Canadian Music Countdown!

As a Canadian, I’ve been celebrating my country’s 150^th birthday. To that end, I thought I’d do something different and talk about music again. Specifically, Canadian music. So we’re going to do a quick round-up of Canadian bands/singers you should listen to (if you aren’t already). As many of you already know, I come from a heavily classic rock/metal background and that does tend to inform my choices. I suppose that’s what happens when the first albums you own (on tape!) were Bryan Adams’ Reckless and Def Leppard’s Pyromania. So no Celine Dion, or Justin Bieber (we all apologize for that one), or Nickelback, or anyone like that. Everyone already knows Canadian acts like Leonard Cohen, The Guess Who, and Shania Twain, so I think I’m safe concentrating on others. So let’s see what we’ve got!  

Honorable Mentions

Men Without Hats- So I just found out today while researching for this list that Men Without Hats are Canadian and I thought I’d share that information for anyone who still likes rocking The Safety Dance. 

Steppenwolf- Another band I didn’t realize was Canadian. And given the number of jokes that have been made in our house lately regarding the Justice League movie and how they could reference Magic Carpet Ride or Born to be Wild  when the villain shows up, I thought it was worth the mention. 

Exciter- Here’s a band I’d heard of, but never really listened to before. I looked them up and started listening to their first album, and got hooked by the thrashy, Motorhead feel the first couple of songs had. Definitely one I’ll add to the repertoire. 

A Tribe Called Red- Electronic/dubstep/dance, etc. might not be my bag when it comes to music, but I have to talk about A Tribe Called Red. I first saw one of their videos posted online by a friend, and I thought it was fabulous. They combine those musical styles I mentioned above with traditional Native American drums and singing. It makes for an amazing blend of past and present all in one. 

The List

Rush- How could I start with anyone else? Rush is not only a great Canadian band, but just a great band period. Whether you’re talking Geddy Lee’s unique voice given to the complex lyrics, or Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart’s mastery of their respective instruments, Rush is always worth talking about. 

The Tragically Hip- There are few bands as so very Canadian as ‘The Hip’, and none that I’ve found that sound similar. I was lucky enough to be able to see the broadcast of their final concert last summer at a drive-in movie theater, and it was packed. If you don’t know them, give them a listen, because there isn’t anyone else out there like them.  

Unleash the Archers- I’ve talked about UtA before, and in fact just reviewed their newest album. So I guess it’s no surprise I mention them here. In a genre where female-fronted bands have an unfortunate tendency to sound very similar it was such a breath of fresh air to find one that takes a page from Iron Maiden or Judas Priest than Nightwish. I’ve been hooked from day one, and as I said, their newest effort, Apex, more than lives up to it’s name.  

Art of Dying- We saw these guys open for Disturbed a number of years ago and it made us fans. They were fun and energetic on stage and after the show and I just want to put them out there if you want a good hard rock band to listen to. 

Jeff Healey Band- A more ‘classic’ entry this time. I never saw him live, only in video, but watching Jeff Healey play guitar is fascinating. For anyone unfamiliar, he was blind and played with his guitar in his lap. His music takes me back to listening to it on the radio as a kid, and he did a killer cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. 

Tom Cochrane- I wasn’t crazy when Rascal Flatt’s covered Life Is a Highway, mostly because I grew up with the original version. Music was just as important growing up as it is now that I’m grown up in my own home, and one album that had heavy rotation at my folks’ place was Tom Cochrane’s Mad Mad World. Solo, or a part of the band Red Rider, you should definitely check it out.  

One Bad Son- I was lucky enough to see these guys twice in one year, opening for two very different bands (Def Leppard and Judas Priest). They were great both times, including teasing a different Metallica song each time. Another band I think needs more attention. 

April Wine- The next two entries are definitely nostalgic for me. I got a lot of my classic rock love from my folks and what we listened to as kids. These were two of them. I remember my mum having Nature of the Beast on vinyl and as an adult I bought it on CD. But just listen to Roller or I Like to Rock, you can’t help but at least tap your foot along. 

Loverboy- We all know Working for the Weekend, possibly from that Saturday Night Live sketch (or maybe I’m dating myself there), but that’s only one song. There’s so much more to be had, and so much glorious 80’s-ness. Seriously, I’m listening right now to a song of their most recent album, and it is awesome and could fit in with anything in their back catalogue.   

Triumph- Rounding out my list is a band I found as a teenager. I heard Fight the Good Fight and I was hooked. The lyrics have almost a power-metal feel to them, with something like Magic Power veering into almost Dio-esque territory. But it’s very much a rock band, and a damn good one at that.

