Manic Street Preachers – Generation Terrorists (1992)

Having been invigorated by seeing the Manics at the NME Awards Big Gig 2008 last month, it seems sensible for me to complete my project of reviewing all the Manics albums I have here. Next on the agenda is their very first, Generation Terrorists, released way back in 1992. Heavily indebted to hard rock bands, especially Guns n’ Roses, the band’s debut contains some of their best-loved songs which are still played live today. Now remember as we take a look at the album that before its release, the band had an explicit plan for it – they wanted to outsell Appetite for Destruction, headline Wembley for three nights, and then burn out and cease to exist. Unsurprisingly, and notoriously, this didn’t happen. However, the album was fairly successful, and spawned some moderately high-charting singles. It provided a strong platform for the band, which they build upon – The Holy Bible, and with it true cult status, were only two short years away.

Whilst I don’t want to get into an extended comparison, GT reminds me quite a lot of GnR’s Use Your Illusion albums (Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II)  which had been released in 1991. Those albums were GnR’s big exercise in immodesty – neither a single album nor a double album, the project had a frankly ludicrous 30 songs, many of which were completely shameless filler, whilst some are highly regarded. And while GT is just a single album, and lacks any huge, bloated songs like GnR had in the form of things like “November Rain”, it still has a whopping 18 tracks and comes across with the same kind of totally reckless ambition and drive. In its every note, GT seems deliberately crafted to take over the world by sheer brute force. The lyrics, of course, are very un-GnR – almost always very political and socially aware, and constructed like crude slogans rather than cohesive narratives or statements. There’s a song about exploitation of women (the ever-popular “Little Baby Nothing”) and the cover is, as you have seen, a very garish shade of pink. In short, GT is a heady fusion of hard rock, neo-punk aesthetics, sloganeering, and social conscience. It’s a unique album generally speaking, and also because whilst many of its elements were carried forwards, it’s a style of music that the Manics never really returned to.

The first three tracks – “Slash N’ Burn”, “Natwest, Barclays, Midlands, Lloyds” and “Born to End” – each have a clear theme. “Slash N’ Burn” deals with the collapse of civilized society and the idea that a slash n’ burn policy similar to the one used by the Americans in Vietnam is the only way forwards. It’s a bit of a tirade against American culture and business, really – the Exxon Valdez disaster and Madonna both come under the spotlight.  It’s a stirring rock song and a classic example of those sloganeering lyrics (”Drain your blood and let the Exxon spill in!”) but somehow it isn’t quite powerful enough to justify being the album’s first track. “Natwest…” is an attack on the UK’s four big banks, and arguably capitalism in general. The highlight for me is probably James Dean Bradfield’s cry of “Mein Kampf for beginners!” towards the end – an awesome bit of vocal acrobatics. “Born to End” deals with an even more cheery subject – the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and nuclear holocaust in general.

After these three fairly conventional songs, the Manics move on to a genuine classic and something of an oddity – Motorcycle Emptiness. The fact that they played this as one of their two tracks at the NME Awards show this year demonstrates how integral it is to their song catalogue – they just wouldn’t be the Manics without it. The longest track on the album at a sprawling 6:08, it’s one of the slower-paced songs. Largely, it is famous for its iconic lyrics, which I am told are based on the book Rumblefish by S.E. Hinton but have caused much head-scratching since the album’s release. They’re curious, because whilst they’re very difficult to understand as a whole, some of the lines are so beautiful in isolation, and are sung so well, that they have massive impact.

The song is followed by “You Love Us”, another solid-gold classic and an example of the band’s media exploitation tactics. I’ve always found it a great thing as a live track, because the band are telling the crowd that they love them, and vice versa.  It’s a clever lyric amongst clever lyrics. Also, the ace solo/instrumental section at the end (cruelly omitted from compilation versions for length reasons) is brilliant. “Love’s Sweet Exile” follows, which I hope doesn’t catch on the BNP – the lyric “Rain down alienation / leave this country” is the sort of thing that could tear society apart if it got into the wrong hands. The video for the song is also rather amusing…

And then comes “Little Baby Nothing”, the semi-feminist tract. Again, the video for this was excruciatingly hilarious, featuring Bradfield fawning about as a female version of the Manics “played” the song (a trick repeated in the ingeniuously self-referencing video for 2007’s duet “Your Love Alone Is Not Enough”, where Nina Persson had her own female version of the band to accompany her). The song itself, a duet with notorious ex-porn star Traci Lords, has great lyrics and even Lords’ singing isn’t really that bad. Some Manics fans have longed for her to return and perform the song again live, but it hasn’t happened so far.

So, we’re at “Repeat”, track 8. It’s around this point that the album becomes half brilliant, half pretty duff. “Repeat” itself is a pretty pointless anti-monarchist tirade produced by The Bomb Squad, production team for Public Enemy. This cannot save it. “Tennessee” is much better – a return to proper rock rather than cod-rap, with some more prime riffage and cries of “His heart PMRC!”. The subtle background vocals are nice too, as is the bombastic instrumental finale. “Another Invented Disease” is in a fairly similar vein, themed around the idea that a society always needs an enemy, whether real or invented. “Stay Beautiful” is another of my personal favourite tracks – again, the lyrics are top notch and there’s something really joyous and rebellious about the whole thing. The rise in tone at the end of the verses, the background duelling guitars, create a real sense of fun that’s been missing since “You Love Us”. The missing words replaced by guitar after Bradfield sings “Why don’t you just…” is pure magic as well. The whole song encapsulates an atmosphere of cheeky counterculture rebelliousness and it’s thoroughly enjoyable. “Destroyed by madness!”

“So Dead” is another high point, even though the album is starting to drag by this point. Then there’s a largely judicious rocked-up repeat of “Repeat” which is scarcely any better than the first version, and then the nigh-on unlistenable “Spectators of Suicide” which is just tiresome. “Damn Dog” is widely maligned, and it probably is an uneccesary inclusion, but it’s not entirely bad, despite being a cover of a song by a fictional all-girl band in an obscure 80s film. Only the Manics would attempt that, so they deserve some credit at least.

