Reviews
Read what the community thinks about their favorite albums
A step back to go forward
The Wire - Season 2
The second season of the Wire is not as good as the first season, but it is just as important. The entire run of the show could be understood as an American epic, each season is a book and each episod...
Pleasant and Uninteresting
portals//polarities · Night Tapes
Like listening to muzak in a dream K-Mart but you're underwater. It's perfectly pleasant and one or two tracks like "swordsman" and "babygirl(like no1 else) show promise, but overall the album feels p...
The Weeknd's Most Experimental Album
Dawn FM · The Weeknd
My personal favorite of the Weeknd's albums to date, Dawn FM simultaneously captures a feeling like listening to the radio once upon a time on a softly lit, sunny afternoon on some forgotten weekend w...
An introduction to the game
The Wire - Season 1
Let me echo what you've heard before: Yes. The Wire is that good. It is my humble opinion the Wire is the best TV show, start to finish, ever. Bold take. I know. We aren't here to discuss the entire s...
Onward and Upward
The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place · Explosions in the Sky
Earth is Not a Cold Dead place fill the unnamed space between satisfaction and relief emotions that replaced happiness as you get older. This is the first step into maturity, as a band, for Explosions...
HIstorial Non-Fiction done right
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
"...exposed the secret history of the Reign of Terror: the evil of Hale was not an anomaly." I was gifted this book back on 2023 for Christmas and I am little embarrassed to say that it took me this l...
So much wasted potential
Bad Times at the El Royale
This is one of those movies I actually sought out in the spring of 2020. I was working mostly from home and wanted to work through all the fascinating films that I missed in theaters. I struggled to f...
Same notes; new songs
Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever · Explosions in the Sky
With a name like ‘Explosions in the Sky’ you might assume that more bombastic and concussive beats and less restraint, maybe something you can run or lift weights to. This is not that band and they se...
A bold first album
How Strange, Innocence · Explosions in the Sky
Released in early 2000, 26 years ago, Explosions in the Sky released their genre defining album. It wasn't until almost 5 years later, in a dorm room, that I discovered them. I was using Kazaa to sear...
An excellent example of American Crime fiction
City on Fire
Don Winslow didn't hit a homerun but doubled, in the bottom of the 9th to even the score. Forgive my tortured metaphor, I am excited for baseball to return. City On Fire is a hit, exciting and sad in...
Cadavers embracing new life
Eon of Obscenity · Stabbing
From the very first EP in 2021, I knew there was something special about Texas-based, female-fronted brutal death metal wagon Stabbing. In just 11 minutes, Ravenous Psychotic Onslaught was exactly wha...
Peak
Stranger Things - Stranger Things 5
Peak show. Action scenes are dope, Hollys an amazing character addition ( fit too <3) and it just generally slaps. Production is off the charts too. Absolute cinema
The paragon of comedy-horror finally returns
Send Help
It’s been nearly 17 years since Sam Raimi directed a horror movie. In that time, horror filmmaking entered something of a renaissance. Love it or hate it, the so-called “elevated” horror has been the...
The sun pours down like honey
Black Cascade · Wolves in the Throne Room
In fog-heavy terrain, and after acceptance of repetition as ritual, time loosens its grip when Black Cascade's sustained condition of being unfolds and crowns Wolves in the Throne Room as the shining...
Another Shiny Star Wars Turd
Obi-Wan Kenobi - Miniseries
Spoiler Star Wars is as culturally pervasive as any media property can be. From its inception, the hero’s journey with magic space samurai has captured its audience’s imagination and garnered a passionate fan...
Adventures in Ayn Rand Land
BioShock
Author's Note: This review was orginally written and posted January 16th, 2026. It was rewritten heavily on July 22nd, 2026 and posted again that same day. It was the cover story of a 2006 issue of Ga...
An amazing follow up
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a well crafted sequel that sets up for an amazing film trilogy. While I personally enjoyed 28 Years Later (2025) more than Bone Temple, it does not take away the joy...
An Unlikely Sequel
Blade Runner 2049
Coming thirty-five years after a cult classic, Blade Runner 2049 is an unlikely sequel. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner saw little commercial success at the box office, despite becoming a cult classic in...
A nation wide but an inch deep
Big White Ghetto
This was not the book I anticipated. I first saw this on the desk of someone at work. I quickly found the book on Amazon and bought it. Sitting there on my shelf for almost 4 years I had assumed this...
Review of Precipice
Precipice · Lychgate
It was polite of Lychgate to begin Precipice with an intro track. For one thing, it’s a fun to have an orchestral march-to-war to build anticipation. For another, it’s about the only thing polite abou...
Evil Dead Coasts...
Evil Dead Rise
Evil Dead is a franchise that has multiple personalities. Sometimes skin-crawling horror. Sometimes hilarious camp carnival. I don’t begrudge the fans of Bruce Campbell’s campaign of goofy violence fo...
Review of Flesh + Blood
Flesh + Blood · Judiciary
Judiciary waste no time introducing themselves on Flesh + Blood, so I will follow suit. The Texas outfit return with 31 minutes of unbridled chaos. The band has named influences of the metalcore and t...
Review of Higher Lonely Power
Higher Lonely Power · Fireworks
Higher Lonely Power wasn’t originally planned to be released on New Year’s Day of 2023, but if you’re in a band called Fireworks, New Year’s is as good a day as any. The Detroit rockers possess an ins...
Great, Yet Capable of More
Pain Remains · Lorna Shore
As someone who grew up during the rise of deathcore, it is a bit strange that I missed the train considering all of the “traditional” metalcore I was listening to. Before I knew it, deathcore had seem...