Foals - Antidotes

Meet Jack White.

Opinions differ on Mr. White and understandably so: his constant reconciliation of gorilla-like brutality (drinks with Trent after the show, my good man?) and artisme is not always the most elegant. But I'm not worried about Jack White; he can keep doing what he's doing without impacting Foals or their shittily unironic debut "Antidotes." And that, my friends, is the problem!

I decided on Jack White as the lens through which I can slam the likes of Foals' opener "Cassius" simply because he's the successful incarnation of their desire. Not that he's an "art school dropout" from "oXXXford" or that their Disstilled (Gooooaall!) blend of The Rapture and These New Puritans is in any way similar to White's mandolins, pianos, and virtuoso aspirations. 3.1/10 (Murdered)

Nos Chers Amis 2007 (Part 2)

Warmest Reception

• Kanye West - Graduation: This year we saw Mr. West's Godzilla take on Mr. Jackson's King Kong (Oh Lord did you hear that horrible man make that horrible racist comment?) and emerge squarely triumphant, once again proving that the Japanese are superior to your defective shit. A nod of recognition to Mr. West for integrating Akira and Daft Punk into this masterwork.
• Ratatouille: You're smirking. You're chuckling and saying "He's being ironic, eh? He's gotta be, right? Eh, eh?" as if there's someone next to you. But you are going to shut up and sit down; you are going to take off those Buddy Holly glasses and shave off that pathetic goatee; you are going to enjoy this movie about a rat who wants to be a chef.
• Halo 3: Driver + Halo - Halo 2

Napoleon.In.Rags: Wait, what the fuck?
Napoleon.In.Rags: We nominated Halo 3 for something?
paris.by.night: Can we even call this "our" nomination? We're on the outside looking in.
Napoleon.In.Rags: No, that's the thing. I respect the fact that, under our experimental paramaters, we get one petri dish that ends up with the festering mass of bacteria culture in the shape of a ring-world. Teacher looks over, shakes her head in disappointment, and remarks that we'll never be scientists.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I lay no blame on the scientists, nor on the bacteria! You have to understand that it's the teacher we're gunning for here (navigate that metaphor, you assholes).
paris.by.night: The PTA reaches its consensus: "No need!"
Napoleon.In.Rags: Overpaid union fuckers.
paris.by.night: That Halo is a terribly derivative product -- and not a terribly selective one in derivation -- is not a major concern.
paris.by.night: The major concern is that it plays to a DANGEROUSLY Winehousesque denominator!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, naturally. I mean, it's our cultural obligation at this point to ensure that, as the erudite, are superior to Halo fans. Ideally our Tarquinian declaration should feature at least two of the following: thumbing our noses at their perceived over-consumption of alcohol, insisting that "they'll work for us one day", and reaffirming that the true artists of the FPS genre are some indie company from Estonia who have a experimental, post-tactical RPG-RTS-FPS project whose single-player campaign takes place in Foucault's frontal lobe.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I leave the honors to you?
paris.by.night: I daresay that, in failing to see this matter in the simple light it so clearly wants to cast itself in, we find ourselves too detached to judge. We have two major comedies on our hands here: one featuring a space marine who wants to be relevant and the other with a rat that wants to be a chef!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Ah, and how he really, honestly wants to be a chef. I like that, I like that a lot.
paris.by.night: We also find that, in our "entertainment city" of wobbly buildings and winding streets, that the rat and the chef are classically opposed! Distilling them to a "before-and-after", the "revers de la medaille"...
paris.by.night: Well
paris.by.night: Cities are burning with towns aflame! Cities are burning with towns aflame!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, keep your ghosts under the sheet.
Napoleon.In.Rags: You'll have time allotted for a soliloquy after we properly introduce our final contender.
paris.by.night: My dear man, we already have; Godzilla and burning cities go together like Scott P--
Napoleon.In.Rags: Godzilla! My, you are simply lethal with the segues, seeing as our good friend Mr. West is apparently an aficionado of Nippon.
Burial?: See there's one thing for which I certainly grant Mr. West due respect. Bono, as we all know, has for years clutched his plaque inscribed with World's Most Important Rock Band like the greedy child he is.
paris.by.night: (The Joshua Tree's dead, you know.)


