I had a chance to listen to an advance release copy of Modern Primate's album and I have to say, it's a resounding success in terms of home studio recording. It's delightfully dark and moody, with quirky touches and more than a little bit of knob-twiddling trickery. Given that his gear is somewhat low-tech, the results here are very impressive. Frequent sample themes are used in multiple tracks, including birds, industrial percussion, echo and obscure vocal snippets. This lends a cohesive quality to the series of recordings that makes for an interesting listening experience. Definitely headphone material.



Ambient experimental music like this kick starts my imagination, and gives me images more than anything else. So I've gone throught he tracks and tried to jot down where I was at in myhead space while listening.



Track 1: I have heard this in one form or another, but this time I'm hearing some cool new things: deeper resounding depth to the beating, the bird samples cut and start again abruptly which I REALLY like, and man, you couldn't have picked better orchestral behind it. Nice that the drumming comes and goes as a prominent sound, with the surge of the strings.



Track 2: Very underground midnight in the Metro tunnel sounding to me. There's a sense of agitation, agressiveness, and chaos going on. It amlost sounds like your'e being CHASED in the tunnel. Strong echo, sounds reminiscent of pan percussionists. Very cool, but challenging.



Track 3: This one has a trapped underground quality to it. Heavy breathing, strong reverb, cutting in and out, with another stark banging rhythm, though definitely sounding like an enclosed, damp space. There's a sound that reminds me of water dripping onto rusting metal parts... Very freaky, tied up in a basement for sex crimes kind of vibe. Also, because of the effects on the breathing, it sounds like your OWN stilted, labored breaths, like YOU are the captive, bound and weak, bag over the head... The minor key horns in the background don't help either. This one was so good, it warranted an immediate relisten...



Track 4: YEAH! Vocal samples! Industrial Revolution statements, to dark, booming metal droning... Then cut to a repetitive clang, like a trainworks or factory sounds, that increases over time, as the vocals fade in and out in the background. Again, the chirping of sparrows or whatever lends the track a fractured reminder of the natural world, as if the two are coexisting in a strange way. I'm remined of two images on this track: Landschaftspark in Dusseldorf, Germany, which is a massive metalworks foundry from the war that has been donated to the state, converted into an urban park, with plants and trees growing up through the rusted, twisted metal remains of the bombed facility. Also, those birds in the UK that have developed an ash gray color to their feathers as a genetic adaptation to living near the factory-pollution blighted areas in the North...



Track 5: I don't know if Modern Primate is angling for melancholy, but he's getting it. Maybe it's being shut in to a damp, dark room filled with roaches, festering in his own squalor... Oh wait, he lives among nature and bohemes in Vermont. Never mind, that. This one is all about tragic loss of a child. There's children squealing with delight and running around, a haunting piano key number, what sound like baby birds, and water splashing. It's exactly what you'd exepct to hear in a movie about a family shattered by an infant drowning. Then we have booming mechanical clanks, an MP staple, which is giving me the mental image of a hospital gurney making it's way down the cracked slab of a long hallway towards the morgue. Happy fun lollipop lovey cherry! GAH! We also have what sound like skateboard wheels and trucks skittering along, but again, I'm seeing a lab tech hosing an infant's body off before prep.



Track 6: This one is giving me WWII bunker images. There's a strangely atonal guitar plucking happening, like a bored soldier, and the inconsistently striking tones that sound like a muted telegraph operation. There are distant, distorted vocal snippets here, echoing in a cavernous space, in another language, like perhaps a local servant or captive, and the repeating sound of a striking match, which makes me think of all that stockpiled ordinance they're sitting on. Really cool mood here, like... Waiting...



Track 7: Man, best of the album! Modern Primate doesn't use many beats in a danceable sense, but this track made my next cycling mix mix. The cadence as around 90bps, there's a beautiful, droning synth section, some train station loudspeaker samples, maybe German (or maybe that's my mind playing tricks on me, since my best memories of Germany were of the same thing) and some really great rhythmic fade in and out of the beats. This is seriously on par with some of the best of the Lords Immortal, Gus Gus vs. T-World, Hallowed Be Thy Album! Man, what a rockin tune.



Track 8: A simple, clean clickety-clack track, with some groaning organ-sounding samples, the sticatto of a higher-pithed percussion, and some humming energy to it. Nice medium vibe.