Well, everyone, that’s my list. Researching this list was a lot of fun and it reminded me of a lot of music that I hadn’t listened to in years. There’s so many other bands that could have gone here, my starting list was at least twice as long and it was hard the whittle it down. So I hope you enjoyed this very small sampling of Canadian music and we’ll see you next time!  

Music Review: Unleash the Archers- Apex

Hey everyone I’m back again with a new review. I should have written this one up already, but I wanted to listen through a few more times and really get nice and comfortable with the album and story before I put this up. But now is the time and we’re going to talk about Apex, the new album from Canadian metal act Unleash the Archers. So let’s get right down to it! 

I was introduced to Unleash the Archers through, of all things, Facebook. A friend had shared the video for Tonight We Ride from their previous album and on a whim, I listened to it. Not long after I bought said album (Time Stands Still), and the rest is history, as they say. I had Apex on preorder as soon as the option was available, picking it up in a bundle pack that was not only awesome, but showed up a day early in my mailbox. 

Shirt (comfy btw), flag, stickers, signed postcard, and of course the CD!

Since then we’ve had it on rotation in the car, in the house, I even have it on my phone to listen to if I have an early shift at work before the store opens. This is a concept album, with an overarching story told through each song. I’m not going to get really deep into the story itself, as I guess you could call that ‘spoilers’. If you do want a track-by-track breakdown you can watch that here, here, and here, courtesy of vocalist Brittney Slayes. I’m just going to give you my quick thoughts on each song and then quickly the album as a whole. 

1-Awakening: Clocking in at just over seven minutes, the opener gives you a taste of all the goodness to come. It is our introduction to the protagonist of the story, the Immortal, and setting the stage for the rest of the album. As a song, it’s big and powerful and a great way to start off. 

2-Shadow Guide: Where Awakening is a very modern-sounding metal song, this one has a very old-school feel. When discussing it, the other half and I use the term (Iron) Maiden-y a lot. That’s not just true for this song either, the whole album is this blend of modern and classic sensibilities. This is also the shortest song at just under four minutes, but not lacking anything for it. 

3-The Matriarch: The introduction to the antagonist of the piece, this is the heavy metal version of a campfire story. It was one of the two songs released prior to the album coming out, and so it was nice to hear it in context in the full album. A faster song with a lot of energy.  

4-Cleanse the Bloodlines: This was the first song I heard from this album, as it debuted with a video about a month before release. After watching it, it was a very long month waiting for the full thing. What can I even say about this one? It’s literally everything you want in a power metal song. 

5-The Coward’s Way: We’re mid-album now, so this is probably a filler song, right? No! There is no filler here. In fact, this is when the quest really begins. It also kicks the tempo back up again. 

6- False Walls: At just over eight minutes, this is a massive song in more ways than one. I get that old-school feel again really heavily; a Maiden-y, Priest-y, 80’s-metal kinda feel. It’s one of my favorites on the album. 

7-Ten Thousand Against One: This is your ‘anthem’ song, and I bet it’ll be killer live. This is a headbanging, fists-in-the-air powerhouse. It’s my other favorite song.  

8-Earth and Ashes: This song actually shows us a bit of a different side of the Immortal despite being a very fast-paced song with a rather somber tone. It’s starts off a little slower, but as soon as those drums kick in they don’t let up until the very end. It also features (clean!) vocals from guitarist Andrew Kingsley. Generally he and fellow guitarist Grant Truesdell do provide backing vocals, but as growls, as they do on the other songs on the album. 

9-Call Me Immortal: The Immortal’s quest comes to an end and he begins the journey home. I really love the guitar solo in this one, and it’s really catchy. It’s really energetic and you can’t help but at least tap your foot to it. 

10-Apex: And we end off with the title track and the Immortal’s return to his home. There is a riff is pure Maiden goodness (you’ll know it when you hear it), but the whole things is just such a powerful and uplifting finale that really just brings it all around and together again. 

Overall? I love this album. On their last one, Time Stands Still, it sometimes seemed like the guitars especially just weren’t powerful (or maybe loud?) enough and were completely overshadowed by Brittney’s powerful voice. This time around I don’t find that at all; everyone is balanced and complements each other fantastically. It’s one of those rare albums that I prefer to listen to in order so that it lets the story play out from start to finish (the other being Iced Earth’s Framing Armageddon) rather than randomly. I highly, highly recommend it and you should definitely check it out because it’s Unleash the Archer’s best album yet and nothing I’ve said here does it justice.  