Napoleon.In.Rags: Who but Mr. West shall finally step up and - with an appropriately braggadocious gesture - pry it from the Irishman's skeletal claw?
Napoleon.In.Rags: And here we have the beauty of it! Bono is thinking - aren't we all thinking? - about Mr. West "But he's not even a rock band!"
Napoleon.In.Rags: How can he say it, though? He's already put one foot into The Africa Problem. Anything he does here drags that foot further in: zugzwang.
paris.by.night: That Bono's "status" is still capable of passing from hand to hand is a reassuring sign that pop is alive! Fuck raw-- rock, fuck ra-- hip-hop! Pop, my dear! We need only worry when we find one man becomes the symbol, a fate Bono has managed to avoid despite his best efforts...
paris.by.night: but I find that, again, we are undersimplifying.
paris.by.night: Say that, as a hypothetical, the city should burn down due to whatever combination of pop's death, Godzilla's arrival, and rat chefs.
paris.by.night: RELEVANCE is key. Who is relevant in that world?
paris.by.night: The pop star's ABSENCE hurt the city. The monster lacks purpose as he stands over the wreckage... but that rat's got a lot of homeless men and women to feed.
Napoleon.In.Rags: It's the difference between Alexander the Conqueror and Alexander the Great.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The new monarch promises them a meal and an education each day. He makes life enjoyable, injects a small amount of purpose here or there. Perhaps a tenth of the city's populace realize that he is a rat, and they do nothing but nod knowingly to one another. Meanwhile the pop star is desperately busking (art is not allowed in this society), Godzilla is no longer relevant (there cannot be fear without the majesty of skyscrapers), and Halo 3 scratches its head on the sidelines wondering how the fuck it got nominated for anything.

Most charming in our eyes: Ratatouille

The Amy-Fuckin'-Whinehouse Award

• The Shins - Wincing The Night Away: It's not "The Shins" that are offensive per se but rather the-- holy fuck, no, it is The Shins!
• Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works: CHUGGA-CHUGGA-chikka-chikka-chikka-wukkawiggawaaaaaaaaaagawaggawiggawugga- reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew-eeeeeeeeeeew-eeeeeeeeeew-lilillillelelelelolooooooooo-CHUGGA- CHUGGA-rikka-rikka-rikka-CHONG
• Call of Duty 4: Who fantasizes about the Iraq war? Cut it out.

paris.by.night: I once asked a Vietnam veteran how he felt about the sudden surge of games covering and romanticizing his war. His response: "Well, are they good games?"
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now which causes them to get more offended?
Napoleon.In.Rags: A string of shitty direct-to-Gamestop-clearance-section shoot 'em ups that never get mentioned until some delightfully witty forum poster decides he has to have a unique response on the "Worst Games Ever" thread, or the types that make the murder of innocent pixelated Vietnamese citizens, y'know, a rollicking good time?
paris.by.night: We have to consider the impact the relative closure of a decades-long buffer in his reaction, of course, but the fact remains that COD4 cannot be objectively judged through the a soldier's lens. Rather, the issue becomes the entire concept (the entire institution?) of Playing War in the War Times.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well if the standard FPS gives the meek, scrawny gamer the testicular fortitude to tell his internet brethren that he's going to "coeme over ther eand kikk there f@gg0t a$$", is COD4 going to get them to... serve their country like men? Right?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Wait, what? No, that's wrong. What the fuck is wrong with that, why did I say that?
paris.by.night: Almost.
paris.by.night: Here, let's decontextualize this to a fair extent:
paris.by.night: add 20 years. We're either out of Iraq or it's so far on the backburner it becomes self-sustaining: veterans have the time buffer the aforementioned Vietnam vet was afforded.
paris.by.night: Let's continue out on the limb we've set up and suppose those veterans ask the SAME QUESTION, one of objective design merit.
paris.by.night: How do you think we'll have to respond?
Napoleon.In.Rags: If there's a flag nearby, we salute like hell and do as many push-ups as they tell us to. I'm not going toe to toe with one of those fuckers!
paris.by.night: Now yer catchin' on!
paris.by.night: Next contender: The Sh-- no, you know what, DEP AND the Shins.
paris.by.night: That's the same nomination. Who's responsible for this?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, now. I'm sure if you Venn Diagram'd it up, there'd only be a relatively small union in what makes them undesirable.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Allow me this platform to introduce readers to the concept of the John-Paul Axis! I trust you're already familiar?
paris.by.night: Of course -- you've always done a terribly better job of doing it justice, though.
Napoleon.In.Rags: See, the concept is that only two Beatles (It's always the fuckin' Beatles! Fuck!) mattered. John is The Experimentation and Paul is The Aestheticism.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Each band, film, game, person, etc. has their place on this axis - as well as on the success/failure access. Astute readers can look forward to a graphical representation of this in future installments, with each individual entity occupying a unique spot on the graph.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, the Shins... they fail on an entirely Paul level. We get it, you think you're entitled to beat your girlfriend and churn out tiresome twang-pop just because Zach Braff name-dropped you for shits and giggles.
paris.by.night: No, don't even graph the goddamn Shins.
Napoleon.In.Rags: ... are they even a band?
Napoleon.In.Rags: As in, do we have any confirmation of that? Has anyone ever definitely proved that they make music?
paris.by.night: I thought it was a gang... ?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Shit... we gotta get someone monitoring these guys' activity!
paris.by.night: They robbed me once. You expectin' me to follow up with "of 70 megabytes" or "of an hour of my life?" No, fuck that, they fuckin' ROBBED me.