Track 9: This is one where the distortion in the recording is put to use. There's a fuzzy blanket of sound happening, from mic distortion, with bell chimes, some smaller clinkling samples, and a buzzing that sounds like water. Combined with the subtle cooing of birds, crickets, something, I'm getting this image of being along the Seine, middle of the night, with Notre Dame sounding off... Then it gets jarred apart by a cut and replay of the bells, and some different distinct water sounds. I'm seeing memory fault, like amnesia, or concussion. Maybe clobbered in the dark by thugs, staggering through the water at the edge of the bank.



Track 10: Neat vocal samples here, lecturing upper crust voice, fading in over a creatively distorted, stuttering percussion track. There's a deep moaning synth that reminds me of some of Moby's early ambient recordings. Something about this makes me think of a man, sitting in a train booth, wiping his face with his shirt, as if he's been running to catch it, and being chased... And the voices ar elike the ghostly memories of a conversation he was having before he fled. Not sure why. But there it is.



Great stuff all around! I understand he may be putting some of this material online, so you'll be able to take a listen yourselves and see what disturbing images you experience!



I can't give a click rating, on account of my bias. However, consider it highly clicked.

Related posts:

1. Mini Music Review: Oh Me Oh My – Devendra Banhart
2. Mini Music Review: Chiaroscuro – Arve Henriksen
3. The Devil Makes Three : music review

100 Bullets #60-61

Writer: Brian Azzarello

Artist: Eduardo Risso



The Trust continues to be whittled away by the maneuvering Minutemen, and several players converge on Miami, coincidentally (or not) the scene of a meet for more than one of the Houses. Benito, heir to House Medici, doesn't know who to trust, but is pretty sure it isn't Megan. Meanwhile, we see one of this book's classic character studies, this time of a young bellhop, Tino, who in typical 100 Bullets fashion, has a square peg life of misfortune, ambition and regret. His girl, and baby, are in the hands of a local ganger thug, and he's working like a chump fixer, setting up rich hotshots at the hotel with drugs, hookers and information, looking for an angle for himself. Recently, we haven't seen much of the titular 100 Bullets Briefcase, but this would be a decent time to give us one. Interestingly, most of this subplot surrounds a Mickey Rourke clone, which i thought was pretty cool. Despite his star rising again thanks to Sin City, the guy has been three kinds of freak: ugly, vain and eccentric. Our Rourke clone is picture perfect, complete with gum-chewing chihuaua, traveling lawyer, and a penchant for targeting the meanest guy in the room and throwing himself at him, while describing in detail the sexual pursuits he's planning. However, unlike the real ROurke, this one looks to have some muscle to back his bravado up. We'll see. By the close of this issue, his lawyer associate is mysteriously pre-murdered, he's about to throw down with Tino's rival, and the Trust is about to begin the meet. It's back to the good stuff for this book!



9/10 Clicks



As the elite members of the Trust continue to die at the hands of the ruthless Minutemen, Benito Medici's star begins to rise. But when Agent Graves shows up on the scene, will this put a wrench in the plans, or will it simply solidify what's been put into action?

Related posts:

1. 100 Bullets #59
2. 100 Bullets #48
3. 100 Bullets #52-53

Expatriate #2

Writer: B. Clay Moore

Artist: Jason Latour





As promised in the first issue, the book is taking turns unexpected. SPOILER warning, right quick. OK, so it opens on a panicked astronaut wigging out. So we get a sense that Jack has a past with NASA, that ended, well, not so good. Less good than Heat Vision and Jack did, at any rate, which would have at least given him a super-powered brain and a talking motorcycle... but that pilot wasn't picked up, sadly, so we continue... Jack's on the run with Mrs. Lobo, who, after some steamy south of the border Dirty Sanchez action, clocks him with a lamp and lights out. This was a certain relief to me, because while it follows suit with certain noirish conventions (broads can't be trusted, see, nyah!) at least he's not falling in love with a mysterious, beautiful stranger and causing me the fidgits. Anyway, while Jack's wandering the streets with a concussion and a bloodied head, our CIA friends take a meeting with the local politico with plans to take office, which he believes will interfere with a pro-US government, therefore being the reason these spooks are in town. Which it isn't. At all. But the exchange between them is hilarious, and paints a perfect unpleasant picture of the worst of American condescension and disrespect towards it's neighbors. And it has ramifications. Later, they see Mrs. Lobo rushing to catch her boat out of Dodge (without Jack) and they stall her to talk. Great shot here. "Trust us...we're Americans!" And next panel she's dead in the back of their car. The last several pages show the guys discovering Jack, chasing him to the pier where he manges to stumble onto the boat as it's leaving, and while the CIA thugs are firing on him, they are taken from behind by the local underworld goons, and literally beaten to death. At least the older one is, the obvious villain of the book. Dead. Brained. With a shovel. Beautiful! See, that's a surprising end to an issue. So now, entering issue 3, our man Jack is wounded, traveling to...Paris... and his pursuers are fertilizer. For now.



