Sword and the Sorcerer

I pasted the above from a box office widget for Albert Pyun's "Sword and the Sorcerer" so it will be played somewhere near me. I suggest you do the same!

http://bow.magicrock.com/getcode/123

AJ

REVIEW - The Bravery, Stir the Blood (In stores 12.1.09)

Review by Nick Detisch, 11/24/09

Since The Bravery hit the scene in 2005, the indie music world has surprisingly sustained a long-running fascination with early 80's post-punk. With an early mission statement stating that they were a band making pop music for a post-9/11 world, it is not difficult to make the connection that there is more to The Bravery, and the neo-New Wave movement in general, than a love for its disco-desecrating beats and vibrant, futuristic synths; there are underlying, morbid curiosities about a world gone mad that are inherently tied to an earlier era of paranoia and uncertainty.

That being said, the band's new album "Stir the Blood" can be looked at as a decisive step forward. Where on the previous two albums the band was fueled by a distinctly nervous energy and only occasionally fitting lyrical content, this time they sound confident and well-equipped to flesh out what could be their first major artistic statement. Their refreshingly detailed vision here consists of tight arrangements that are fully realized by robust sonic textures, which especially include chiming, palatable synths that owe more to modern Electronica than the 80's New Wave. Unlike contemporaries such as the Editors, whose new album "In This Light and on this Evening" is fearlessly Joy Division-indebted, the Bravery's sound has become less derivitive of the early post-punkers and consequently more substantially modern.

The first song "Adored" is perhaps the best example of their new vision, blasting the album off with a hair-raising synth line and a positively crushing beat. By the short time the first single "Slow Poison" arrives, the album really takes flight, soaring with terrific ideas and striking emotional resonance. That song is particularly lovely, recalling the searing strings of Lloyd Cole's "No Blue Skies" and the nostalgic vocal delivery of early New Order-era Bernard Sumner, but taking the band to the fresh air of new heights. The album continues to impress with the next song "Hatef--ck," which is lyrically brutal but hooky enough to work extremely well as a pop song. Side one ends with the pyschadelic "She's So Bendable," a short experiment in mood that is a jarring but welcome departure from the band and the album's typical range.

Side two brings as much energy and ambition as the first, with songs such as "The Spectator" and "Jack-O-Lantern Man" that deliver the cool, chimey synths in as tough of a package as anything on side one. The album ends with the terrific "Sugar Pill," which continues the experimentation of "She's So Bendable," using a haunting guitar part and Pixies-ish backing vocals to effectively recreate the numbness of the modern, technologically enabled age. The only sidestep is "I Have Seen the Future," in which obvious, ham-fisted imagery from Huxley's "Brave New World" ultimately undermines an otherwise fun dance groove.

The album doesn't suffer too much as a result, and stands tall as the band's best work to date. Each song is impressively decorated with dark, mysterious undertones that keep them successively bound to one another, resulting in a clean and well-rounded vision. Fans of the band will obviously be delighted by it, but this could be a crucial album for the band that attracts a legion of new fans.

(4 out of 5. Track picks: "Adored," "Slow Poison," "Jack-O-Lantern Man")