Epinions Recent Reviews for Stairway2Drew

at least they could have given us porn: nimrod antal's "vacancy"

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:07:51 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - As the season draws closer---and by "the season", of course, i mean the super-creepy onset of Halloween---my girlfriend and I continue to spend our nights binging on horror movies in the living room, the lights down, the street lamp outside flickering...

making friends and taking names: lucky mckee's "may"

Tue, 9 Sep 2008 18:09:08 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Some four years ago, I wrote a treatise on Lucky McKee's debut feature May---a film that made minor waves when it was unceremoniously dumped damn-near direct-to-dvd in 2003---that reflected my ambivalence to the picture. The review came and...

The Dark Knight: watching the world burn: The Dark Knight

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:41:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - First, dear readers, a note: it is not within my nature to champion a film's place in the grander pantheon of cinema the year of it's release, much less the day of it. I've done it before, and it's ended in tragedy: sadly, history has not been as kind...

"give me pieces, give me things to stay awake"

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:23:49 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - I guess it would be pretty unfair of me to say that, in the realm of catchy, shiny, mainstream-as-all-shit pop-rock, the All-American Rejects are running unopposed---after all, the Foo Fighters and the Killers and Green Day and the like are still...

"we're all children of one big universe, so you don't have to be a chump"

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:19:01 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Sometimes, I wish more musicians utilized the art of the EP. It's kind of like the musical equivalent of a novella, really---longer and more in-depth than a short story, but without requiring the same dedication as a novel. I'm intrigued by the art of...

"stomacheache sundays and books we never read"

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:44:54 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Jesse Malin is a singer-songwriter more content than most to wear his influences on his sleeve. This is important to note because cursory listens to his third album, Glitter in the Gutter, may not reveal much, other than a simplistic kind of...

"the ever-living ghost of what once was"

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 02:07:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Band of Horses are a straightforward bunch, in more ways than one. Their second set, Cease to Begin, comes complete with a cover that somehow illustrates exactly what one can expect to find inside; in many ways, the idea of this album as the...

"from the speakers your fake masterpiece comes serenely dribbling"

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 03:01:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - When listening to the Okkervil River presented in 2007's the Stage Names, I feel as though I'm confronting a whole new animal. Sure, lyrics that read like pages ripped out of eloquently prosaic mini-novels and yelpy---but almost cartoonishly...

"slowly sing your melody, i'll sing along"

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:45:39 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Everyone falls for "Once". I'm reasonably sure that, years down the line, the fact that people of all walks of life stumble upon this lovely little Irish semi-musical and tumble head over heels for the damn thing, able to take in the bite-sized flick...

"how many years of fears and falls that broke my balls?"

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:32:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Sometimes we need music to stimulate the intellect. As music fans, it's occasionally what we desire: something challenging, opaque, and yet ultimately musical, sending signals to the brain, massaging the medulla oblongatta and all that jazz. It's true;...

"we all get drunk on too much sun, and don't know who to be"

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:29:48 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Everybody thinks their favorite music is accessible. A few weeks ago, I participated in an informal round-table discussion with a few people from different musical schools of thought, trying to weasel suggestions for a mix cd that could easily be...

"a sex change and a damsel with no heroine"

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:48:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - The day that Silverchair's Young Modern hit music retailers everywhere was a good one for music indeed, or at least for one particular listener. On this day, scouring the new releases at Best Buy for something remotely listenable (displaced from...

Planet Earth by Prince: "how many people really want resolution?"

Thu, 9 Aug 2007 14:56:30 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - At this point, I suppose it goes without saying that the general public isn't going to fawn over a Prince record released in 2007. Twenty years ago, yes: twenty years ago, we had Sign o' the Times, a clear and formidable contender for "best...

"all the good Led Zeppelin songs are about citrus fruit"

Mon, 21 May 2007 12:14:15 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - When I listen to the Hold Steady's agreeable new acoustic EP, Live at Fingerprints, I find myself deeply soothed by a strong sense of relief. After all, the Hold Steady - my new favorite band and yours - just released one of those rare albums in...

"i feel Jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers"

Wed, 9 May 2007 15:42:25 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - I have thought long and hard about what I'm about to admit, and here it goes: right now, at this particular moment in musical time, the Hold Steady are the best band in America. Making this claim is a difficult sacrifice for me. Not because it's not...

"i can't construct a poem, because words, like girls, get bored and run"

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:28:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - It's interesting to name an album Dog Problems, because when I think of lives riddled with problems, I don't think of dogs. Orphans, homeless people, starving kids in third-world nations, widowed mothers, Vietnam vets, twentysomethings up to...

GROWIN' UP SPRINGSTEEN X: "halfway to heaven and a mile out of hell"

Thu, 8 Mar 2007 19:34:24 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - It's fascinating to think that the last Bruce Springsteen album I reviewed in this series, <
i>Human
Touch, was released on the same day as Lucky Town. In my review of that album, linked above for posterity,...

"they say your head can be a prison; then, these are just conjugal visits"

Thu, 8 Mar 2007 03:58:44 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - I have nobody to blame for my newfound appreciation of Fall Out Boy than myself. And Jay-Z. I think I'll blame Jigga instead of shoulder that burden myself - to admit culpability implies that I heard that there was a new Fall Out Boy album coming out,...

"quit this scene, build a town and then secede"

Sat, 3 Mar 2007 17:20:18 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Ever since Guster's fifth album, Ganging Up on the Sun, arrived this summer, I've been curiously unsure how to feel about it. This is rare. I am a seasoned music fan, a listener for many years, one who knows what he wants and what he likes...

"you can't hide standing under these stars"

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:49:53 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - I often dream of alternate realities in the music industry. Considering the sheer volume of acts that exist, available for consumption by average Joe or Jane Q. Recordbuyer, an infinite amount of alternate-reality scenarios exist. Sometimes, I dream that...

Sam's Town: "it's good to have you with us, even if just for the day"

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:30:22 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - As it may or may not have been made abundantly clear for those in attendance familiar with my writing, I am a fan of Bruce Springsteen, or perhaps a Superfan or a Fanatic or one of those words that we use to describe fans who seem to not simply enjoy...

"words as light as the birds that circle above"

Wed, 8 Nov 2006 05:29:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - At this point, those of us that are charter members of the Ben Folds Appreciation Society -- known, of course, as BFAS, or "beef ass" -- are well aware that there are precisely two niches that the music-listening populace at large will funnel our...

"yes indeed, freer than high fidelity"

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 04:17:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - First and foremost, it would probably be helpful for me to - as I embark on a review of Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere - point out exactly where my opinions on Cee-Lo, the frontperson, singer, and all-around voicebox for unclassifiable hitmakers...

Da Vinci Blowed: "so dark the con of the teeming masses"

Thu, 25 May 2006 04:13:48 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - Of the reviews of The Da Vinci Code that have streamed in since its release last year, there seems to be a template, adhered to on a relatively frequent basis, for success and credibilty. It is, first and foremost, necessary to make clear two...

GROWIN' UP SPRINGSTEEN IX: "a thief in the house of love"

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:01:01 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Stairway2Drew - As the proud bearer of a Bruce Springsteen interest that could validly be called "obsessive," and as a writer who has been writing in one form or another since, i dunno, kindergarten, I don't feel-- and please correct me if I'm wrong-- that it would be...