B. Clay Moore's script was tighter this issue, less need to set up the story, and the dialog for the CIA thugs was priceless, as was the local heat's response. Latour's art, however, suffered here moreso than before. The colors ( a two-man affair here) are thoroughly vivid and enjoyable, but the finish inks are SO rough and the figures so inconsistently out of proportion and inked with the wrong lineweights that I hate to say it, but it looks like thumbnails blown up to page size and colored. Sadly. But we'll see if eithe rthe look grows in future issues, or just grows on me. I'm still buying the book. And frankly, it's comforting that less polished material finds a publisher.



8/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Expatriate #1
2. Battle hymn #3
3. Battle Hymn #4

Ultimate Iron Man #2

Writer: Orson Scott Card

Artist: Andy Kubert



UIM has been one hell of a frustrating project so far, and I just HAVE to believe that there's a payoff coming that will make all this make sense. Because so far, it's some of the worst retroactive continuity I've read... even for a revamped, alternate reality interpretation of a classic character in the Ultimate world. Listen, I don't care if Orson Scott Card DID write some of my favorite books when I was younger... that's no excuse for turning Stark into a bio-engineered mutate-type organism allergic to the atmosphere, and certainly, with everything else going on that irritates me here, Kubert plays a huge role in the debacle. His Obediah Stane (sic, I'm afraid) is a fat, looney stereotype in a pastel suit with Salvador Dali stache action, his goons are not tangible as a team of operatives, Stark's father isn't drawn consistent from one panel to the next, massive inconsistencies in the plot are allowing wildly illogical and unbelievable events to be occuring (like raising an infant, on your own, pulled from the womb, let alone allergic to the air and covered in slime all the time,) and frankly, i have to admit it, the biggest hurdle is Kubert's art. I had patience for it once, but no longer. It just looks messy.



This same script, drawn by one of the more realistic powerhouses, like say Trevor Hairsine, would have been a strong improvement, right out of the gate. At least then, it would be easier to challenge script points on their own. At this moment, I can't decide what's bothering me more, the willy-nilly retconning of the character, or the sloppy art. But as I said, there's too much hype here to be just a lame project. Even Origin had some compelling ideas in it, despite retconning the shit out of Wolverine. We'll see what happens here, as there's some room for Scott Card to give us the Iron Man we know.



3/ 10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Ultimate Iron Man II #01 – 03
2. Review: Ultimate Armor Wars No.4 of 4
3. Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-2

Young Avengers #4

Writer: Alan Heinberg

Artist: Jim Cheung



Those of you that have been reading these reviews with any regularity know that I've been championing Runaways and this title, Young Avengers, as two of the best books in Marvel's current line-up, from the perspective of capturing the excitement of reading comics I experienced as a kid. Neither are written for kids, neither pander, and neither are so deep in continuity that they require having a familiarity with the Marvel universe as a whole. Both are great jumping-on books for teens and young adults (and old school readers like me, too, frankly) and both offer creative teams harmonizing well together.



Young Avengers trades a little more on Marvel lore than it's sister title, but not in a way you need to be educated in order to appreciate it. It's clear from the script, and the the way the action has unfolded, that Kang the Conqueror is a time-traveling despot, and he's come back in time to capture his younger self, now wearing an Iron Man-esque armor and calling himself (initially) Iron Lad. Young Kang had gathered some companions, based on a failsafe plan the Vision (Avengers sentient robot, now dead) developed in the future, for rebuilding the Avengers icons for a new generation in the event the original members all die out. It was a suspiciously hackneyed concept early on, and Heinberg has given us reason to dount it's validity. Further the reveal that young Kang was the leader of the group, was the best pull-the-carpet-out moment in several months of comics, that I can recall. So now, we have the Avengers trying to decide what to do with these kids dressed like...Avengers... with a leader claiming to be a younger version of one of their greatest enemies... and sure enough, here comes Kang, come callin' to take his boy, er, himself, home. And Kang makes minced meat of the Avengers in this issue. Maybe it was a little one-sided in a Claremont sort of way, but to be fair, Kang really IS that powerful. This was just realistic. Heinberg captures a hell of a lot of Kang's devious scheming and brilliant manipulative personality here, and you'd think you were reading a Kurt Busiek script, as a result. It reads like from a writer immersed in decades' worth of comic lore, writing for those that aren't. Cheung's art continues to be the best of his career, simply put, and this is another title on which Marvel wisely spent some dollar dollar bills on coloring, because it creates effects critical to the setting andf tone of the book. We also learn this issue that there's more to the Young Avengers themselves than we've seen, and are left with some unanswered questions at the end of the issue. Solid stuff!