Final verdict- Apex definitely lives up to its name. 10/10           

Wonder Woman Spoiler Free Review

Hey everyone! I’m here with a review for you for a movie that I was really excited but also really nervous for: Wonder Woman. We finally get to see the third member of the DC Trinity get their own live action film, although the 2009 animated movie is also excellent and you should definitely check it out as well. This is also the first female-fronted superhero movie since Elektra, which I only saw part of and found really boring, so this has been a long time coming. I’ve said before that this was my last chance for the DCEU, after the crushing disappointment of Batman vs Superman and the somewhat enjoyable but horribly disjointed mess that was Suicide Squad. If this wasn’t good then Justice League was off the table and I was done being disappointed again and again with characters I’d loved since childhood. But the early buzz was good and even though I avoided reviews of any kind, I was starting to feel a bit better going into this film, and well…

THEY DID IT GUYS! THEY REALLY, REALLY DID IT THIS TIME!


I am so glad to say that this is officially the best of the DCEU and more than that, this is an outright awesome movie! They’ve finally done right by one of their characters that isn’t Batman! Let’s have those fireworks again!

Okay, okay, I’ve had my fun, let’s get down to the review. Wonder Woman has proven what had begun to seem impossible: that you can make a film in the DCEU style and not make it dour and dull. You really can make these the films and do their characters justice (pun somewhat intended). You can even have things like humor and levity amongst the darkness of the subject matter. I mean, this film takes place in World War I, that’s about as dark as you can get as far as a setting goes. But this works.

Let’s talk story. Now then, as I said, this film takes place during the First World War and serves as Diana’s introduction into the world of men. Not exactly the best moment of history to do so, but she’s on a mission to do what she can to help after rescuing pilot Steve Trevor and learning about what’s happening in the world. You go on this journey and you really see how she grows and learns and matures throughout her quest. It’s also a great introduction to Wonder Woman for anyone not entirely familiar with her backstory without bogging you down in exposition. Which is nice, especially considering there a lot more to Diana’s backstory than ‘dead parents + lots of money’ or ‘superpowered alien raised by Kansas farmers’. There’s the element of mythology, of gods and Amazons and magic that comes in even before Diana’s training as the princess of a warrior society. But at the same time the movie didn’t linger too long on the setup, and after so many superhero origins, I’m not going to complain.

In all seriousness, there's a bit of truth to this

However, the real heart of this movie is its characters. Starting with the supporting cast, Chris Pine worked really well as Steve Trevor. I haven’t really since him in much else other than as Kelvin-universe Captain Kirk, but I liked him a lot more here than there. The rest of their team I found to be fun and surprisingly varied, and all the side characters were competent in their own right. The Amazons, from Queen Hippolyta down, were powerful, noble, and completely badass. I loved the diversity of them as well, seeing women of color and different backgrounds yet they all worked as part of a whole community unto themselves. As far as antagonists go, Danny Huston is once again playing the part of a military man, this time as German General Ludendorff. He plays it well, working alongside chemist Dr. Maru to create a new kind of chemical weapon. Dr. Maru herself, played by Elena Anaya, can be a big overdramatic sometimes, but it also kind of works with her obsessive, unhinged personality. Of all the characters, I would’ve liked to have seen more of Etta Candy. She was a lot of fun. Oh, and if you’re a Harry Potter fan, David Thewlis shows up here, too.

Now, having a strong supporting cast is all well and good, but what about the hero herself? Gal Gadot showed she had what it took to take on the character in Batman vs. Superman, but here it’s so far beyond that. Any doubts about her as Diana are easily swept aside. She owns it. And I love her characterization. It’s so nice to have a female superhero who has emotions! A full range of them! Too often it seems like a ‘badass female character’ has to sacrifice emotion or anything even remotely feminine (unless it’s seduction) in order to be that badass. I loved that Diana got excited seeing a baby for the first time, or trying ice cream. I loved that she was able to feel doubt, anger, grief, all these things but not have it seem like a moment of weakness to show emotion. And she smiled! There was a lot of humor in the fish-out-of-water aspect to her story, but it felt really real. This is the kind of tone that Superman has desperately needed in the DCEU; a humanizing one that can have a dark subject but still be hopeful despite or because of it.