Luckily, the album ends on a high note with three great tracks – the anti-religious barrage that is “Crucifix Kiss”, the history-accusation of “Methadone Pretty” and finally, the awesome GnR-esque “Condemned to Rock and Roll”. Almost as long as “Motorcyle Emptiness”, this final song is a spectacular excercise in Bradfield proving that he’s a guitar god, chiefly. In the final few minutes, he veers from one brilliant hard rock riff to another, seemingly without effort, with the rest of the band keeping up amply.

There’s no doubt about it, GT is dated. It is a product of 1992, and sounds like that. But in many ways, that is one of its strengths – people just don’t really make rock like this any more. If we are to return to our GnR comparison for a moment, there’s little doubt that even this bloated, sometimes-pretentious album is a lot more cohesive and powerful than the two UYI albums put together. There are a few largely meritless tracks, but there are also enough brilliant classics to make this an essential purchase for both fans of the Manics and of intelligent hard rock.

“Rock and roll is our epiphany; culture, alienation, boredom and despair.”

The Reviews Room Score: 90% 

Manic Street Preachers Release Free Christmas Song!

Because I rely on my computer for much of my music-based entertainment, it’s important to me to have a rock solid media player, and that’s why I’ve been so pleased in the last few months with WinAmp 5.5 (I’m beginning to realise I sound like I’m taking bribes for this…). One of the benefits I certainly hadn’t expected from it was the little news stories, which appear at the bottom as you listen to music by your preferred artiste. The stories are artist-specific (in theory) and one Manics story caught my eye a couple of months back, which, irritatingly, has now disappeared just when I want to find it. This one is much the same though, from Digital Spy:

Manic Street Preachers have ditched their plans to release a Christmas single, claiming it was too “cheesy” to be released.

The ‘Everything Must Go’ rockers revealed in September that they were planning to record a seasonal track to coincide with their December tour.

However, drummer Sean Moore has now explained that the group have had to scrap the release because of fears that it would make them look daft.

Moore told the Daily Star: “We wanted to put out a single for Christmas that was better than the usual X Factor s****.”

“However, we were worried about looking like d*******s so aren’t going to make it an official release. We’ll give it away on our website or something. It’s just too cheesy.”

Thankfully, Sean’s thoughts about releasing the song as a free Radiohead-esque download turned out to be what the band did, and the song – entitled “Ghost of Christmas” – can be had for precisely nothing at the official Manic Street Preachers site. It certainly isn’t the usual X-Factor stuff – but it does feel very Christmassy in a fun way, and there’s some quality and classic Manics lyrics on offer as well, so go on, download it! It’s not every day a major veteran rock band gives you a Christmas present is it?

The Sunray Estate – Update

On October 28th I wrote an article that brought to your attention a band called The Sunray Estate, and in which I embarked upon a quest to find out more about them. To my great surprise, I recieved an email from that singer I mentioned – one Kari Santoro. It seems she somehow discovered my article and decided she should get in contact with me:

I have just discovered your article about The Sunray Estate and thought I should be in touch to let you know that a) I exist and b) I appreciate your comments. Jez and I (and his other writing partners) are always striving to write fresh, intelligent, melodic music and we’re most definitely always looking for feedback.

I made sure to reply to Kari’s email and expressed my surprise that she should have discovered my article. I’ll give you The Sunray Estate web address again: here it is. I also got another email back from Kari:

May I direct you to our sister websites for our project, ‘grinConvention’.  Along with the VanKinver recordings, we did a session called the BranthCouver recordings.  I feature songs from both sessions on the gC websites…so some things will be familiar to you – however there are a few highlights that Jez doesn’t include on the Sunray Estate site.  We write together, but due to geographical distance, operate under different project names.  Still – the music just keeps coming…we are constantly writing and sending music back and forth to work on over the internet.

And those gC websites? Here and here. Kari went on to say that she’s currently gigging in Canada and hopes to pursue a UK tour in 2008 – exciting stuff indeed. I’m just thrilled that my explorations turned up such interesting results…

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (2007)

After The Orange Box, Kane & Lynch was always my second most anticipated game of the year. Made by Io Interactive, developer of last year’s superb Hitman: Blood Money, it immediately had an enormous amount going for it from the moment it was announced. Real world settings, full-blown third-person action mechanics, and a supremely gritty atmosphere aided tremedously by the titular characters. Everything about the game appealed to me – the themes, the settings, the fact that it wore its Michael Mann influences on its sleeve, the fact that it was sweary and violent and adult – and now the game has been released and I’ve been able to play it, I can say that although K&L hasn’t quite lived up to my lofty expectations, it’s still, on the whole, a thoroughly solid game.

Except…  currently there are extremely worrying technical issues, specifically crashes. I myself have sometimes had great difficulty getting the game to start – usually, it simply freezes up and crashes so severely my only option is to hit the reset button on my machine – clearly, this is totally unacceptable. Others have had slightly less crippling crashes, whereby they can alt-tab back into the game, but alas that’s not my experience. It seems likely that the issue is caused either by a discrepancy between Windows XP and Vista as some have suggested, or some kind of catastrophic Games for Windows Live error. An irritating GWL box appears as the game starts, imposed on Io by Microsoft’s appalling campaign and system of the same name.  Hopefully Io will release a patch that solves these deeply troubling issues (as well as a few other bugs present in the game itself) as they did with Blood Money. Whilst I won’t let such technical troubles impinge on my score – I have been able to complete the game, after all – it is something that is very much worth taking into account.

Before we tear into the meat of the review it’s worth a word about those main characters themselves. They’re arguably the Lynchpin (aha!) upon which the rest of the game is held, and they are strikingly unlike almost anyone that we’ve been able to play as in games up to this point – although they are very much inspired by various characters from various gritty thriller films. Adam “Kane” Marcus is a British ex-mercenary. It’s his snappily-suited bod that you’ll control for the duration of the game in single-player mode. Formerly an employee of the sinister mercenary force The 7, Kane has long since been arrested and jailed for his numerous crimes, but more specifically an incident in Venezuela some years before where some 25 civilians were killed. This event made Kane extremely unpopular with The 7 for reasons we won’t get into. James Seth Lynch is a diagnosed and medicated schizophrenic psychopath. Without access to his medication (which he initially claims is for a stomach illness) Lynch is prone to blackouts which often see him committing horrendous acts of motiveless mass violence. Even outside of these blackouts he is a more than capable killing machine, who may or may not have killed his wife. Either way, Kane and Lynch begin the game in a prison transport taking them to death row. They will pay for their respective crimes with their lives.

