It’s always encouraging when a band keeps getting better. Doug Martsch and crew have managed to grow in new directions on every release while retaining an individual style.

Built To Spill’s latest album, Keep It Like a Secret is just as enjoyable as Perfect From Now On and There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, if sounding different. Keep It Like a Secret finds the band returning the shorter ‘pop’ song format of There’s Nothing Wrong after the guitar epics of Perfect…. There on epics here, but they are more about mood than instrumentation. (more…)

Bis have sort of led a lo-fi, diy movement in the UK over the past few years. They were the first unsigned band ever to appear on Top of the Pops. Descriptions of them tend to give the impression that they use a everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach and aren’t very artful in their playing. Granted, I don’t know what their earliest singles sounded like, but intendo shows a skilled band with some nice songs. (more…)

Mark Robinson’s newest band presents the same shimmery clean guitars and rhythms that Unrest and Air Miami did. As the liner notes explain, extra large gaps have been left between songs so that each song is viewed as a separate piece of music and not part of an album as a whole. Even without that note, the songs stand out. (more…)

This is the sound of a band doing exactly what they want to do.

Enough about Damon’s sappy side. Who cares about Justine? Damon hasn’t broken up with his mates yet and they release the album of the year in march. (more…)

Will there ever again be a movie wherein Eddie Murphy only plays one role? (more…)

Probably like tons of dumb teenage Dawson’s Creek viewers, I couldn’t get ‘What’s My Age Again’ out of my head for weeks so I bought Enema of the State. I remembered their song ‘Dammit’ from Dude Ranch and figured I might as well grab that also. (more…)

I really don’t know what to think about this movie. It combined all the bad acting of saved by the bell with all the sensitivity of a ron jeremy film.

Have you ever known anyone with Tourette’s Syndrome?

I have.

It’s funny in theory. But watching Slater and Kelly and Screech say things like ‘blow job’ ‘masturbate’ and ’shaved’ is really disturbing.

The real problem is that the filmmakers couldn’t decide whether they wanted an unrealistic, silly and completely funny movie or a realistic and consequently unsettling movie about sex in high school. They end up somewhere in the middle which is sort of like getting a mouthful of vomit before realising you don’t need to throw up. Every movie about teenagers being promiscuous in high school needs to have an epilogue where they show those people ten years later: the sluts in high school whose faces are all deranged from going to ft lauderdale every spring break, downing pitchers of margaritas and loads of cock. and the guys who are all fat, dehydrated, and balding from the amount of booze and flooze they’ve digested over the years.

Having said all that, I laughed at the lead character in almost every scene. And despite the complete unreality of it, whoever got Shannon Elizabeth naked for that amount of time really deserves a pat on the back.

The real problem with this album..if you want to call it a problem, is that the second track ‘Morning New Disease’ is so fucking rocking It’s so vastly superior to every other track that it’s hard to be objective about the rest. Do I not like the rest of the album because it’s bad? or is it because I want to go back to track 2? (more…)

Not counting certain Geocities and AOL Hometown ventures, Bombast-xxx was my first official site. I launched it in 1999 as a place where I could publish reviews of music and movies. The site gave me my own space to learn HTML and attracted the attention of other writers and local press. Other writers helped turn the site into an official webzine and the local press eventually hired me as a freelance music journalist.

Don’t let the x’s scare you; they just looked cool.