Adam Cohen – We Go Home Review

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Written on 28/07/2014, First Published on http://pressplayok.com/review-adam-cohen-we-go-home/ on 08/09/2014

JAWS – Be Slowly Review

The first thing I thought when this album started was that it is incredibly Birmingham. With leading acts like Swim Deep and Peace emerging from the local scene, as an outsider I can only imagine what else is going on down in the West Midlands underground.

I think JAWS provide a good insight into what’s happening in the UK’s second city. A distinctive genre that’s only been tied down within its limits seems to have been established. A genre that has roots in the early nineties, but has evolved into something truly unique, but with enough flexibility to allow for individuality. Be Slowly is an album that draws on a variety of different sounds and mixes, but is still distinctly placed in Birmingham.

Post-Graduate Life

It’s only after graduating that I’ve realised no one has ever taught me how to get a job. Not properly. I’ve been to CV workshops, interview practices, even gotten feedback from rejections, which is a rarity, but, despite various suggestions on how to improve my chances, there’s still a lot that they seem to have left out.

One suggestion that came from a lot of universities while I was still looking and applying four years ago was to get involved in as much as I could to gain a wide scope of experience, and boost my chances of success in later life. In fact, a paraphrase from a student guide at Lancaster went along the lines of “If Joe has a first, but did nothing with his spare time, and Matt has a 2.1, but did loads of extra-curricular stuff, employers are gonna go with Matt.”

Annie Eve – Sunday ’91 Review

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Interpol – El Pintor Review

I’m really having trouble placing Interpol’s latest offering. On the one hand, the artwork and the time it’s taken the band to make the album suggest something that’s well thought out, intricate, exciting and, above all, new. After all, it is the band’s first full-length album since the fairly average (but still notable) self-titled release in 2010. On the other hand, there were tracks that sounded like they had been included purely for the sake of fleshing the album out into more than just a long EP.

One of the reasons for the long lapse between releases is partly due to the departure of bassist Carlos Denglar after Interpol was released, as well as the arrival of Brandon Curtis as a more permanent keyboard player. Naturally, it would take time for the new line-up to settle, but sometimes, with a new line-up comes a whole host of new and exciting sounds, and I assumed Interpol would have spent the last four years honing in this exciting array of new aural delights.

Ballet School – The Dew Lasts an Hour Review

For a band that’s been releasing material since 2012, a full-length album must come as a relief to long-time fans. Having never heard them myself before today, I went in not knowing what the three-piece would sound like.

The 2-minute instrumental opening really set the scene for what I was about to go through. Ambient synths set the tone, with lead vocalist Rosie Blair’s operatic singing in the background, and a deep, wet guitar track in the background. As Rosie reached an inhumanly high note towards the end, the soft, relaxing intro faded into Pale Saint, a track much more upbeat, but still retaining the ambience of the track before. This and the following song, Ghost, released last October, have a massive shoegaze feel about them, so much so that they could easily be Lush’s children, or, failing that, have stepped out of 90s New York. Overlayed vocals with interesting riffs, guitars with obligatory chorus, and an underlying synth track give the songs a consistent feel, and so I thought I knew where I stood with the band.

Pixel Fix – Running Thin EP

I’ve been following Pixel Fix since they dropped ‘Rosa‘ on us about 18 months ago. They’ve since ventured out of the Oxford scene, but after 3 EPs, there’s still no sign of an album on the horizon, which is what most fans are waiting for.

This latest four-track EP, Running Thin, is much more of a development on the sound they produced in Fall, their previous release, suggesting something of a distancing from their earlier work. But, as the opening track shows, they’re still experimenting and evolving their music.

Groupees’ Be Mine 13 Charity Bundle Released

Groupees.com, a unique charity/game bundling site, has officially released its 2-week deal bundle Be Mine 13. In a HumbleBundle-style of payment, which games and how many of them you receive will vary depending on the price you pay.

Akin to HumbleBundle, customers name the price they want to pay. As it’s an American site, The minimum price listed is $1, which equates to around 70p. Everyone who buys a bundle will have the option to donate a portion of their money to two charities;
Charity Water, and a campaign to get a custom wheelchair for a young man with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

World of Darkness Development Was “Aggressive and Loud”, Says Former CCP Director

Former employees of CCP Atlanta, the studio behind World of Darkness, have revealed that the doomed game Reached an alpha stage in its development three times over its nine years of development.

The vampire MMO that refused to die (quite apt, really) was actually tested multiple times in this state by the studio’s employees, who put a severe case of project mismanagement at the centre of the blame. Nick Blood (again, another irony in the studio) tested it himself on two occasions, “With the first play test, I was amazed at how little of the core game was there – at this point the game had been in development for over half a decade. I mean, there was just nothing, literally nothing.”

Sniper Elite V2 is Free on Steam, But Only Today

Rebellion Developments’ World War II stealth shooter Sniper Elite V2 will be free on Steam until 6pm today. Not just as a demo, but the whole game will be yours forever if you download it before then.

The news comes in the wake of the game’s successor (Sniper Elite 3, if you didn’t guess that), as the company seems to be promoting the franchise. On the Steam page for SEV2 there is a link to pre-order Super Sniper Elite 3, the deluxe version of the latest instalment, for the discounted price of £31.99.