Napoleon.In.Rags: Shit, James Mercer even SOUNDS like the name of a guy who runs a cult!

paris.by.night: Plus... I don't want to sound too presumptuous here, but he crooned to my wallet as he held it, something about an envelope controlled filter...
Napoleon.In.Rags: That's gotta be their angle. They run around spreading their propoganda and mugging those who won't listen. Any who try to resist them are met with the hand of their enforcers, a shadowy group known as DEP.
paris.by.night: That Venn Diagram is getting more and more pessimistic by the minute.
Napoleon.In.Rags: So how does this work now?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Do we award it to the cult leader or his prize pit bull?
Napoleon.In.Rags: I mean.... is this for achievement in a negative field, or negative achievement?
paris.by.night: Or for, in COD4's case, unabashed negativity?
paris.by.night: Wait... wait a minute.
paris.by.night: Stop this.
paris.by.night: Which of the above would be most likely to be completely strung out and threaten a ceaselessly cheering audience?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Hmm... well if that's our measuring stick, I'll have to choose-
Napoleon.In.Rags: I'll have to... to choo- ch-
Napoleon.In.Rags: ch- ... Chugga-chikka-chugga-REEEEEEEEEEAAAAaaaawwww-wigga-wikka-WAUGH.
paris.by.night: So be it.
Amy Winehouse: HOLDIN YOUU

Most charming in our eyes: Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

Nos Chers Amis 2007 (Part 1)

I can't take it anymore. Just... do it.

Biggest Surprise Success

• Fiery Furnaces - Widow City: Stomp, stomp! "Brother and sister" may be the most frowned-upon relationship in all of rock these days, but you won't find NME eating Friedberger out anytime soon.
  
• Juno: After watching the TV spots a reasonable man will conclude that this movie is Napoleon Dynamite II: At Least Ellen Page is Really Hot. After seeing the first few minutes of the film, said reasonable man will groan as his conclusion is apparently confirmed. After seeing the entirety of the film, said reasonable man will be proven drastically wrong and be shaken from the tenets of reason themselves.
• Portal: The game that almost did more bad than good by spreading an empty sloganeering virus among kids desperate to fill the yawning gap left from growing out of Homestarrunner.

