THIS WEEK ON ALTPRESS.COM

TEXAS IN JULY
One Reality (Equal Vision)

On their second album (and Equal Vision debut), these baby-faced Pennsylvanian post-hardcore warriors—two members only recently graduated high school—offer a muscular blend of precision drumming, brutal riffing and vocals that bridge the gap between laryngitis and throat cancer. For the most part, they color within the lines of their genre, only occasionally busting loose, like with the surprising (because of its awesomeness) guitar break on “Dreamer.” The acoustic-guitar-driven instrumental “May,” which comes just after the 33-minute disc’s midpoint, is another pleasant surprise. In a few cases, their insistence on mostly stripping their music to its thick-necked core (no pun intended) does the songs a disservice; the chorus of “Dying World” really would have benefited from clean backing vocals. It’ll sound great when the crowd sings along at shows, though. And for the most part, One Reality offers excellent pit fuel, with a few meditative moments that demonstrate an admirable depth that will hopefully continue to grow on future releases.

Get it from Amazon for $5.00

HERE'S A THING TO STARE AT FOR A WHILE

MISSING OUT

This essay on NPR.org is interesting and worth a read, if you've got a moment. It's about the idea that you should accept the fact that you're never going to read, see, hear or experience everything of value. You're going to go to your grave having missed out on hundreds, thousands, of cultural experiences (books, movies, plays, albums, TV shows, etc., etc.) that others—including people whose opinions you trust—swear are awesome, life-changing, sublime, etc., etc. And that's fine.

I know I've made the conscious choice to skip whole swaths of things, mostly by rejecting the opinions of critics. I make almost no effort to keep up with hip-hop, I only encounter mainstream pop by watching videos on MTV or VH1, and while I visit Pitchfork every morning, I generally only read the one-sentence teasers for their reviews—I don't read more than one or two whole reviews per week, and I almost never actually listen to the albums in question, even when a friend of mine has written the review, so indie music is almost completely closed off to me. I don't read any fiction reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, unless it's in the Crime column or one of their rare science fiction roundups. I don't watch movies that win Oscars or festival prizes. I don't go to the theater, though I wouldn't mind checking out an opera at some point, not because I want to become knowledgeable about opera, but because the format itself seems like it would be interesting to experience, one time. Actually, two times; I'd like to see one European-style opera, and one Chinese opera.

What do you not bother with? What do you read, watch or listen to because you're afraid of missing out, or being left out of some perceived culture-wide conversation?

STUFF I'VE SEEN LATELY

The last 11 movies I saw via Netflix:

Mesrine: A two-part biopic of France's greatest bank robber and prison-break artist, topping out at about four and a half hours. Vincent Cassel is a terrific lead, sporting a hilarious array of hideous '70s couture, not to mention wigs and various facial hair options. His forays into pseudorevolutionary political blather barely seem to convince him, let alone the people he's shouting at; only his rampaging ego seems truly heartfelt. Highly recommended, but take a break between Parts 1 and 2.

No One Knows About Persian Cats: An Iranian movie about two musicians—a boy and a girl—who want to get out of the country so their indie rock band can play some shows in England and Europe. In their search for passports, visas and permits, we get a tour of the Iranian underground music scene, in the process seeing and hearing about a dozen bands playing various styles from jam-band funk to thrash metal. Every single one of these bands is better than the piddly-ass music being made by our putative protagonists, which makes it very hard to root for them to succeed.

Micmacs: I'll watch anything Jean-Pierre Jeunet directs. This one is a little darker than Amelie, but not by much, and the cast (jam-packed with people who look like cartoon characters, as always) is up for just about anything. If you like his stuff, you'll like this.

Animal Kingdom: An inexplicably praised Australian crime drama. It starts in the middle, if not the final third, of the story of a family of brothers and their eeeeevil mom, and proceeds to go nowhere special. The only surprise the movie sprung was killing the most interesting character early, and once that happened, it was all downhill. The guy we're supposed to be rooting for/identifying with is a personality-free meatball, and the criminals are about as exciting as figures on a surveillance feed.

Morning Glory: Seems like a girly-girl romantic comedy on its face; turns out to be a pretty funny workplace comedy. Harrison Ford seems like someone woke him up before turning the camera on, which is a welcome change of pace.

Tron: Legacy: I never saw the original, and now I never will. What could have been 90 minutes of neon chases and laser explosions turns into two hours of father-son bonding. And no, the soundtrack doesn't save it.

