From my review: Come Dig Me Up, the second album from The Tailors, plays like an English take on American alt-country spun round through a bit of power-pop with an unshakably sunny disposition. The record’s nine songs breeze by in an all too fast, delightfully lazy and hazy 32 minutes but, in that time, The Tailors make a well-weighted case for simplicity as the key to staying power.

From my review: In the year since Beyoncé released her somewhat schizophrenic double disc magnum opus, I Am… Sasha Fierce, any number of would-be pop divas have sprung up to seemingly instant super-stardom, twittering and smiling their way into our hearts and headphones (Lady Gaga and Ke$ha to name a couple). This new class of starlets may have swagger to spare, but Beyoncé brings a few more important pieces to the equation: genuine star power, an air of mystery, and untethered musical ambition.

The Smiths, “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” Hatful Of Hollow, 1984

Please, Please, Please Let Me …

From my review: The Moi Non Plus need not be compared with other guitar-and-drum-only combos like The White Stripes or The Black Keys. On their debut self-titled album, this Dutch duo doesn’t even cast a cursory nod to either of the aforementioned color-coded bands or their blues roots. Instead, The Moi Non Plus are interested in noise.

Click the title above to read the whole thing at musicOMH.

From my review: Stereophonics are back, and with an album title as safe as Keep Calm And Carry On, they’re not about to surprise. It seems Kelly Jones and company have aptly titled this, their seventh studio outing, in which the goal seems to be only to produce safe, middling tunes for the legions of fans who’ve been waiting on them. Indeed to merely carry on.

Click the title above to read the whole thing at musicOMH.

From my review: Invasion have reinvented the heavy metal genre, stripping it of all the frills and trills brought on by bloated ’80s hair acts, and infusing their sound with a little bit o’ soul by way of starchild diva front woman Chan Brown. In taking metal back to its thrashing, writhing early days, Invasion’s debut album, The Master Alchemist, proves itself to be a sleeper hit, a sludgy though short-lived glimpse of what the future may have looked like if metal had never allowed itself to be weighed down by Aquanet.

Click the title above to read the whole thing at musicOMH.

From my review: New Worlds, the third solo release from former Ash guitarist and touring Bat For Lashes member Charlotte Hatherley is a true indie-pop gem. Here, Hatherley - whose sweet and often lilting voice is a perfect counterpoint for her brash and destructive guitar playing - demonstrates a talent for graceful genre skipping, bouncing from angular, aggressive rock ‘n’ roll to lush, whimsical pop and back.

Click the title above to read the whole thing at musicOMH.

From my review: In recent years, the Coen brothers have been all over the cinematic map. Most notably, they’ve written and directed one of the major cult comedies of the last twenty years with The Big Lebowski, revitalised popular interest in bluegrass music with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and earned an Oscar for best picture with 2007’s No Country For Old Men. The slapstick spy spoof, Burn After Reading, felt like something of a misfire, and it’s become increasingly impossible to pin those wily Coens down.

Click the title above to read the whole thing at musicOMH.

Wire In The Blood is an excellent - though not for the squeamish - British psychological murder mystery series I discovered through Netflix. The characters - and some of the episodes - are based on novels by Val McDermid (something else to look into?). Robson Green plays psychologist (and reluctant profiler) Tony Hill, and he is constantly dragged into helping the local police solve brutal serial cases. He’s one of the most bizarre and complex television protagonists I’ve ever seen.

It ran from 2001 to 2007, and has apparently been seen on BBC America. Read all about it at Wikipedia here.

Tonight’s plans, obviously…

Jason Voorhees’ permeation of American popular culture is something I’ve thought a lot about. I’ve got plenty of theories on why the Camp Crystal Lake mythology plays so heavily in the collective unconscious, and why Jason is the scariest creation of the oft-parodied slasher genre.

Ask me about it sometime.