paris.by.night: I think it's funny this category exists. Isn't it our *job* to not be caught off-guard?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Isn't it also your job to not get cut down by my breathtakingly elegant dissertations on parkour vis a vis assassination? C'est la vie.
Napoleon.In.Rags: But I suppose we have a duty to treat this seriously. Mmm.
paris.by.night: Ah, yes, the "violent parkour"...
paris.by.night: we never really addressed that, did we?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Not to its justified extent. Allow me to extend the metaphor!
paris.by.night: Please.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The good assassin is he who springs out of nowhere, is a mere part of the shadows until his blade is at your throat.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The great assassin is he who hides in plain sight as a mediocre individual unworthy of your attention until his poison starts affecting your nerves.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The master assassin is he who, until the very moment you die, has you thinking this is a terrible assassin.
Napoleon.In.Rags: I trust my metaphor (fuck's sake!) is not lost on you?
paris.by.night: Good, great, master? Seems fine to me, but the best assassin is and always will be the one who is his own target. "Compensated suicide"-- or, in a manner of speaking, ritualism --
Napoleon.In.Rags: Ritualism! Out come the ouija boards and jeweled daggers, my friend: there be demons afoot!
paris.by.night: Ho, ho! But do you see the importance of my "best assassin" idea? Mr. Newell, I believe, was compensated.... more than adequately... for his aquisition of a handful of Digipen students who'd ultimately be responsible for "The Ca-- Portal."
Napoleon.In.Rags: ... regrettably, I *do* see. But this raises another important yet only tangentially related point: Did we err in refusing to nominate Assassin's Creed?
paris.by.night: We'd have to cut through a few levels of abstraction to nominate Creed, and my leaves aren't rustling. The problem, you see, is that Creed's only SURPRISE was its apparent critical failure! The game was hyped beyond belief, beyond hype. To see it nominated as "Biggest Surprise Success" would imply that we were surprised to see it succeed only after reading how others received it which, I daresay, would not reflect too kindly on our own industry awareness.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fuck ethos.
paris.by.night: :)
Napoleon.In.Rags: But sadly, we must return to the topic at hand, having dispatched that mischeivous little creature.
paris.by.night: So it's safe to say... Portal's out on the grounds of its apparent contractual self-murder?
Napoleon.In.Rags: We can safely eliminate Portal with little to no fanfare: Newell proved himself an assassin of middling capability.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Mmm.
paris.by.night: Hah! We draw the same conclusion.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Spare me your allegations about the supposed behaviors of great minds, montresor.
Napoleon.In.Rags: It comes down to the two then!
paris.by.night: Widow City's next. I know this nomination's mostly mine -- are you familiar with it at all?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Break it down for me: how hot is Eleanor Friedberger?
paris.by.night: Look it up with your favorite image search -- alright, down boy! Google Image Search -- and you'll get a varying story. All that really matters is how she looks performing "The Philadelphia Grand Jury" and my friend, she is hot.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Aaaaaaahhhh... not convinced.
paris.by.night: We'll return to this, yes?
paris.by.night: Juno, Juno... break it down for me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well I've expounded at length already on her merits as a bait-and-switch artist. What makes her wholly unique among the pseudo-genre (I can hear you wincing, academia) is that the switch is sweeter than all the baits I've had arrayed before me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Imagine!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Imagine you're seeing a movie with all the trappings of a failure.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Let me throw a few elements of the film at you, mmm? React honestly.
paris.by.night: You're telling me to "imagine"... with, surely, the knowledge that I'm going to return with Imagine Dead John Lennon?
Napoleon.In.Rags: A har har har!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #1: Juno is written by a former stripper-blogger who calls herself "Diablo Cody". Reaction?
paris.by.night: My "myspace celebrity" sense is tingling! I don't really know how to react....
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #2: Michael "Superbad" Cera. Let that sink in, boy.
paris.by.night: I must confess my confusion, dear sir!
paris.by.night: Are you trying to sell me on this film or repel me from it? Because the Amy Winehouse award is comi--
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fact #3: It deals with the classic "family comedy" issue of teen pregnancy! You FUCKER!
paris.by.night: Well congratulations. I seem to be hoodwinked.
Napoleon.In.Rags: The jack pops out of the box and a rendition of Pop Goes The Weasel starts up. We laugh because it's funny.

Most charming in our eyes: Juno

Slowest Burner

• Burial - Untrue: Well, Archangel is the "Hottest Record In The World" according to Thom Yorke.
  
• There Will Be Blood: I'm going to bury you underground, Eli. I'm going to bury you underground.
• Once: This crafty little vixen had me hoodwinked. Aside from the fact that she leaves her protagonists unnamed in a thoroughly surreptitious way, she makes you wait until the post-viewing Wikipedia read to realize she's a fuckin' musical. I hate her for deceiving me, but I'll always love her for being able to do so.