However, en route to their execution, Lynch tells Kane to get his head down – moments later their truck is rolled over and broken into – they are freed by a heavily armed mercenary force. Soon Kane is provided with Lynch as a minder – their task is to retrieve two suitcases that Kane escaped Venezuela with. Kane’s reward is to have his estranged wife and daughter, who have been kidnapped by The 7, released unharmed. Lynch’s reward is to become a member of The 7 – whether or not they succeed, The 7 inform Kane that he will be killed. And so the two set off, quickly developing a mutual hatred. Their quest to complete their respective aims takes them into all kinds of unexpected places and locations lifted spectacularly from Hollywood, and each of their escapades invariably leads to an enormous bloodbath. You’ll realise that K&L is not for the faint hearted or morally wavering – cops, security guards, and innocent bystanders of various kinds will take the pair’s bullets, as well as the balaclava-clad criminal scum we’d expect from a genre dominated often by Max Payne. It’s worth contrasting Kane and Lynch with Payne for a moment – whereas Payne might be a damaged cop, make no mistake – both Kane and Lynch are almost completely remorseless self-interested killers with barely a scrap of humanity to share between them.

So, criminality-packed missions resulting in grandiose, cinematic shootouts and bloodbaths? Yes, this is the usual formula that K&L follows. Crucially though, it subverts the potentially tiring and cliched format with several small but important innovations or at least features we might not expect. Similar to a past Io game, Freedom Fighters, Kane is able to order around a small squad for much of the game. Lynch is of course always a member of this brutal unit, and whilst the squad offers crucial fire support (especially given that you can find hefty machineguns and hand them to a squad member to use if you so wish), the importance of controlling them can easily be overstated. Generally speaking they’ll just follow you about and revive you with adrenalin when you get too shot full of holes, and so whilst the control system is slightly flaky, it really doesn’t matter. Instead, you tend to focus on controlling Kane. Crucial to his success is the cover system – this is automatic, meaning that if you get close enough to appropriate walls, Kane will hide behind them. From these positions, you can clumsily blind-fire by using the left mouse button alone, aim with more accuracy by using a right mouse button over-the-shoulder zoom mode. Additionally, Kane takes cover differently depending on whether he is stood up or crouched, and can throw grenades (of which you have three types – but you’ll mostly use high-explosive) from a hidden position as well. Generally the cover system does what you want it to – it’s quite intuitive, and you never get stuck on anything. It’s also worth noting that Kane can’t jump as such – but he does have a mantling animation for anything large steps or boxes that do block his way.

There is of course a healthy spread of guns to help Kane & Lynch complete the missions. Whilst you shouldn’t expect anything particularly outlandish or OTT in this kind of game, they all look familiar and sound distinctive. The best thing about the weapon system is that you can freely swap weapons with any member of your team – should you decide you’d rather a shotgun than a rifle, then you can make that swap. And, when you inevitably run out of ammo with the sheer number of fleshy human beings you’ve shot, your team always have plentiful supplies to replenish yours with. The missions themselves are usually tremendously exciting and well-made. The rapelling descent down a Tokyo skyscraper, being attacked by a dump truck highjacked by hitmen, and a gun battle against flashlight-wielding Yakuza gangsters in a neon nightclub, terrified dancers running in every direction – the game takes all these and more in its stride. Only a few small vignettes fall short. The car chase sequences are too slow and feel too forced and arbitrary – the on foot action is vastly more effective and professional.  Another gripe is that one or two of the location changes seem very sudden and unexpected in a slightly unpleasant way. A couple of extra cutscenes or small levels here or there would smoothen things out and make the campaign more rounded and flowing. On the whole though, K&L has an incredibly dark story to tell and tells it with style, wit and panache. Whilst lacking the coruscating, compex narrative of Blood Money, it focuses instead on the superb dialogue and voice acting of its two morally bankrupt protagonists. Kane’s slow realisation of the true depths of Lynch’s insanity is surprisingly well-handled, as is the shell-shock of Kane’s much put-upon daughter, Jenny.

The gameplay of K&L is, frankly, quite simple. But that’s what we should have expected – third-person action games are rarely known for their nuance and complexity. What makes K&L worth a look is the fact that wrapped around that core is a brutal and well-presented world. It’s the kind of world that cinema has handled frequently and well since at least Heat in 1995 – but that gaming hasn’t really approached convincingly. K&L sets out to change that, and whilst its success is far from entirely consistent – there are missteps, there are technical issues, there are niggles with the pacing and the storytelling – it makes a strong attempt, a basis that can be built upon. Unfortunately, I fear that Kane & Lynch’s engaging world will be a rarely-held experience as long as the technical troubles, mediocre reviews and multiplayer shortcomings loom over the game. If K&L ends up wallowing in obscurity that would be a shame – I for one I am glad that I have had the chance to play the game and see Kane’s quest reach its conclusion.

Video: Kane & Lynch Trailer #2

The Reviews Room Score: 77% 

The Good: Characters, settings, visuals and action The Bad: Technical troubles, no online co-op, Games for Windows Live’s malign influence

Strife (1996)

Let’s talk Doom. Released in 1993, Doom completely revolutionised the games industry, in a way that became familiar after the release of Quake in 1996 and Half-Life in 1998. The game comes out, it becomes a huge phenomenon, and the developer licenses the engine to various developers to make their own games despite being too small to develop their own engine. When that first happened with Doom, id Software soon licensed their Doom engine (now referred to as “id Tech 1″) to various developers. One of those developers was Cygnus, who soon set to work on a truly groundbreaking FPS, Strife. Unfortunately for Cygnus (who actually handed over the latter stages of development to Rogue Entertainment), Strife was eventually released in 1996, at which point its graphics looked decidedly dated compared to Duke Nukem 3D (developed by 3D Realms) and particularly id’s new game Quake. So basically, id charged Velocity to use the Doom engine, and subsequently sank the team’s game by producing their own new one that was wildly technology superior. Wow, thanks id!