9/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Young Avengers #5
2. Young Avengers #2-3
3. Young Avengers #1

Ex Machina #11

Writer: Brian K. Vaughn

Artist: Tony Harris



Ex Machina #11 opens with probably the most intense two pages of the book to date, directly addressing the context under which Mayor Hundred gained noteriety and eventually, ascended to the Mayor's office: the collapse of...one...Trade Tower. In this story, we have been made aware, through some sublety, that the hijackers took down a single tower, and that Hundred was involved, in his Great Machine persona. This issue, we finally see it.



First page: Great Machine hurtling downward in a messy mist of fire and blood and fragments. A close up of a woman's face, unconscious.



Next page: full shot pan out, Hundred flying straight down the side of the tower, trying to catch a falling woman, and in the background, among the wreckage and glass and fire and all that, are more falling victims.



It captures perfectly the sense of guilt and helplessness that not only this character might feel, but the police and fire department folks that rushed in to help, to do something, anything... and seeing the futility of the disaster's scope around them, knowing that they can't save everyone. It's a chilling image.



We then cut forward to Hundred's story in Ex Machina, as the Myor learns that his directive to crack down on fortune tellers in Times Square has a direct ramification on him and his role: one of his staff admits that a fortune teller there had warned her not to go to work... in the towers... on 10 September. Despite his skepticism, Hundred visits this woman, and has a chilling exchange with her, in which she claims to be directly tied to the city, and have the ability to foresee when danger will strike, not only to them all, but Hundred as well.



So he has her shut down.



It's a complex topic, handled well, and Hundred's reaction are both predictably reasonable initially, and then startlingly perplexing at the end. I'm really curious where this one is going. I admit to haveing trepidations about this series' setting in the wake of such an intimate tragedy, but Vaughn continues to impress me, by not focusing on the drama of the tower attack and everything after, but instead, on Hundred's political role, the concept of life after tragedy, which I find compelling.



On the flipside, there are, like many of the issues to date, some...issues. Why the focus on fortune tellers as an administration policy issue? Compared to the sort of quality of life street cleanup policies of Guliani's tenure, it's hard to rationalize fortune telling as being one of NY's ills. And this issue's critical twist: the fortune teller knowing details about Hundred's life and experience, and her promised ability to help him in the future, yielding a swift, negative response from the Mayor... this will need to be addressed in future issues. If this is indeed a stand-alone story, as some solicitation copy claimed, then it's even more out of context behavior for Hundred than his breakdown in her shop in the first place. I like to think it's going somewhere, though.



8/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Ex Machina #6
2. Ex Machina #8
3. Ex Machina #12

Sea of Red #1

Writer: Rick Remender

Artist: Kieron Dwyer / Salgood Sam



Remender's book is based on a critically interesting premise: What if you are dead and buried, but alive? When he mentioned at Wondercon that his next book was a pirate horror story with Kieron Dwyer, I knew I was picking it up immediately. I didn't need any other details. However, I have to admit, the book sets up the hook for Marc Esperoza's story perfectly: his ship was wrecked, but he was rescued by the mysterious crew of the dreaded Black Galleon, who's captain gives him a chomp and sends him overboard, but not before dropping the tease that they'll be visiting Esperoza's home port, and family. So we have a young vampired sailor, chained up at the bottom of the sea, living on bottom feeding fish and whatever swims nearby, barely conscious... for four centuries. One thought: revenge.



I actually read the second issue first, thanks to a published study of panel layout that was posted on Newsarama, so I know that this story takes a radical shift in the next book. But just on the basis of this first issue, it's a wonderfully concise, baroque pirate tale. The crew of the Black Galleon are wickedly designed, with dreads and bone bits and black leather and satin and multiple little details that make Johnny Depp's look in PotC look simplistic. Dwyer and Sam's art here is gloriously thick and brooding, with sketchy, expressive dtails, and a strong sense of danger. It's fascinating to look at. And the pacing of this first issue reads like a shipwreck yarn, with an old fashioned quality to it. Excepting of course, the vampire business.



