Category: Nonfiction
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Breadth of Breath: On Pale Lungs’ Pale Lungs
Pale Lungs | Pale Lungs | Self-released | January 2023 It seemed like Pale Lungs might never come. Tennessee’s Pale Lungs went quiet shortly after the release of their excellent Grow Towards the Sun EP in 2018. And, in a way, they never really came back – the Pale Lungs on display on their debut LP is more introspective, more ambitious,…
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Big Country, Small Origins: On Turbo Pastel’s Turbo Pastel
Tubo Pastel | Turbo Pastel | Midwestern Records | October 2023 Country music has long struggled with identity. To combat the perverse gyrations of Elvis Presley, Music Row gussied up country’s twang and lavished the production with strings and choirs, a style which became known as the Nashville sound. With the softening of the 1970s, the genre…
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Striking Gold: On Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger
Alejandro González Iñárritu | Digger | Warner Bros. Pictures | October 2026 | 129 minutes Digger is a spiteful film. It hates oligarchs most obviously, but as it proceeds, the disdain extends to film producers, bystanders, lip service blowhards, humanity as a whole (but Americans especially), and Adam McKay. It is less surprising that people walk out…
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Cerebral Shadow Stealer: On Dottie’s thief
Dottie | thief | Self-released | October 2022 Dusk falls across the shifting black hills, a neon red glow emanating from the sky above. Gothic hallways line pathways through a frozen wasteland, and a soft sustained voice coated in reverb echoes from every surface. Dottie’s new album, thief, steals a listener’s mind and drops it into a new world where the…
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A Faceless Portrait: On little image’s SELF TITLED
little image | SELF TITLED | Hollywood Records | May 2023 The conceit behind the self-titled record is obvious: this is the purest distillation of a band’s sound. For Dallas’ little image, calling their sophomore record SELF TITLED makes sense. It’s their first record in five years, both a reintroduction and a reinvention. It also feels like an entirely…
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A Chase That Never Stops: On Na Hong-Jin’s Hope
Na Hong-Jin | Hope | Plus M Entertainment | September 2026 | 156 minutes At some point in the 2010s, the action blockbuster market started to shift. Not to say that there are no franchises or arthouse films that can present the setting of the action genre with a grand display, but the practices and…
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Sludge Pop, Not Slop: On True Jackie’s Oh Um
True Jackie | Oh Um | Self-released | January 2023 If you’re a fan of guitar music and live in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts – a region that includes college towns like Northampton and Amherst and post-industrial cities and towns like Easthampton, Springfield, and Holyoke – you likely have seen or heard of True Jackie.…
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Timeless Witticism: On The Moderate Themes’ A Movie I Used to Love
The Moderate Themes | A Movie I Used to Love | Self-released | December 2022 It’s hard to write a good Facebook status. Having an answer to the eternal “What’s on your mind?” prompt is a lost art in this day and age where posting feels more like a performance than an earnest means of communication. The…
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Unreality Television: On Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime
Lance Oppenheim | Primetime | A24 | September 2026 | 110 minutes Primetime was always going to be a complicated film. Director Lance Oppenheim has been praised for his entertaining and unorthodox approach to documentary filmmaking on projects such as Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld, and Ren Faire, with a touch that has historically read as less…
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High Batting Average: On Petite League’s Thrill Seekers
Petite League | Thrill Seekers | Zap World Records | October 2022 I first listened to Petite League’s new album, Thrill Seekers, on my short train trip home one rainy Friday afternoon. The chorus-laden bassline, sharp guitar pulses, and splashing drums of “Bloody Knuckles” flew into my headphones before I paused the track for a train announcement, telling me I was…