And so Quake is now one of the most famous games of all time, followed by three semi-sequels, and Strife rots in relative obscurity. But – in truth, Strife is one of the most influential shooters of all time. It almost seems that the only people who played it went on to become major game developers, with Strife’s innovations being replicated in Halo, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Deus Ex, and Half-Life to name but a few. We’ll come on to those innovations in good time.

The game is set on a futuristic Earth (presumably) which has been ravaged by a deadly virus. Whilst much of the planet’s population is killed, the survivors can be divided into two categories – a newly-created race of mutants who hear the voice of a “malignant god” inside their heads, and the ordinary humans who do not hear it. The former becomes The Order, a sinister meglomaniacal force that manages to conquer the planet using extensive cybernetics to replace their own ailing bodies. The latter is mostly kept underfoot by the vicious totalitarian Order forces, but a secretive resistance movement calling itself The Front soon emerges, determined to overthrow Order oppression. You play as a nameless wandering mercenary who stumbles into the town of Tarnhill, and soon becomes an enemy of The Order. Meeting up with The Front, you soon become a vital Front agent working directly for its leader Macil, completing various missions against the Order. Missions? Oh yes. The developers did something very different with the Doom engine. Tarnhill is a central town hub area, from which you can travel to various other places including hidden Front bases and militarised Order strongholds. There isn’t a linear series of levels at all – you can move freely from one place to another, with some mission-specific limitations. This immediately makes Strife a vastly different kind of game to Doom or Doom II. In the town there are traders who sell a few basic goods (generally weapons, ammunition, armour and health) and any NPC character can be spoken to. There are dialogue trees with multiple options, which needed to be dealt with carefully as occasionally, the wrong answer can lead to a swift death. Amazingly, the Order actually employ not armies of goons but subtle character-driven ruses to eliminate you in the game’s early stages – avoiding this is a weird thrill in the Doom engine.

That’s not to say that Strife lacks run-and-gun combat – there’s a healthy selection of weapons. To start with you have a small fist-mounted dagger you use you take out the first two Order Acolytes (the weakest enemies in the game), and unusually for an FPS, the second weapon isn’t a pistol (!), it’s actually a crossbow. Here comes one of those innovations – the crossbow is one of a few weapons that actually has two different kinds of ammunition which you can switch between at will, and which affect certain enemies in different ways, along the lines of whether or not they are robotic. There’s the rather boring assault rifle, then the mini-missile launcher which is great fun as rather than the often-excessive and seldom used Doom rocket launcher, its rockets are very common and satisfyingly man-size, making them perfect for blasting individual Acolytes. Then there’s more favourites like the double-barreled grenade launcher (with standard high-explosive and also phosporous incendiary grenades), the enormously satisfying flamethrower (which sets Acolytes aflame in a manner highly reminiscent of Blood’s flaregun) and so on. In fact one of the main aims of the game is to acquire a weapon – it’s too important to give away but it’s called the Sigil, and it’s very powerful and very cool indeed, in concept and execution.

There’s more. One of the game’s best features is a commlink you acquire early on that allows you to recieve incoming messages from a female Front agent named Blackbird, something which both Halo and Dark Messiah took great inspiration from (as did Half-Life, to an extent). Blackbird not only has a very sexy voice – which is key to her appeal – but is also the source of much of the humour in the game. Most amusingly, she makes comments which are gently poking fun at the normal tropes and cliches of FPS design, such as “It’s weird, this place looked tiny from the outside” and “Urgh, why do we always have to go underground? I’ve seen underground.” There’s more gags as well, such as the self-importance of the extremely minor character of the Keymaster, so named because his single role is to give you a key in order to progress, and the comments made by various Order enemies when at one point you get to wear a disguise and talk to them (!!). There’s much less of a reliance on Doom’s simplistic find key, kill monsters template. There are keys to find (and of course given the open nature of Strife’s world, there are more than Doom’s simple three) but there are other ways to progress – destroying certain objects such as computers, or negotiating with individual characters like the governor of Tarnhill, who seems to play both sides of the war to his advantage. Oh, and you can cut a man’s hand off and use it to open palm print-locked doors in a high-tech prison (!!!). There’s a surprisingly large amount of high-quality voice acting by 1996 standards, and this is another thing that sets Strife apart. The areas are usually enormous by Doom or even Doom II standards, with countless lifts, interconnecting passages, guardrooms, storage areas, watery tunnels, sewers, bridges, gates, walkways, underground passages, waterfalls, and who knows what else.

Strife is a world away from any other Doom-engine game, which is surprising even despite the fact that it was the very last Doom-engine game to be commercially released. Although the graphics are of course extremely dated, if you can play Doom and enjoy it (which you damn well should be able to, frankly) then Strife is more than worth a look, it’s completely essential. The sheer number of features that were forced into the Doom engine is almost unbelievable, and playing through the game and constantly thinking of other games that borrowed ideas from it is a full-time job in itself. The only downsides I can think of is the ease of quick death from poor dialogue options and the dreary and uninspiring music – but generally speaking, Strife is a classic of 90s FPS gaming, definitely worth checking out in 2007, eleven years on from its troubled release.

Video: A highly amusing video review of Strife, not a patch on mine of course. Alas it does have some factual innacuracies, some brought on by the fact that if you play Strife today, you’ll be doing it with zDoom.

The Reviews Room Score: 91%

The Good: Amazingly advanced 90s shootery The Bad: Dodgy music, sometimes lethal dialogue

Portal (2007)

 Portal is an almost completely unique game, and that’s saying quite a lot in this day and age. It’s only almost unique because it was adapted from Narbacular Drop, a game made as a project by a team of students from the DigiPen institute of technology in Redmond, Washington in 2005. In just two years, that team was taken on by current world’s greatest developer Valve and they managed to help Valve create Portal, which uses many of the same principles as Narbacular Drop transplanted into Valve’s ever-capable Source engine technology.