Finally, let’s talk about the look of the film. Now this might not have been directed by Zack Snyder, but you can definitely see his influence in the aesthetics. The slow-mo, the look of some of the sets, it really does have the feel of something like 300. But again, I feel like it works for the film. Themyscira is stunningly beautiful, and all the shots there are bright and vivid. When you get into 1918 Europe, things do get darker and grimier. Post-Industrial Revolution London is smoky and grey and the trenches on the front are appropriately ugly and muddy. But even then there are bright pops of color and the washed-out look of the previous films isn’t present here to anywhere near the same degree. The action is big and epic, just as it should be. That shot from the trailer where she climbs out of the trench into No-Man’s Land? That sequence is pure awesome. And there are no gratuitous shots of the characters here, male or female. There’s no camera changes so there’s a butt focus, nothing icky like that. The closest is one shot of Chris Pine, and any one of the Marvel ‘beefcake shots’ is way more sexualized than that particular scene.

I mean I'm not exactly complaining...

In conclusion, this is an awesome movie. You should go see it. Why are you still reading this? Go see Wonder Woman! The DCEU might have finally found its legs with this long, long overdue adaptation of one of its top 3 characters and I am so happy to be able to say that. So good job, DC, on finally getting it right, because it really is that good.

9/10

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Spoiler Free Review

 
Hey everyone! Well, we’re back to movies again in time for the new offering from Marvel. We didn’t go to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opening weekend, but we’ve seen it now so let’s talk about it. As usual, things are spoiler-free! Let’s get to it!

Now, I didn’t end up taking many notes, and my other half’s notes got lost somewhere between the theater and home during our running around. So I’m going to do this by doing this point-by-point of the things I want to mention. Apologies if some of these are vague.

-More character development than explosions. This is one thing I really noticed about this movie. It doesn’t do the usual sequel schtick of ‘bigger, louder, more explodey’. It instead focusses and fleshes out the characters instead and continues their stories from the first movie and how they are now functioning as this group. So when things start happening in the course of the film, you feel a lot closer to the characters and like you know them more deeply than before. I really liked that.

-Drax and Mantis. These two are absolute gold whenever they are together on screen. Dave Bautista’s Drax once again steals every scene he’s in and he’s just so wonderful in his absolute literalness. Mantis is a really neat character and a very interesting addition to the cast. And again, the best chemistry.

-Cast. Everyone in the cast is just as good as they were in the first film. I don’t really know what else to say about it.

-Kurt Russell- I really can’t say anything here without spoilers. I really enjoyed his character and what happened with him. He and Chris Pratt had some great moments together. You do get some expository scenes from him, but I didn’t find that to be a detriment because it worked with the story.

-Sylvester Stallone- okay, he’s not in the movie that much, but I’d like to see more of his character. I’m sure he’ll show up again, and I’d kind of like to know more about him and the culture of the people he’s part of because you get just enough for me to be intrigued.

-Better finale. If anyone was underwhelmed with the confrontation with Ronan the Accuser in the first film, you’ll find the finale much better this time. It was big but it had a lot of emotional weight. This was no mindless action sequence, it really brought together the threads of what had been happening through the whole film.

-Better villain. I thought the Big Bad was great and a lot better than a lot of Marvel villains. There were other antagonists, and they were interesting in the sense I wanted to know more about them or that there were some neat ideas with them. But when it comes to the villain of the piece, I dug it.

-Yondu. Michael Rooker is back again and Yondu is one of the characters that we really get into. He has a fantastic arc  that really gets you deep into him in a way we didn’t get in the first film. He has some great scenes with both Rocket and StarLord that really elevate both him and the film as a whole.

 
 -More emotional heft. As I said above, you get a lot more moments and insights into the characters this time around. It really makes for a heavier emotional punch when things start happening. You’re so in there with those characters that you really feel those emotions with them. It may look like a big, bright, fun superhero movie (and it is), but it’s got serious feels. Excellently done.

-Soundtrack. Let me tell you, Mama Quill had a damn fine taste in music. Awesome Mix Vol. 2 is just that, and the songs are excellently used in the film. Of particular note is the use of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ which is just amazing.

-Baby Groot. He’s super cute. But not overdone.

-Visuals. The visuals look fantastic, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t. It’s not like Marvel is going to put out a bunch of crap effects for this. Guardians lets you do things a bit brighter and weirder too, so there’s a lot of playing with that rather than the more ‘down-to-earth’ stuff you get from some of the other films. One location in particular is just so stunning and so incredibly colorful and elaborate and you just want to pause the film and look at all the details. The only times things got really hard to follow on screen were during a crash sequence when things got pretty frenetic. Otherwise, it looked great, which is what we expect at this point.

So there it is, what I felt were the most salient points for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Overall, a fun ride with a lot of heart, even moreso than the first film. Definitely a good time and enjoyable for everyone.

8.5/10