Napoleon.In.Rags: I think we can put this one away with fairly little issue by asking ourselves which one of these is still burning.
paris.by.night: That seems fair: however slow-burning, what's the value in an extinguished fire? (Oh, stop that, Homer! You're acting like I cut your dick off!)
Napoleon.In.Rags: Now, now. I want you to cease threatening the genitalia of epic poets.
paris.by.night: ... Indeed. It seems we have ... yes, Burial's contribution to discuss first. Initial thoughts?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Who the fuck is he?
paris.by.night: Look! Out there, in the woods! It's a camp of UKGarage fans -- or do you call it "dubstep" now, my darlings?
paris.by.night: Of course you do.
Napoleon.In.Rags: No, seriously! Who the fuck is he! I mean, I understand that he's an experimental anonymous underground hyperdub recording artist. But being a decent human being there is something chilling about his refusal to, y'know, enjoy the limelight a bit!
paris.by.night: Experimental. I have a problem with calling Burial's work "experimental", I gotta say. Is it an experiment if you plug your beat into a digital delay line, throw the result into an envelope controlled filter and sprinkle some tape hiss over it? Yeah, that's right, Mr. (Ms.?) Burial! I've seen an electronic production studio! What's wrong-- were you counting on my only other exposure to the genre being We Are The Night?
paris.by.night: Note how I address you as if you were Burial. The troubling matter is that I don't know you aren't.
Napoleon.In.Rags: A necessary aside: the Chemical Brothers are not the night. They are the opposite of the night, and by this I do not mean to say they are day either. They are the hypothetical abscence of night if you can imagine that without spouting "B-b-but Mr. Copernicus said-" at me.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Burial has been eliminated from this competition. He (SHE?) can take his (HER?!?) bags and go home (BUT WHAT IF HE/SHE ALREADY IS HOME? AWWW SHIT I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND).
paris.by.night: Hah. That's exactly what Mr. Burial would do - try to get his nomination discounted in order to stay out of the limelight. I got yer number. But I'm willing to move on...
paris.by.night: Aah, haha, yes!
paris.by.night: There Will Be Blood!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Oh, right. This one wins it, naturally.
Napoleon.In.Rags: What's the competition again? Some Irishmen making decent music?
paris.by.night: [Checking papers] "Once."
Napoleon.In.Rags: Well Christ!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Unless this award will somehow help Bono solve The Africa Problem I think our debate ends here.
paris.by.night: Agreed. Besides, how can he EVER hope to solve it if he keeps releasing shit like Untrue?

Most charming in our eyes: There Will Be Blood

Best Genre Study

• Crysis: You're gonna need a bigger fuckin' box, kid.
• Heavenly Sword: Kai, after being HUNG and apparently breaking her neck with a loud crack!, shoots an evil birdman general with a crossbow. He delivers his last line with an arrow in his forehead before falling to the earth: "Style. That had style."
  
• Death Proof: What's that you say? "The other one was better", you say? Kid, you ain't gonna find an Italian Vogue in my Lebanon, Tennessee.

paris.by.night: Look, I know I have a bit of an infatuation with genre-conscious work...
Napoleon.In.Rags: I'll make you a deal. Keep your dick in your pants and I won't append to the prefix "post-" to anything throughout the course of this debate.
paris.by.night: And I, in turn, will maintain a safe distance from Mr. Pilgrim.
Napoleon.In.Rags: An impressive jab, my friend. But one has to honestly wonder: if we're a Genre Culture blog as we claim to be, isn't this the most important category of the year?
paris.by.night: It's customary enough these days for "genre" to not give two shits about itself. But please, let us discuss CRYSIS.
Napoleon.In.Rags: For reference:
Napoleon.In.Rags: Are we inside the box or out?
paris.by.night: He makes CONTACT with a positively deceptive left hook!
Napoleon.In.Rags: Awwwww fuck.
paris.by.night: That fuckin' SMARTS!
paris.by.night: But I'd like to point something out.
Napoleon.In.Rags: Mm?
paris.by.night: Doesn't the fact you needed to ask at all prove that Crysis hasn't done its job?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Come to think of it, it's wintertime. Couldn't hear the leaves rustling even if we tried.
paris.by.night: Better luck next time, Crytek! Case closed (with a wink!)
paris.by.night: We're left with Heavenly Sword and.... no, I'm checking the list of nominees and it looks like Heavenly Sword is the only other one! This is an embarrassing oversight, it'll hurt our ethos, but you know what they say:
Napoleon.In.Rags: We must develop a post-ethos society?
Napoleon.In.Rags: Fuck, I just said it.
paris.by.night: FUCK Kieron.

Most charming in our eyes: Heavenly Sword

You Used To Be So Amused: Who Do You Think You Are, Vampire Weekend?