Whereas Narbacular Drop was set in a grim fantasy world, Portal casts you as Chell, a female test subject at a secure compound run by the sinister and faceless research corporation Aperture Science. You begin the game by waking up in a clinical, transparent cell, talked to by the robotic tones of GLADoS, a computerised AI placed in charge of your participation in Aperture Science’s tests. As you probably know, what you’re given to complete those tests is the Aperture Science Hand-Held Portal Device, or portal gun to us mere mortals. It’s this single tool that the entire game is focused around. Once fully enabled, the gun is simple to use in theory – left mouse button fires a blue portal, the right a yellow portal. Anything that goes in one comes out the other, usually you. Things get more complex when you realise that you keep your momentum when you go through a portal, allowing moving through one portal and then another to perform spectacular abuses of conventional gravity and other laws of physics. Tricks like this are essential to completing Portal’s levels, or test chambers, which throw up increasingly devilish challenges. The first several chambers teach you the basics of the game, but soon you’ve mastered these and are facing the more tricky chambers that come later on.

As all this is going on, you have only GLADoS for company. She (or more properly, it), you soon realise – isn’t entirely all there. After a short while she gets her wires crossed and mistakes you for a military android built by Aperture Science (”It is my duty to remind you that android hell is a real place to which you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.”) and her sometimes sinister and usually surreal comments become so amusing and inherently quotable that they become one of the foremost amongst the game’s appeals. It might seem surprising that Valve manage to wield an engaging plot in a game which has only two characters – one of whom is a machine and the other a mute with semi-metal legs – but they pull it off. GLADoS’ many twists and turns keep things moving, as well as the hard-to-contain power of the portal gun. Thoughtfully and dexterously making your way through the 18 test chambers is enormous fun, especially when you’re driven on by wanting to hear GLADoS’ next comment or come to the next plot development. It’s a winning formula, and one very efficiently carried out as we have come to expect from Valve.

And all this is without making mention of the amazing engine and the wonderful song written by Johnathan Coulton and sung by Ellen McLain that accompanies the credits – but what I will give lengthier mention to is the potential for Portal’s custom levels on the PC. Whilst Valve have made The Orange Box available on PS3 and Xbox 360, what those versions of Portal lack is the already-impressive number of custom maps available to download from various places, most notably portalmaps.net (so far). We’ve already had a superb map crafted by a Bethesda employee to toy with, and looking forward to what may be next is an extremely exciting prospect.

As is Portal in general – a truly ingenious and mind-bending FPS/Puzzle hybrid that is far more than a third-place game in the brilliant Orange Box.

Video: The trailer for Portal.

The Reviews Room Score: 93%

The Good: Brilliant The Bad: Brief

Jeff Buckley – Grace (1994)

I can’t decide if Grace is the second or first greatest album I’ve heard that was released in 1994. Its opponent is The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers, but the two albums could hardly be more different. The Holy Bible was once described as “self-lacerating punk fury” and I’ve said that it’s the most harrowing album I’ve ever heard – but Grace is just something else. It famously includes an English hymn dating from the Middle Ages as one of its tracks, a notoriously complex and cryptic Leonard Cohen cover which has become legendary in its own right, and also a song that actually wouldn’t sound completely out of place on the aforementioned Manics album, now I think of it – which gives you an idea of how incredibly varied and ambitious Buckley and his colleagues were when they set to work on Grace in 1993. The story surrounding Buckley’s demise is often retold but I shall briefly tell it again for those who are unfamiliar with it. Buckley completed the Grace tour in 1996, and on May 29th 1997, went for a swim in Wolf River Harbour, a tributary of the Mississippi River. Sucked underwater by a powerful undercurrent, Buckley drowned, and his body was found some time later. At the time of his death Buckley had been working on a future album entitled My Sweetheart the Drunk, which was released in an incomplete state as Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk in 1998. Buckley purists like myself, however, would argue (with some justification) that Grace is Buckley’s only album and the one by which his talent as a musician should be judged.

“Mojo Pin” is the album’s first song and comes across as a clear statement of intent. Across dreamlike acoustic, Buckley’s ethereal voice murmurs its way into the song in the opening seconds, forming a very memorable album opening. The main lyrics that follow are sung in a beautifully quiet and subtle way, and the dreamy atmosphere is maintained with gentle drums joining in. Throughout the song this formula is interspersed with slightly heavier and more urgent sections, until eventually a muscular riff and heavy drums kick in for a few seconds, and then over some more wordless vocals from Buckley, it all falls away again. And then everything comes back in heavier still, with Buckley sounding more passionate and forceful than ever. The song is so varied but so controlled throughout that it’s hard not to be taken in and absorbed by it. Supposedly it’s about heroin, but Buckley always claimed it was about a dream (both would make sense) – but Jeff’s not around to ask so perhaps we will never know.

The title track, “Grace”, comes next, soon entering a joyous electric guitar opening, and the song goes into its story of, as Buckley himself described it, the loss of fear about mortality when true love has been achieved. Again, it’s a very varied song, with some lovely guitar sections to spice things up, and effects like the ticking of clocks are placed cleverly to complement Buckley’s voice, which by this point is really sounding amazingly impressive. Grace was released as a single.

Next up is “Last Goodbye” which was deservedly another of the album’s singles and in fact, Buckley’s most financially successful single. Again the simple guitars and drums template opens the song, but it’s very effectively and appealingly done. The second verse is perhaps particularly amazingly sung, but it’s very hard to choose exceptional Buckley passages when there are so many. As the title suggests the song is about the end of a relationship. The line “Did you say – ‘no, this can’t happen to me’” is one of my favourites on the album given its superb delivery. There’s something incredibly passionate and emotive about it, but it’s just one line of an enormously impressive album.

“Lilac Wine” is a cover – in fact basically all the versions of it anyone’s likely to have heard (by Elkie Brooks, Nina Simone and Katie Melua to name but three) are covers of the song originally written by James Shelton. It’s one of the slowest and most subtle songs on the album, and as such it takes quite a while to really sink in and let you appreciate it – but as ever some of the lines are delivered incredibly well. Despite the slow pace the whole thing seems to have an amazing epic momentum about it. Beautiful.

“So Real” comes next, and was understandably also released as Grace’s third single. Its title was also used for this year’s Buckley retrospective collection. It is quite dark and moody, with a rising and falling tempo and some haunting lyrics (”The wind blew an invocation…”). The real highlight is the latter renditions of the chorus, with Buckley’s (again) passionate delivery and the thunderous drums and especially cymbals. The quiet-to-loud-and-back-again mechanic returns on this song as well.

