MetroPulse Stories: A & E

Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's Monumental 'From Hell' Gets an Equally Monumental Companion Guide

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:02:00 -0000

The From Hell Companion, released last month by Top Shelf, the publisher of the collected From Hell trade paperback, might just be too much of a good thing.

Local Prog/Post-Rock Newcomers Mobility Chief Look to the Future With New Album, Tour

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:58:00 -0000

Listen to any of Mobility Chief’s cosmic, shape-shifting jams, and you’ll likely find yourself perplexed. And that’s precisely the point.

Bonnaroo Recap: DOs and DON'Ts

paige.huntoon@metropulse.com (Paige Huntoon) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:55:00 -0000

First of all, people are not shy about taking their clothes off.

'Before Midnight' Explores What Follows the Happily Ever After

gervinc@metropulse.com (Cari Wade Gervin) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:52:00 -0000

In Before Midnight we learn that Jesse did miss that plane, opting for days (weeks?) of passionate sex with Celine before finally returning home to dissolve his marriage.

Solar Flare-Up: Putting Green Lipstick on a Property Tax Pig

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:58:00 -0000

The enlightened language in the bill’s introduction would make it seem that this red state wants to be green, at least when it comes to tax valuation of property that generates power from renewable sources—solar panels, for example.

Windhand Makes Epic Heavy Rock the Old-Fashioned Way

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:17:00 -0000

Windhand's music is suffocatingly, morbidly slow and heavy, with subterranean bass shrouded in fuzzy guitar distortion and eerie vocals that are buried so deep in the mix that they become ethereal, wordless incantations. There’s an Old World vibe—shadows of haunted houses, Hammer horror movies, and Victorian occultism—filtered through the dark haze of a ’70s drug cult.

'Scum' and 'Life Is Sweet' Serve Up Divergent Views of the British Working Class

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:56:00 -0000

Scum and Life Is Sweet, a pair of older British films out now in new video editions, offer two contrasting and indelible visions of that most endlessly gawkable aspect of British life—its working class.

Local Music Review: The Reigns Band

mconnergibson@gmail.com (Mike Gibson) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:47:00 -0000

There’s a craggily handsome quality to Reigns Band frontman Evan Melgaard’s voice—a smoky, weathered tenor, with hints of honey audibly seeping into the cracks of each croupy rasp.

Local Music Review: Hudson K

neely@metropulse.com (Jack Neely) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:42:00 -0000

Hudson K’s new album, Ouroboros and the Black Dove, marks a new turn for Knoxville’s most unusual duo. (Why, they don’t even have a guitar!)

Does the Audience Really Get the Satirical Thriller 'The Purge'?

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:15:00 -0000

Sometimes the reaction to a movie is more interesting than the movie itself. Such is the case with The Purge, the futuristic home-invasion tale from writer/director James DeMonaco, which set a record last weekend when it grossed $36.4 million—a bigger opening than any other original, R-rated horror film to date.

The Fall's Recent Winning Streak Comes to an End With Lackluster 'Re-Mit'

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:08:00 -0000

The Fall is a paradox, remarkable as much for its consistency—the British band has released an album every year or two for more than three decades, dating all the way back to 1979’s Live at the Witch Trials—as for its wide-ranging sonic unpredictability.

Unfortunate Timing: Westside Daredevils Announce New Album and Break-Up

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:40:00 -0000

The Westside Daredevils have finally released their long-awaited fourth album of shimmering, sophisticated indie power pop, the follow-up to 2008’s Brave New Nothing. Unfortunately, it’s likely the last recording from the band, which is making Westside Daredevils available at the same time that they’re announcing their official break-up after more than a decade together.

Rude Street Peters Return After Four-Year Hiatus

everettm@metropulse.com (Matthew Everett) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:35:00 -0000

You can’t keep a good band down. Just ask the Rude Street Peters, whose brand of punked-up country rock ’n’ roll has been an institution in Knoxville for close to 20 years.

'Louder Than Hell': New "Definitive" History of Heavy Metal Misses the Mark

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:12:00 -0000

By trying to cover the entire scope of loud, fast music over the past 50 or so years via interviews with those who played it, recorded it, or released it, Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman allow the music itself to cede center stage to tales of tour-bus excess and vicious infighting.

James McCartney Slowly Emerges From His Famous Father's Shadow

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:09:00 -0000

It isn’t easy for the son of a Beatle to throw his guitar in the closet and become an accountant.

Magic Thriller 'Now You See Me': A Con Job, But a Fun One

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:56:00 -0000

Now You See Me is supposed to leave us thinking about the many parallels between movies and stage magic. We go into both with a willingness to be tricked—we know it’s all an illusion, but we’re partners in the artifice.

New Marble City Opera Seeks to Fill a Knoxville Niche

Wed, 29 May 2013 18:54:00 -0000

Marble City Opera is a partnership of two Knoxville singers: soprano and artistic director Kathryn Frady Marvel and baritone Kevin Richard Doherty, a University of Tennessee School of Music alumnus who will serve as general director. The pair is seeking to define and add a sorely needed layer to Knoxville’s already diverse music and performance scene—chamber-style opera.

Haskel Wexler Blurs Fact and Fiction in 'Medium Cool'

Wed, 29 May 2013 16:01:00 -0000

Intermittently out of circulation since its 1969 debut, Medium Cool returns in a typically luxe new Criterion DVD/Blu-ray edition, and, despite some of its dated aspects, it retains a provocativeness as bright and pungent as a fresh coat of paint.

Out of the Attic: Making Friends With 'The Woman Upstairs'

gervinc@metropulse.com (Cari Wade Gervin) — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:07:00 -0000

The Woman Upstairs starts aggressively: “How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wants to know about that.

Local Scene Veterans Light It Up as Smoking Nurse

Wed, 29 May 2013 14:54:00 -0000

Charlie Finch, Joan Monaco, and Bill Warden were housemates for a while before they were in a band together. Then, in the spring of 2011, their friend Steph Untz insisted they form a band to play the reception for her graduate painting thesis show, which included impressionistic portraits of local musicians, artists, and associate hobnobbers. By the time of the show they had half-a-dozen songs and a rock ’n’ roll name so good you might marvel that it hasn’t been used before: Smoking Nurse.