Metric: "Synthetica"

Artist: Metric

Album: Synthetica

 

Released: 2012

 

 

Synthetica is Metric's fifth album, and the follow up to the excellent 'Fantasies', released in 2009.

 

More reflective, and a bit less poppy than 'Fantasies', the album features a few more synth ballads and a few less guitar hooks, not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing; while it would have been good to hear another album like 'Fantasies', it's always good to hear a band challenge themselves and try something a little different, even if what's here is not a big change in musical direction from what Metric have explored before.

 

The album starts off with a run of four uptempo songs, "Artificial Nocturne" and lead single "Youth Without Youth" kicking the album into life. Things slow down on track five "Dreams So Real", then the album varies from song to song.

 

The obvious theme here is suggested by the album's title and many of the song titles; most of the songs explore reality, the synthetic, and darkness, themes befitting the gloomy atmospherics created by the music.

 

It's not all good; closing track "Nothing But Time" is the dullest song here, especially as it follows album highlight "The Wanderlust" (featuring Lou Reed). "Lost Kitten" and "Clone" (two of the album's slower songs), are also fairly mediocre and slow the album down in the middle after it had made such a good start.

 

Overall, this is a more than decent album, though it may not win over anyone who's not already a Metric fan. The slower songs are definitely the weak point of the album, even if you can understand why they're here.

 

Best song: The Wanderlust

 

Rating: 3.5/5

If You Can't Be Bothered

Mary Shelley: "Frankenstein"

Dr Frankenstein creates monster. Monster is angry at being shunned by society and asks Frankenstein to make him a female companion. Frankenstein refuses so the monster kills his wife. Monster hunts Frankenstein down, but feels no better for Frankenstein's death so he burns himself. The end.

Bobby Hill and Tony Scott RIP

Going on the internet a week or so ago, I was confronted with the following Bobby Hill-related question:

 

 

The answer is, of course, yes.

 

In sadder news, Tony Scott committed suicide in LA by jumping off a bridge. Unfortunately, when I went on Twitter, "#WellDone3" and "#fishsongs" were trending right underneath the trends relating to his death:

 

 

That is all.

Dead Snow

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Writers: Tommy Wirkola, Stig Frode Henriksen

Starring: Charlotte Frogner, Stig Frode Henriksen, Bjørn Sundquist, Ane Dahl Torp

Released: 2009

Continuing my recent Norwegian horrorfest is Dead Snow, a film about Nazi zombies. Yes, really.

The film opens with a woman being chased through snow, and eventually captured and eaten by zombies in Nazi uniforms. Now that's what I call an opening.

We then meet a group of friends arriving at a nearby cabin on a short holiday. After some frivolity, they are joined by an older, weird man, who proceeds to tell them about World War 2, where locals turned on their Nazi oppressors and savagely killed them. It is said that their spirits still haunt the area etc.

This is where the fun really begins as the Nazi zombies begin hunting the friends, who find often ingenius methods to try and survive (turning a snowmobile into a machine-gun-mobile, for example).

This film owes a lot to the Evil Dead series. This is definitely meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and even features a character having to cut off his own hand after being bitten there (and later on, when bitten in more sensitive body parts, he also ponders having to cut 'it' off). Although a horror-comedy, there is lots of gore and blood and almost relentless action in the second half of the film.

This is a very entertaining film, which gets the balance between horror and comedy just right. Call me unnecessarily controversial, but I found this to be much better than the overrated Shaun of the Dead, a film which is neither as funny, gory or as action-packed as this. Yes, I wrote that, and yes, I really mean it.

Rating: 4/5

Cold Prey 2: Resurrection

Director: Mats Stenberg

Writers: Thomas Moldestad, Roar Uthaug, Martin Sundland

Starring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal

Released: 2008

After the success of the first Cold Prey, it was inevitable that there would be a sequel. These are horror movies after all, and as we all know, in the horror world, "you've gotta have a sequel".

Continuing where the original finished, heroine Jannicke (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), the only survivor from the first film (it tells you that on the back of the DVD box in case you think I'm giving anything away), is taken to hospital in a state of shock.

Later telling the police about the events of the previous film, the dead bodies (including that of the killer) are also brought back to the hospital, operating with minimal staff as it is soon to be closed. Discovering that the killer is still barely alive, the decision is made to resuscitate him, much to Jannicke's horror... You can guess what happens next: killer escapes, starts killing everyone etc.

Intentional or not, the Cold Prey films owe a lot to John Carpenter. The first film was a cross between Halloween (big, silent killer picking people off one-by-one with seemingly no motivation) and The Thing (remote, snowy setting) and this film takes after Halloween 2 (also set in a hospital following straight on from the first film) and Assault on Precinct 13 (set in an about-to-be-closed police station with a skeleton staff). As with John Carpenter's earlier work, the Cold Prey films are more deliberately paced than a lot of other modern slasher films, and rely a lot more on building tension, rather than just being filled with multiple, quick kills. While the first film was sometimes a little too slow, the pace is slightly higher in this film, and it works much better, and includes a mad few minutes where a group of policemen go into the hospital after the killer and are killed gruesomely and quickly.

