Dungeon crawlers are a weirdly pure RPG experience. Something about that constant stream of new loot is frighteningly compelling, so much so that as a player it’s easy to forget about everything else. The story, graphics and gameplay can all fade away as the need to get a new sword, or a new pair of magic pants, grows inside. Blizzard figured this out with Diablo II, which has stood as the main pillar of the industry for years, somewhat like StarCraft is to RTS games. And, just like they did with StarCraft II, Diablo III is the biggest deal this genre has seen, and does a lot to modernize, but not necessarily revolutionize, the formula.
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It’s been five years since The Hives released an album. Five years! That’s a long time to leave a fan hanging. Their last release was 2007’s The Black and White Album a exciting and ambitious release. So it would be assumed that Lex Hives took so long because they were trying to maintain or up their quality. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Lex Hives is brief, half realized, and lacks the songwriting quality of past Hives recordings. It’s not all bad, there’s some dumb fun moments on Lex Hives, but I didn’t wait five years for just moments.

The album opens with stunningly simple “Come On”. A track that barely runs a minute and contains only the lyric “Come On”. Like the 1977 classic Cheap Trick track “Hello There” the song functions to get you excited for the rest of the album. Some will attack it’s redundancy, but I think it’s very effective. The problem is that the rest of the album doesn’t live up to that energy. “Go Right Ahead” is the second cut and disappointingly average lead single from Lex Hives. It continues the trend of overusing the title as a lyric. I also notice a distinct similarity to the 1979 ELO track “Don’t Bring Me Down”. “Go Right Ahead” is my least favorite Hives single to date, but there is still some light at the end of the tunnel.

“Wait a Minute” is a song I completely and unabashedly love. It would have made a far more appropriate single with it’s catchy, carefree melody. It’s followed a few tracks later by my second favorite “Take Back the Toys” a more angst driven number. What’s funny is that even in those two tracks The Hives find themselves fascinated with repeating the title of the song over and over again. I don’t know how that became a recurring technique on Lex Hives but there are some moments where it wears a little thin.

This is the first time I’ve ever found myself skipping tracks on a Hives album to get to the songs I like better. There’s songs on Lex Hives I like just as much as my favorites on other Hives albums, but then there’s those OTHER songs. It’s not that their bad, they just feel like some unused b-sides they had lying around somewhere. I expected a lot more out of this group considering the five year gap. I’d still rather have this over nothing, but Lex Hives has left me unsure. Are The Hives best days behind them? Or was this an experiment with mixed results?

Favorite Tracks: “My Time is Coming”, “Take Back the Toys”, “Wait a Minute”

As each spring finally turns to summer, the Seattle International Film Festival comes to the Seattle area and fills our local theaters with the latest independent releases as well as plenty more artier films from around the world.  And each time the festival is upon us, I always say to myself “Yeah, I’m gonna see a bunch of films this year!”, and it never really happens.  In fact, last year I didn’t end up seeing any.  I guess it’s just a little too scary to commit to seeing films that you know nothing about, and have no idea what their critical standing is.  Luckily, I had heard nothing but good things about Beasts Of The Southern when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, so it felt like something I should seek it out at this year’s SIFF, and I’m glad I did.

Beasts is told from the perspective of a young girl referred to only as Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis), who finds her strong-willed father (Dwight Henry) to be in ailing health as the two of them prepare for a massive storm.  The two of them live in area just off the Louisiana coastline known as The Bathtub, and though it’s never really stated when the film takes place or what specific storm is taking place, this is a film that invokes a lot of the themes and questions that continue to plague post-Katrina New Orleans.  After the storm hits, the film more or less becomes about the relationships between the people of this community and how they continue to survive in the face of poverty and destruction.

It seems that critics have already been hailing director Benh Zeitlin as one of the next great American filmmakers, and though I’m always hesitant to pin that kind of label on anyone who’s made just one film, what he does here is pretty mesmerizing.  He certainly invokes that kind of interest in the beauty of nature that we’ve seen in the work of Terrence Mallick or early David Gorden Green.  And yet at the same time, there’s this sense of whimsy that the film invokes by incorporating this fantasy element in to a story that might have been a little too gritty and bleak otherwise.

It’s always nice to see a film that isn’t condescending towards children and is actually able to effectively show the world from a child’s perspective, and I think this film captures about as well as any film I’ve seen the way kids create their own little worlds for themselves in order to deal with the hardships of the real world.  The little girl that stars in the film is definitely very good and perhaps a child-actor to look out for, and the relationship between her and her tough-love father is often quite moving.  I’m not sure that the film is perfect, as there are a couple scenes that lag a bit, but when you factor in the performances and the complex tone, as well as a really stirring soundtrack, Beasts Of The Southern Wild makes for a very impressive debut film, and is certainly one worth seeking out once it’s released in theaters in about a month.

With an irresistably sugary sound that relied heavily on pop hooks and teenage infatuation, Best Coast’s 2010 debut Crazy For You was an album that I had a pretty easy time falling for.  That said, Crazy For You was an album that was a little short on depth, and the songs were more or less variations on the same surf-pop sound.  So it’s not that surprising that the second album from this SoCal duo sees the band trying to create something a little more complicated, and stumbling somewhat in the process.

The main complaint against Best Coast has always seemed to be Bethany Cosentino’s naively simplistic lyrics, though as simple as they were, I could never understand how people could accuse her of being insincere.  The Only Place sees Cosentino’s lyrics growing a bit more mature, while retaining an emotional bluntness that I think works for the most part.  However, I just haven’t found these songs very affecting or memorable, and I think a lot of this has to do with the slower ballad-driven approach of the album.  The main draw for me about Best Coast was their undeniably peppy sound, but this attempt at being more introspective, though commendable, grows tiring pretty fast.

Another aspect of the album that I couldn’t quite get behind is the band’s decision to collaborate with producer Jon Brion.  He gives the album a slicker, more mainstream sound which overall left me missing the lo-fi tendencies of Best Coast’s earlier work.  There are still a few songs that retain some of that signature Best Coast charm such as the California-touting “The Only Place” and “Let’s Go Home”, but there are just too few moments like these to make up for the rest of the mediocrity.  Now I can’t say I was expecting huge things out of a second Best Coast album, I just wish they could have provided me with a little more fun in the sun.

Favorite Tracks: “The Only Place”, “Let’s Go Home”, “Up All Night”