That legendary Leonard Cohen cover, “Hallelujah” comes in at track 6. At almost seven minutes long, it’s the longest on the album by a small margin. It’s fairly hard to overestimate how acclaimed Buckley’s rendition is in popular musical thought. Apparently based largely on John Cale’s version, Buckley’s is stripped down to its emotional core, centred around his own always-beautiful vocals. The song’s inherent quality is its lyrics – meandering, Biblical and outright wonderful, they formed an ideal core of material that Buckley was able to cut down and use (some versions of Cohen’s original lyrics included as many as 15 verses) as an amazing testbed for his voice. There’s something about the simplicity and subtlety of the arrangements that allows Buckley’s very special delivery of some of the intensely powerful moments in the song and creates something that is genuinely wonderful and unique. There’s rarely a mood you can be in where listening to “Hallelujah” seems like an unwelcome prospect – it can be read as melancholy, joyous and praising, or simply cryptic and thoughtful. Happily, Buckley’s version results in one of those experiences (like Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” full-length version for instance) which is difficult and probably unwise to attempt to capture in words – to do so is somehow to attempt to deconstruct something that was specifically made the way it is, in much the same way that great poetry can have its meaning and impact crippled by futile over-analysis. In short, “Hallelujah” forms a magnificent core to the album.

Next up is “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” which is nearly as long as “Hallelujah” but is a different beast almost entirely. It begins with some mournful organ which is appropriate for the lyrics of the first verse which describe a funeral in the midst of a rainstorm. Buckley states, “Maybe I’m too young / to keep good love from going wrong”. He expresses his feelings of wishing he could be with a lover, and the inescapable nature of his situation. The song builds very slowly, becoming more complex and emotional with each passing verse, and the climax four minutes in when Buckley repeatedly exclaims, “It’s never over” is superb.

Up next is the song’s shortest and most religion-inspired song, “Corpus Christi Carol”. It’s based on Benjamin Britten’s version of the Middle Ages English hymn, and is difficult to get used to at first, but soon you realise how incredibly, monumentally beautiful it is. Buckley’s vocals are just astonishingly poised and delicate – it’s hard to imagine any other performer in popular music who could possibly have pulled the whole thing off – wonderful.

The hardest song on the album, influenced by some of Buckley’s angrier feelings, is “Eternal Life”. It soon launches into a grungey riff and you know this is wildly different territory from the previous track. Each line is delivered with a righteous anger and venom, without becoming excessively theatrical. It’s clear that Buckley’s feelings aren’t all angry, however, as he declares “All I want to do is love everyone”. The section where “There’s no time for hatred / only questions” is sung over a quiet background before those questions are forcefully asked over the harder backing is fantastic stuff.

Track ten (and possibly the last track, but we’ll come onto that) is “Dream Brother”. I really can’t claim to know what the song is about, but supposedly it was written by Buckley as a warning to a friend about not walking out on a pregnant girlfriend. Regardless, the song has some slightly disconcerting images in it and conjures a very engaging, mystical atmosphere.

If you have an old version of Grace, that’s it, that’s your ten tracks. Later versions, however, have an eleventh and final track – “Forget Her”. It’s a moving song about having broken up with a lover whose love was not what it seemed. I personally find songs that fade out slightly annoying so it loses points for that, but overall this is yet another amazing song on the album – one passage in particular is especially excellent.

Frankly, Grace is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to not go on and on about how amazing Buckley’s voice is, especially when words frequently fail to describe it. But ultimately it’s that voice that forms the core of the album’s compositions, and it is astonishingly impressive with almost alarming regularity. Buckley’s musicians do themselves extremely proud, always providing backing to Buckley that is always proportional to the situation in the songs. The album is quite an exhausting experience – sometimes it feels quite heavy going, and is hardly an album that you’d listen to all the time (with the possible exception of songs like “Last Goodbye”, “So Real” and “Eternal Life”) but it is one that you find yourself returning to frequently, most often because you feel the need to listen to a specific masterpiece like “Hallelujah” or “Dream Brother” – but in all probability you will find yourself listening to the whole thing, just getting immersed in it. A masterwork, and a far more rewarding purchase than any Buckley compilation. Essential.

Video: Buckley and friends performing “Mojo Pin” live in Chicago, presumably in 1994. And remember, this is one of the weaker tracks.

The Reviews Room Score: 94%

The Good: Buckley’s astonishing voice and the songs to back it up The Bad: Get back to me about that, somehow not quite perfect

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

For a B-movie, John Carpenter’s original 1976 Assault on Precinct 13 is very highly thought of. So much so than in 2005, a remake was released, with many major differences existing between the two versions. Directed by Frenchman Jean-Francois Richet in his first English-language film, this version is arguably quite a loose remake, changing as it does some of the characters very heavily and adding quite a few new ones. With a budget of $20,000,000, this is clearly a much more lavish production than Carpenter’s $100,000 original, and the actors are much more well known – all in all, the film was half a tribute to the original and half an attempt to sufficiently update it for the 21st century zeitgeist – and in both of those aims, it is very successful. It doesn’t entirely transcend the original’s status as a B-movie (despite a few scenes hinting that the film is aiming to) but remains a thoroughly entertaining action thriller.

Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) was the only survivor of a botched police sting operation which claimed the lives of his two colleagues. Some time later, resuming his old duties this time as a normal uniformed cop, he arrives for work at Detroit’s Precinct 13 police station, on New Year’s Eve, as the station is being shut down. There he meets with Iris (Drea de Matteo), the station’s flirtatious receptionist, and Jasper (Brian Dennehy, who is not quite as excellent here as was in First Blood or Gorky Park), an ageing cop on the verge of retirement. The three of them open a bottle and intend to see out the night in lazy, celebratory fashion – until the fearsome snowstorm raging outside forces a passing prison truck to stop at the Precinct because the road conditions have become so treacherous. Although Roenick protests that so few cops can’t possibly keep the criminals in check, he eventually relents and the various felons are locked in Precinct 13’s cells. They include a pair of low-level convicts, Beck (John Leguizamo) and Anna (Aisha Hinds) but more threateningly, also inclides the imfamous crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) who after a shooting spree has been recently captured.