Green Zone: Better than I expected. Matt Damon has become extremely reliable for a certain kind of bullheaded, get-the-job-done character, and that's what he plays here. The actors whose characters are standing in for real people (Greg Kinnear as Paul Ryan, Amy Ryan as Judith Miller) are less offensive than they'd have been in the hands of, say, Oliver Stone and/or Sean Penn, and Brendan Gleeson is excellent in the Brendan Gleeson role. Director Paul Greengrass keeps things moving.

All Good Things: Based on a true story. Ryan Gosling is very impressive (he's starting to become a draw for me) and Kirsten Dunst is tolerable, which she hasn't always been in the past. Twisty in an unpredictable way, unless you know a lot about the real case (which I don't, but I think I saw an episode of one of the Law & Orders that was also based on this story).

Tangled: Yes, the Disney Rapunzel movie. Yes, there are songs. No, they don't suck. I enjoyed this quite a bit, actually. Donna Murphy, the woman who plays the villainess, is so good I was a) surprised they didn't have someone more famous in the role, and b) surprised she's not more famous herself. Worth seeing just for the horse.

Ondine: A Neil Jordan movie about fisherman Colin Farrell rescuing a woman from the sea who he and his young daughter decide to believe is a selkie (seal-turned-human). Naturally, all is not what it seems. Some good gags, especially one at the expense of Sigur Rós.

Countdown to Zero: An okay if ultimately ineffectual documentary about nuclear proliferation.

Movies I have recently seen in theaters:

Source Code: Duncan Jones is gonna be another director whose movies I'll see on faith, I think. This is a creepy sci-fi/horror thriller about military callousness, about which I will say no more. Jake Gyllenhaal was a good choice for the lead, as an actor with greater gravitas would have made the plot totally soul-crushing instead of just depressing.

Hanna: A chilly Euro-thriller with a terrific soundtrack and only a few logical leaps getting in the way of its general headlong awesomeness. The lead girl is terrific, and the action sequences are very well-shot.

The Adjustment Bureau: Another Matt Damon movie. He's good, as is John Slattery, but the words "magic hat" will forever induce gales of derisive laughter in me, and should replace "jumps the shark" as pop-culture shorthand for "this book/comic/movie/TV show goes off the rails in a major way."

RECENT WRITINGS

First, from AltPress.com:

ASKING ALEXANDRIA
Reckless & Relentless (Sumerian)

Reckless & Relentless, the second full-length from U.K. electro-metalcore outfit Asking Alexandria, still features heavy doses of synth on a few tracks, but overall it’s much less rave-driven than their debut, 2009’s Stand Up And Scream. They’re indulging their inner rock ’n’ rollers more this time around; “Closure” may kick off with distorted beats, and a few digital stutters pop up here and there, but the main guitar riff sounds more like Avenged Sevenfold than anything else on Sumerian Records. “The Match” is similarly swaggering, until it becomes almost gabber techno in its final minute. “Someone, Somewhere” is the album’s biggest surprise—a damn catchy song with absolutely no screaming, it could easily find its way onto hard rock radio.

The band haven’t abandoned the downtuned, chugging breakdowns that were so key to their sound, of course; most of Reckless rumbles like a bulldozer in low gear trying to drive up a concrete staircase—when they’re not slowing down for the heartfelt sung parts. The final track, “Morte Et Dabo,” ends with an almost symphonic coda, like they’re auditioning to soundtrack the upcoming Conan movie. Asking Alexandria haven’t radically changed their sound, but there’s enough evolution on Reckless & Relentless to convince any listener that they’re more than metalcore also-rans or one-trick ponies. [Link]

Now, some AMG links:

AGF & Craig Armstrong, Orlando
Artillery, My Blood
Tim Berne, InSOMNIA
Blood Freak, Mindscraper
Buzzov*en, Revelation: Sick Again
Clutch, Blast Tyrant/Basket of Eggs
Despise You/Agoraphobic Nosebleed, And On and On...
Elonkorjuu, Harvest Time
Joe Fiedler Trio, Sacred Chrome Orb [NOT LIVE YET]
GridLink, Orphan
GusGus, Arabian Horse
Power Quest, Blood Alliance
Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Momenti Felici
Klaus Schulze, Big in Japan [NOT LIVE YET]
Sinister, Altered Since Birth 1990-2010
Sonic Liberation Front, Meets Sunny Murray
Winds of Plague, Against the World
Wormrot, Dirge