[Scene: It's a poorly lit room. Use your fucking imagination, for Christ's sake.]

The Second Man [groggily]: Christ... how long have I been out?

The First Man: Morning papers won't come out for another few hours. Still plenty of time for headlines.

The Second Man: You have any in mind?

The First Man [looks up from his newspaper]: My mind's been on other things. First one I thought of was “Farewell to the Champs-Élysées”

The Second Man [smiles weakly]: It's a good headline. People can believe in it.

The First Man: You're still living in August, Foucault. It stopped being about what people can believe when we stopped being able to dictate that to them. [a beat] You were such a good soldier.

The Second Man: I told you, I don't remember any-

The First Man: What do you want, a Purple Heart? An Iron Cross? Should I break out in a round of My Country Tis of Thee?

The Second Man [uncomfortable]: No idea what you're talking-

The First Man [standing up]: Sweet Land of Liberty?

The Second Man: Listen, sit back-

The First Man [shouting]: Of thee I-

The Second Man [shouting louder] I made a judgment call! [a beat, then he speaks more calmly] You get Johnny and Jimmy's parents' permission for them to come over, you play dress-up long enough to convince yourselves that you're a kangaroo court, and you tell me you wouldn't have done the same goddamn thing, Torquemada.

The First Man [sits back down, returns to his newspaper]: You were never a soldier.

The Second Man: I suppose you mean that as a pejorative.

The First Man: Never served in the armed forces.

The Second Man: Not to the extent of my memory.

The First Man: There isn't even any war going on.

[a beat]

The Second Man [gestures to the newspaper]: Mind handing me the funnies?

The First Man: You read newspapers often, Foucan?

The Second Man: Well no, not since.... since...

The First Man: Since July.

The Second Man [shifts around a bit]: Since July, that's right. [a beat] I've got to keep trusting you.

The First Man: That's a good soldier.

The Second Man: So which section you on?

The First Man: Checking on the markets.

The Second Man: And how are the markets?

The First Man [looks up, smiles thinly]: You tell me, Foucault.

The Second Man: Say again?

The First Man: How are the markets today?

The Second Man: You're the one with the paper.

The First Man: They're either up or they're down. Call it.

The Second Man [pauses in thought]: Down. But you... you always turn a profit.

The First Man: Well done. And how did you know that?

The Second Man: And how did I know that?

The First Man [genially]: And how!

The Second Man [shrugs]: Chalk it up to intuition.

The First Man: Intuition! Well I'd call that nothing but mistaking balls for brains. Dangerous way to think in a time of war like this.

The Second Man: I thought you said there wasn't any war going on.

The First Man [chuckles]: You've got to keep trusting me.

7.65

Heavenly Sword: Fuck Your Office Job

The apparent (and uniquely post-2002 pre-1982) illegality of the "genre study" was already painfully evident with the release of Crysis earlier this year, and it was for this reason alone that I traveled with a lingering sense of doom to my local Blockbuster - fuckin' Blockbuster - to pick up Heavenly Sword.

I don't know what it was, perhaps my joy at having returned with what I'd come for on the first try? Whatever the cause, Panda Bear's Person Pitch sounded dramatically better on that drive home than it had had in the weeks and months prior. Not too hard to spot a PS3 fan, I conclude. Things are looking up for Heavenly Sword and I: I've some records in the queue that warrant a warmer listen.
I pop the game in and discover almost instantly that Nariko's design, which seemed at first to be a cynical attempt at raising a 12 year old's dick, was a blissfully-uncalculated and eerily-successful stab at raising mine. I frown slightly and shut down the PS3.

You know the drill. I'm not a bad guy for doing what the game so clearly wanted me to do within half a minute of booting it up. I'd seen enough! It was amazing: each time I thought I was done pullin' it it needed more pullin' - I soaked my PS3 controller and adjacent chair several times in under 10 minutes. And yeah, fuckin' yawn: I can see your dogs chasing me down already, one with "J-o-u-r-n-a-l-i-s-t-i-c--I-n-t-e-g-r-i-t-y" written across its teeth and the other with... wait, that's no dog at all!

So did I ever "play" it? Depends. I finally came around to Person Pitch (nice record!) and gratified myself in ways I'd previously thought impossible. Doesn't sound much like work to me. (Charmed)