Before long of course, the station comes under a withering hail of gunfire which devastates the whole place. A pair of masked gunmen break into the cells and kill one of the prison guards and critically wounds the other – whilst Roenick is able to see them off it quickly becomes clear that Precinct 13 is under full-scale attack. A consensus is reached that the gunmen must be members of Bishop’s syndicate on a mission to break him loose – but Bishop assures them this is not the case and after the gunmen become even more indiscriminate, this becomes convincing. As the assault intensifies, the survivors arm themselves in a desperate struggle for survival against their mysterious attackers.

It’s when the action really kicks off that the updates to the original’s formula become obvious. The bandana-clad killers from the original are replaced by body-armoured professionals with face masks and night vision as well as sophisticated assault weapons. They descend from ropes, drive about in jeeps, and employ snipers to flush their enemies out. Also, this time they have a leader, Duvall, played by Gabriel Byrne. Byrne was impressive in Miller’s Crossing but is a little underused here, being mainly featured in a brief conversation inside a car. This fact might be a testament to the sheer number of quality actors the film features more than anything though – Ethan Hawke does a great job as the troubled Roenick, both flirtatious wreck and convincing action hero in one. Laurence Fishburne largely breezes through his role, which largely fits him like a glove. John Leguizamo’s character of Beck is reminscent of his character Felix in the 2002 Schwarzennegger film Collateral Damage, being something of an irritation to the other characters. Luckily, doing so whilst still seeming amusing to the audience is one of Leguizamo’s talents. What is good about the cast is not so much the individual performances as the way they seem to gel as a whole – it’s an impressive achievement.

But what really matters is the action – and it’s excellent. Some moments just leap off the screen – like when Bishop throws a pair of molotov cocktails at a masked attacker at point blank range, and when Roenick must face off against another pair of gunmen who try to break in through a basement window. The film is pacy and explosive throughout, only added to by the great performances and cinematography. This may even be an improvement in some ways over thr original film – but it’s important to see both as products of their respective times.

Video: The trailer for the 2005 remake. Notice how the art of trailer production is a hell of a lot more advanced than it was in 1976.

The Reviews Room Score: 81%

The Good: Borrows and invents to just the right levels, the action is there The Bad: Not so much B-movie charm

The Hours – Narcissus Road (2007)

The Hours continue to hold the distinction of being the only band I have ever seen live twice. The first time was at the Zodiac club in Oxford in March (supported by A Silent Film) and the second was at the Staffordshire leg of the V Festival this summer. They’re an excellent live band, aided enormously by the status of Anthony Genn as a hugely amusing and underrated frontman, but we’re here instead to place a score on Narcissus Road, the band’s debut album. In fact by calling The Hours a band, I was really using a bit of a misnomer. In fact The Hours consist only of Anthony Genn (vocals/guitars) and Martin Slattery (backing vocals/keyboards), joined by an ever-changing drummer and bassist when they tour and in the studio. Genn and Slattery both played together in (ex-Clash frontman) Joe Strummer’s solo backing band The Mescaleros, where Slattery in particular was regarded as a highly talented multi-instrumentalist. Joe Strummer, in fact, once remarked that Slattery “could play a tune through bulletholes in a windscreen” or words to that effect.

The most immediately striking thing about the album is the album art. The front cover with its ominous clock-eyed skull design and deliberately garish colours was masterminded by none other than Damien Hirst, in part of an obssession with skulls that seems to have culminated with the work For the Love of God. The back cover includes a photograph of a Narcissus Road street sign that exists on the road in Camden, London. It was this road that the album was named after.

Album opener “Ali in the Jungle” was also the album’s debut single. Beginning with a loud ticking joined by Genn’s guitar and Slattery’s piano, it’s an exhortation to achieve, to make a comeback. The whole thing is themed around Muhammad Ali’s infamous victory at the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Ali is seen as one of several heroes to emulate – others being Ludwig van Beethoven and and Nelson Mandela. The song has a pounding, relentless beat and the clarity and simplicity of it give it a fantastic power. The plaintive lyrics and vocals of Genn are excellent, and this is one of the album’s signature songs – and a live favourite, of course. Uplifting stuff.

Title track “Narcissus Road” is, as its title suggests, about narcissism. Genn attacks a woman with faint praise and then basically accuses her of living in her own little world in which everything appears perfect when actually, she’s a wreck. The handclaps work brilliantly, giving the song a great sense of pace particularly during the choruses, and some of the lyrics are great – although rhyming “fast” with… “fast” isn’t particularly ingenious it somehow still works. Better is “she’s so / unaware / of the things she does / she reminds me of that replicant that did not know / what she was” – an amusing reference to Blade Runner. The buildup to the final chorus after a quieter section and the big crescendo is brilliant – ultimately this is another strong track.

“Back When You Were Good” is a longer, more thoughtful track than the first two. It stands out due to its long and charming instrumental introduction, with meandering acoustic guitar leading into a determined piano pulse. Genn urges someone to return to some previous state of being, back when they were “good”, rather than a perverted version of themselves they now exhibit. The lyrical rhymes are usually simplistic but are delivered with real passion and gusto, which helps a lot.

“Love You More” was also released as a single, and it’s hardly surprising. It’s so breathlessly fast-paced that it seems to be over very quickly indeed, but it’s quite a rush while it lasts. It’s a rather tongue in cheek declaration of love for someone (”I love you more than my record collection”) and it also indulges in some extensive referencing – Johann Cruyff, Johnny Cash, The Clash, Elvis, etc. “If you knew me better you’d know what that means!”

“Icarus” is a strong contender for the best track on the album. It’s themed around the mythological story of Icarus and his flight too close to the su, but the song is really a celebration of bravery and taking risks – the central message is encapsulated in the wonderfully delivered line, “If you don’t shoot, then you don’t score / I know that for sure”. The song itself is surging power pop, and probably the moment on the album when the Coldplay influences shine through most obviously. There are some great lyrics too – “And somebody once said if you’re not living on the edge / then you are taking up too much room” is particularly good.

