Born out of Williamsburg's vibrant underground scene in 2000—and sounding not unlike the soundtrack to a painfully hip party there, Vic Thrill's debut is a fizzing cocktail of world music polyrhythms, camp theatrics and techno wizardry. The influence of Ziggy is evident throughout, but there are also strains of the kitsch disco of Pizzicato 5, the murky pop of The Frogs and snatches of the Happy Mondays and Underworld. Incessant and uptempo for much of the time, it is unmistakably danceable. As if entirely worn out, the record closes with the Grandaddy-esque "Zero Odds".
Set fire to anything. Set fire to the air," urged John Cale at the beginning of Music For A New Society. That 1982 masterpiece was the evisceration of a man whose fractured psyche was mirrored perfectly by songs arranged in jagged, improvisatory style; a knife held at the throat of sweetness. Now he reappears with his first album of songs for seven years, and his finest album in any genre for over two decades.
John Sayles scripted this Jaws-onland rip-off, with Robert Forster as the cop chasing a giant man-eating monster down in the sewers. Forster's dogged, and some of the set pieces are pretty nifty, but the plot's farcical, and this isn't strong on intellectual content despite its obligatory eco-message. The sequel is a made-for-TV retread, of practically zero interest.
The fastest-growing TV show in the US, wherein tales of a young Superman are accompanied by a radio-soft blend of American rock, from Remy Zero's theme to Ryan Adams' "Nuclear". Von Ray's "Inside Out" is the spit of Nickelback, and the new single. Best thing here by a mile is The Flaming Lips' "Fight Test", the opening track of what's been described in these pages as the greatest album since Best Of Jesus Christ Volume One. It's lovely, but owes an extraordinary debt to the Cat Stevens song "Father To Son".