8/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Sea of Red #2
2. Pirate Tales
3. Criminal # 06

Uncanny X-Men #459

Writer: Chris Claremont

Artist: Alan Davis



One bullet left in the chamber, and this is it. Just imagine trying to explain this issue to an eight-year-old. You see, young Huey (sorry Hugh,) the X-Men are trapped in the Savage Land, a prehistoric (sorta) patch of mysterious jungle in Antarctica somewhere, where a nutty race of intelligent, humanoid, freakishly androgynous dino-people have taken over. The human population are on the run, siding with a known eveil bad nastie WITH MIND CONTROL POWERS and are attempting a revolution. The Savage Land's signature hero, Ka-Zar, and his gang, are tertiary mind-controlled goons in this story, there for no reason. The X-Men's arguably most powerful member, Marvel Girl, wears a miniskirt and midriff top, despite being a slave for most of her young life and having seen more death and destruction than any of her teammates. But she's easily turned to the dino-people's camp and convinced she's one of them, so much so that she uses her reality-warping, dynamically-changing-as-script-requires powers, to reform her face into a twisted version of the dino-people's race. She and her new comrades don superhero costumes and codenames, and capture Storm, and use the X-Man to create extinction level storms all across the planet's surface, until Psylocke, a dead British woman in a dead Asian woman's body, and X-23, a young, nubile clone of Wolverine, help free her. Together again, the X-Men stop the dino-people's scheme by capturing and, you know, convincing one of them to see the light, and at the same time, they also defeat the mind-controlling mutate as well. Everyone's happy, end of story.



1/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Uncanny X-Men #457
2. Review: Uncanny X-Men No. 521
3. Uncanny X-Men #446

Daredevil #73

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Alex Maleev



Part three of this dynamic duo's sis-part finale arc surrounds another of the community church support group of Hells Kitchen Daredevil-survivors or what have you, and in this case, it's a woman who reveals herself to be the unwitting wife of a DD villain who was out axe-murdering women until DD smacked his ass into prison. She admits to haveing seen her husband giggling in the dark and being talked to by a little wicked devil baby. This is easily the creepiest thing I've seen Maleev render. Another participant wigs out on her, revealing HERself to be the final victim of the guy, the one in progress when he was captured. Bendis uses this exchange to explore the phenomenon of serial killers, murderers and rapists who maintain family and friends: who couldn't KNOW that they were up to something descpicable? How could the wife of a serial killer be in the dark? And if she KNEW, what does inaction despite that knowledge reveal about the spouse?



As this arc progresses, I'm finding it to be a wonderful showcase on how pacing, mood, and mannerisms that these guys put together make the scene a living, breathing entity. It's more than being there. It BECOMES 'there' while you read it. I don't think I described it correctly. The reader feels directly involved and immersed in the scene. Throughout this arc, because of the tight narrative focus, it has felt that the reader is a member of the group. It's a vivid, thrilling read.



9/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Daredevil #77
2. Daredevil #71
3. Daredevil #72

OMAC #2

Writer: Greg Rucka

Artist: Jesus Saiz



Maybe it's Saiz inking himself. Maybe it's Hifi Design's colors. Maybe there's a legitimate reason for it. But this issue looks quite a bit different than the first. For one thing, the inks are muddy and dark. The color is thick and moody. The costumes...changing...



WHAT!?



See, I'm completely thrown by this last part. Is is continuity that I wasn't aware of, that displeases me? Or was it a terrible, terrible, therapy-inducing mistake on the part of Saiz? I just don't undertand it. Batman's chest symbol...



...YELLOW...!



I just have a really unpleasant, nauseating reaction to that yellow batsymbol.

It's all over Batman in this issue. Now, it draws all of my attention to it, as the apologists for the symbol's garish contrast color ratioanlize it, despite the issue otherwise having suspense, intrigue, espionage on par with Rucka's Queen and Country work, more rich development of Rucka's Bat-mate Sasha Bordeaux, and intriguing, deepening ramifications from the Justice League's apparent practice of mindwiping both villains, and their own people. The seeds of mistrust, violation and betrayal run through this book, and I think it has parallels with what we read about our own foreign policy reality here in the States. It's creepy, unpleasant business, and the book would be riveting from cover to cover... if I could get past that horrible yellow symbol.



Fortunately, the cover art for the next issue shows a return (?) to the scaled-back black bat sweep I love so much, so maybe this was a terrible, cruel test on my psyche that I have somehow overcome.



10/10 Clicks, despite!

Related posts:

1. OMAC #3
2. OMAC #4-6
3. OMAC: Post-IC #1

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