Next comes “I Miss You”. It’s one of those deeply personal songs, one of those that risks being too personal and sentimental to come across properly on a mainstream album. It’s about Genn’s loss of his father, and it doesn’t get much more personal than that. There’s no denying that hearing this played live (with Genn asking his audience to remain quiet and then amusingly insulting those who didn’t afterwards), but there are parts that really don’t seem to work well enough on the album recording. That said, it’s very passionately delivered as you’d expect, and can really hit the spot when you’re in the mood – and you can’t say fairer than that.

Rather more upbeat is track seven, “Murder or Suicide”. The ticking from the opening track returns, except this time it’s much more insistent. Beautifully atmospheric piano leads us up to Genn’s opening lines, which are pretty scathing – “you think you’re on the way up, but you’re coming down”. Genn seems to be chastising someone rather hypocritically when it’s him, really, that is falling apart. There’s a lengthy instrumental section near the end that is probably the hardest rocking section on the whole album (not that, as with many similar indie bands, The Hours really “rock” at all in the conventional sense).

Next comes “Dive In”, another of the album’s lighter tracks. It’s got a melancholy, almost lethargic and sleepy feel about its intro, suddenly waking up with the piano as Genn announces “And the temperature’s the same / when you dip your toe into the icy lake / as when you dive in”. It’s a bit of a pessimistic song in some ways, sounding as though Genn feels apart from everyone else who seem unaware of some crisis about to befall everyone. The best part of the song by far is the more upbeat finale, with Genn urging us to “Dive in / whoa” with a very epic feel to it.

There’s something very funky about “I Need to Know”, with its repetitive beats and well-timed cymbals and background boogie guitar. Unfortunately it’s cyclic repetitiveness and lyrics eventually let it down, making it a technically proficient but ultimately slightly soulless track. The real problem though, is the length – it’s one of the longest tracks on the album and the only long one that doesn’t warrant that length.

 ”People Say” is gritty, lengthy and often angry. It’s about finding your place in the world, about the narrative tale of a northern upbringing. The radio buzz in the background adds to the foreboding and grime, and the lyrics – “would make me want to dream my life away” are uncompromising and well-written, especially in the song’s climax. The song builds impressively, layering up its piano, guitars, drums and vocals into a broad soundscape that still feels grounded and tough. New and engaging sections like a sparse bit with echoing strings in the background keep things fresh, and suddenly the aggression returns and somehow we are implaceably reminded of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”. By the end of the six and a half minutes, we feel like we’ve been on a journey – a revealing one at that.

The final track is “Let Me Breathe”, with its slow opening pace and rat-a-tat militaristic drums. The title is pretty self-explanatory, as is the song – a contrast to the deep, epic, personal closers like the one recently used by Ghosts, for example. That’s not to say that parts of this song aren’t epic, which they certainly are. Like much of the album, the gestures and sentiments are big.

The reality is that The Hours not only have the gestures but they have the words and the music to back them up. Narcissus Road is hardly a massive hit-in-waiting, but it’s an accomplished album, especially considering it’s a debut and one recorded in a short period of time. If and when prospects of a second album surface, it will be an exciting prospect indeed.

Video: The surreal and very clever video for “Ali in the Jungle”.

The Reviews Room Score: 84% 

The Good: Powerful indie tunes done right The Bad: A couple of slightly duff songs

The Sunray Estate – The VanKinver Recordings

Firstly, as will quickly become clear, this really isn’t a review. So already we’re stepping outside the site’s remit, frankly. But hopefully it won’t be seen as too presumptuous for me to try to do something a bit different and raise some awareness for a band I discovered a while back. After all, by gaining fame here and elsewhere, they might get a chance at a record deal, and in thanks we might get an early review copy! A guy can dream, can’t he?

The slightly annoying thing is that I know virtually nothing about The Sunray Estate. Normally I’d start a review (which again, this isn’t) with a long ramble about the history of the group – but aside from a simple this band-to that band piece on the Estate’s website, there doesn’t seem to be any such information available. In fact I use the phrase “The VanKinver Recordings” quite hesitantly – because I haven’t a clue what it is actually meant to mean. It’s simply the title that appears above the downloads available on the band’s site, but I don’t know what VanKinver refers to or whether these songs are meant to be heard together, or are merely a random collection of odds and ends. It’s almost refreshingly confusing.

Anyway, there are ten songs available for download on the site, which present quite a variety of styles and approaches. There’s the electronica-tinged “Heroes”, with some fairly difficult-to-decipher lyrics sung very pleasantly by Kari Santoro apparently, whoever she is. There’s the piano-led “Go Progress Go”, as well as songs like “Zeroes and Ones” and “Smokerings” which are both song by a chap called Alex Moore (I think). These main tracks are pretty impressive – there are a few duffers amongst the selection, but to have five or six well-produced tracks knocking about on a random site is a rare thing indeed in my (limited) experience. In fact, I did some digging. I discovered a profile for the band on iLike (which via Facebook, I used to discover the band) and this information was granted to me:

The Sunray Estate are one person. He is called Jez. Sometimes he has someone else to sing his songs as when he sings it sounds like someone dying. Jez has been making music for a while now. He rarely finishes anything he starts and is constantly unhappy with anything and everything he produces. So , go on then, stick the boot in. It’s the least you could do.

Ah, that makes things clearer. Obviously Kari Santoro and Alex Moore are the “someone elses”. I decided to search for more info about the people I knew to be involved in Jez’ vision. Jez himself and this Alex Moore character turn up no useful information, but searching for Kari Santoro leads me to a site entitled Feels Like Midnight – it transpires that this site is actually that of a for-hire mini-band of the same name – for weddings and so on. Furthermore, there are MP3s on said site – some featuring singing by a woman who must be none other than Kari Santoro. And she sounds suspiciously like the Santoro we know from The Sunray Estate! Even more interestingly, she’s apparently based in Staffordshire, much like myself at this moment in time.

Intriguing. Whilst I look further into this strange musical mystery (as I have appear to have fashioned it into) I’ll let you listen to a few of the MP3s available on the Sunray Estate site itself (which is here)

Heroes

Smokerings

Go Progress Go