Although the film doesn't look quite as good as the first one, this is again a very well made horror film. Ingrid Bolsø Berdal is again excellent in the lead role, and we get to see more of the killer's past through one of the policemen's investigation into his childhood. Overall, this is superior to the first film and one of the best slasher films (if not the best) of the past decade; I can't really think of any better.

Rating: 4/5

Cold Prey

Director: Roar Uthaug

Writer: Thomas Moldestad

Starring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal

Released: 2006

Cold prey is a Norwegian slasher movie (released in 2006) about a group of friends on a snowboarding trip. When one of the group breaks his leg, they find an abandoned hotel where they decide to stay until the weather clears and they can get help.

This of course is the perfect set-up for a slasher film. A remote location with no chance of help from outsiders, no communication with the outside world...

As the group search the hotel, which seems untouched since the 1970s, they find evidence in the cellar that someone is living there, and who appears to have collected jewellery and other personal items from people by nefarious means. It's around this time that the killer emerges and starts to pick off the group one-by-one...

I have to admit I'm a fan of slasher movies, and of setting films in remote, snowy loations (mainly because of John Carpenter's The Thing), and I'm a lover of most things Scandanavian, so the film wasn't a hard sell for me. That said, the film is exceptionally well made for a low budget horror, and even if a lot of the killing scenes are a little underwhelming, star Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Jannicke) is an engaging heroine, and puts in a fine performance to keep the film rolling along at a nice pace.

The film comes into its own near the end when Jannicke is on her own against the masked killer as she realises that with no hope of escape or hiding, she must face him on her own.

Overall, this is a decent and enjoyable film. the characters are not as annoying as in many other slasher films (when I'm quite happy for them to get killed), and as I've said, the director has to take a lot of credit for making the film look so good. Some of the killing scenes are fairly pedestrian, which, though fairly realistic, can get a little boring. The film does get better as it goes along and has a decent final showdown.

Rating: 3/5

Premier League Predictions

It's back bitches! After a summer of nothing happening in the world of sport, apart from that Euro 2012 and those Olympics, the only game that matters is finally back. Things started well for Fulham (beating Norwich 5-0) and Swansea (winning 5-0 at QPR), and not so well for Man Utd, losing 1-0 to hoofball merchants Everton (I'm not bitter or anything). Anyway, here are my predictions:

1. Man Utd

2. Man City

3. Chelsea

4. Arsenal

5. Tottenham

6. Liverpool

7. Newcastle Utd

8. Everton

9. Sunderland

10. Swansea

11. Aston Villa

12. Stoke City

13. West Ham

14. Fulham

15. West Brom

16. QPR

17. Norwich

18. Wigan

19. Southampton

20. Reading

FA Cup: Man City

League Cup: Chelsea

Champions League: Barcelona

Obviously, I'm not going to back against Man Utd, and as much as I'd like to see Man City crash and burn, that's not going to happen. Barcelona will probably win the Champions League again, even though most people are sick of them now (well, I am, at least).

I'm hoping for an entertaining season overall as most teams like to get the ball down and play attacking football, though there are still some scrappy long-ball merchants (you know who you are). I'm also hoping to see greater diversity in formations and tactics this season; Man City have been playing 3 at the back in pre-season, and Wigan ended last season that way. I think Man Utd will change formation more this season with the new signings, and the first weekend has already seen 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, and 4-1-2-1-2 (i.e. a diamond in midfield) formations.

The new player I'm most excited about seeing is Kagawa at Man Utd, who was excellent in Germany at Borussia Dortmund, and is a genuine attacking playmaker (a "number 10", if you will), the type of player Utd haven't had since Paul Scholes moved into a deeper position about 8 years ago.

My biggest fear is a return to about 5 years ago when it seemed that every team started playing a 4-5-1, especially away from home. I fear this because quite a few teams in the Premier League will be employing a 4-3-3 this season, and it's only a short step from 4-3-3 to 4-5-1.

In summary: football, bloody hell.

Kermit the Frog Green

I don't know why I found this so funny, but... I've been looking at laptops on Amazon, 'cus mine is sadly dying a slow painful death, and this one particular laptop had mainly 5-star reviews, but there was one 1-star review amongst all of the glowing praise. I read it and the reason why the buyer gave it 1-star was because s/he'd ordered it in black and received it in "kermit the frog green"...

Like I say, I don't know why I found this so funny but I laughed for like 5 minutes after reading it.