Days 200 and 201

I listened to Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, School of Seven Bell’s Ghostory and Primal Scream’s Sonic Flower Groove and read a load of comics.

Quick reviews:

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a nice album, with a jazz, smoky sound. A kinda more polished Portishead sound. The singles, Doo Wop (That Thing) and Everything Is Everything, and the album track Superstar, are really great, but the rest of the album’s tracks (to me) doesn’t stand out and grab me, and the album kinda pass you by. I put the album on and nodded along to it, but when it finished I couldn’t remember it (aside from the three tracks mentioned earlier). However, his is all based on a first listen and maybe I just need a few more listens for the album to click with me.

Ghostory has a nice melodic shoegazery sound which is very easy to sink into and lose yourself to, with the lyrics nicely complimenting the music, and it’s easy to lose track and, when the album finishes, to find yourself thinking where did the last 45 minutes go, but in a good way! I always find it hard to describe these kinds of albums, as the individual details of the album tracks kinda play second place to how the album as a whole works and affects you. Highly recommended.

I got into Primal Scream with their Vanishing Point album, I had heard and liked individual songs from Screamadelica, but being poor student and as there seemed to be so much good music being released I had never had a chance to get the album itself. After I Got Vanishing Point I did go back a little to Screamadelica and Give Out But Don't Give Up, but brought into the story that their first two albums, Sonic Flower Groove and Primal Scream, were not worth getting. 

However, I did give Primal Scream a chance and really liked it (it’s basic rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s good rock ‘n’ roll) and I recently decided to give Sonic Flower Groove a go. Sonic Flower Groove is a perfectly average 80’s indie album, with jangly guitars and fey lyrics, the downside is that its a perfectly average 80’s indie album. There isn’t any hint of the greatness that wold come on later albums and when the album ends you’re left feeling ‘Is that it?’, maybe because I’ve heard all the other Primal Scream albums, Sonic Flower Groove just sounds sound lacklustre in comparison?

In Kill Or Be Killed #11 things seem to be calming down and returning to normal for Dylan, he’s back on his meds, the demon is explained away, his personal life is getting better and no more murders. But, we know that this doesn’t last and we start to see how Dylan becomes the professional we met in #1. Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser do their usual excellent job in make Kill Or Be Killed one of the best books being published.

Redlands #1 hits the ground running as we met the local police force barricaded in their station and trying to keep the bad guys out, except as the story goes on and the siege is resolved it becomes less and less clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Or it may be its the case that there are no good guys, just bad guys and not as bad guys. Jordie Bellaire, Vanesa R. Del Rey and Clayton Cowles do exactly what you want a first issue to do. It entertains, scares, feels like a complete story, lays seeds for future stories and makes you wish you could read #2 right now and not in a months’ time.

Things continue to ratchet up in The Wicked & The Divine#30 and it reminds me of Yeats The Second Coming:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

(Does it make it less pretentious if I note that I first heard The Second Coming in the 24 Party People, the film about Factory Records? Should I try to tease out the links between a near mythical record label and its bands and the near mythical stars of The Wicked & The Divine…maybe not!).

Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson and Clayton Cowles are doing a great job and it feels more and more like events are happening to the Pantheon, rather than the Pantheon shaping or leading things. All of which suggests that the climax to the Imperial Phase will not be sunshine and smiles. 

The McGuffin, a rare flower with lots of medical use, is fully explained in Clue #3 and, in flashback, we get more information to help/confuse us in finding out who the murderer is. The fourth wall continues to be broken (and disses the use of flashbacks) and there are fewer murders committed than you’d think there would be on a murder mystery. Clue continues to be enjoyable, but will they be able to tie it all up in #4?

Giant Days is probably my favourite comic book being published and Giant Days #29 continues to hit the high-water mark set by John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Whitney Cogar and Jim Campbell. A lot of #29 is about love, romantic and lusty love.

 

There are plenty of great one liners and ‘throw away’ jokes, such as:

But #29 also deals with heavy issues. Ed is set up on a blind date by Daisy, and although it goes well and Daisy has done a great job in picking a woman well suited to Ed, he doesn’t follow it up, as he doesn’t feel that ‘spark’ of true love. The team do a great job in conveying that hope/desire to find the true one and the unwillingness to comprise and take a chance. 

Meanwhile, Esther is being targeted by a lusty lecturer (although date rapey might be a better term) who ply’s her with drinks and compliments, but luckily, Esther is saved by a fellow student. There’s a nice bit where the lusty/date-rapey lecturer is standing in front of an animal head, with the horns either side of him, making him look very devilish.