage name Father John Misty — served as the band’s drummer for several years, and bands like Mumford & Sons rode the folk revival wave to Grammy Awards and widespread public recognition.

But in Fleet Foxes’ absence, the genre changed.

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who once recorded an entire album in an isolated snowy cabin, shifted his band’s sound toward experimental electronica in his album, “22, A Million.” Of Monsters and Men and The Lumineers carried the indie-folk torch, even if their peaks never quite reached Fleet Foxes’ heights. And Father John Misty seemed to denounce his days spent with Fleet Foxes in interviews, all while delivering fiendishly ironic ballads over three albums.

Now, after nearly seven years, Fleet Foxes has returned with a third record, “Crack Up.” With a musical landscape that’s shifted since their exit, it became difficult to tell whether the band would try and change with it, or stick to its guns. “Crack Up,” an hour-long progressive folk odyssey, manages to do both.

Thanks to Pecknold’s vivid songwriting and a newfound expansiveness, the album is consistently gorgeous. But it’s also profoundly challenging and uncompromising, offering few entry points for casual listeners. Those who fully commit to the experience, though, are sure to reap the rewards.

Harmony continues to drive Pecknold’s songwriting, especially on songs like “Kept Woman.” The sweeping ballad features some of the most stunning vocal work the band has ever produced. Other highlights, like the three part opening suite “I am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar,” showcase the instrumental progress the band made during their time off. Strings and percussion make regular appearances, creating a cacophonous triplet rhythm that drives the track forward for six-and-a-half-minutes.

“Mearcstapa” maintains the album’s sense of discovery with a striking mix of musical palettes. Electric guitar, an instrument that the band has used sparingly in the past, is more prominent, blending melody and rhythm in ways that will still please fans. The experimentation, however unexpected, was clearly rewarding for the band, and it shows; these are the most complex arrangements of its career.

The album’s musical successes also depend on the length of these songs. The music’s structure is vast and unexpected considering the band’s previous releases. “Crack Up” is unquestionably a progressive folk album, but Fleet Foxes have expanded the depths of its musical ambition. Songs regularly stretch past seven minutes and are divided into multiple parts. The commitment to tracks that are almost orchestral in size helps move the band beyond its simple folk trappings.

Fans of Fleet Foxes’ older material will find plenty to explore. The band’s music retains its signature lush sound while pushing ahead to new frontiers. Just don’t expect a simple listening experience; “Crack Up” is long, unwielding and rewarding all at once. Weathering its wealth of material is a task that requires commitment, but sticking to it yields one of the best albums 2017 has had to offer so far.

Listen to “If You Need To, Keep Time on Me” off of “Crack Up” below:

Follow Dana on Twitter @AlstonDalston.

The post Review: ‘Crack Up’ is a gorgeous but challenging return for Fleet Foxes appeared first on Emerald Media.

It’s been a rough few years for DC Comics fans who want to see their favorite heroes light up the silver screen. The publisher best known for Superman and Batman envisioned a dark, brooding cinematic universe that could compete with Marvel’s colorful series of films. But from the onset, when Zack Snyder’s meandering “Man of Steel” failed to capture any imaginations, the universe has struggled. Even with a cast of mostly recognizable heroes, films like “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” left bitter tastes in their audiences’s mouths. Each of them seemed unfinished and almost rushed into the theater, as if to try and catch up with Marvel’s well-developed universe.

Listen to Dana Alston and Kylie Davis discuss “Wonder Woman” in the podcast below:

Enter “Wonder Woman,” a fiercely entertaining blockbuster that revitalizes DC Comics’s effort to bring its vision to the cinema. With enjoyable characters, breathtaking action sequences, and an engaging performance from Gal Gadot, director Patty Jenkins combines a variety of genre elements into a fun, cheesy installment in the superhero canon.

The film’s success partially depends on how separate it is from other DC films. Other than a brief opening sequence which connects Diana (a.k.a. Wonder Woman) to Bruce Wayne, Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg focus on Diana’s origins. Sculpted from clay by Zeus, Diana lives on the island of Themyscira with the Amazons, a matriarchal race of demigods destined to bring an end to Ares, the god of war. Diana longs to become a fierce warrior, and is trained by her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright) against the wishes of her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen). When she reaches adulthood, Diana rescues Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), a runaway American pilot, when he crash lands in the waters surrounding the island.

Trevor reveals that World War I is in full swing, and he’s discovered plans for a horrific new type of poison gas that the Germans will soon deploy. Diana, believing the war to be the work of Ares, teams up with Trevor and a small group of misfit soldiers and agents to track down the God of War before it’s too late.

Check out our review of “Batman v. Superman.”

“Wonder Woman” isn’t unlike the other superhero origin stories put to screen in the last decade, but it is extremely entertaining. Compared to DC’s past efforts, this film takes on a much lighter tone. The cast of characters, particularly Diana and Tyler’s small band of companions in Europe, are all colorful, recognizable and funny enough to care about. The antagonists, led by the scheming General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) are all caricatures; their appearances, over-the-top mannerisms and hammy accents all contribute to a tongue-in-cheek cheesiness that serves the adventure well. Conversely, Gadot’s performance is the film’s driving force. The Israeli-born actress is so charismatic and badass in the role that she buoys the entire endeavor.

Jenkins also deserves credit for putting her eye for action to good use. “Wonder Woman” dazzles with action sequences from the onset. At its best, the film rivals the best of the superhero genre with gravity-defying stunts and impressively choreographed battles. The production design consistently impresses as well. Locales like the Ottoman Empire and war-torn Belgium are rendered with equal grace and detail, a relief given the DC universe’s penchant for drab visuals.

What makes “Wonder Woman” all the more refreshing is… well, it’s freshness. Despite belonging to a billion dollar franchise in the making, Jenkins’ film never exhibits any corporately mandated tendencies that completely derail the experience. It feels less like a consumer product and more like a darn good movie with emotional touches, dramatic beats and some good ol’-fashioned ass-kickings. Here’s hoping November’s “Justice League” is made of the same ingredients.

Watch the trailer for “Wonder Woman” here:

Follow Dana on Twitter: @alstondalston.

The post Review: ‘Wonder Woman’ rescues a floundering DC cinematic universe appeared first on Emerald Media.