Sufjan Stevens Seven Swens
In 1972, the movie Deliverance nearly killed the banjo's cultural appeal. When those young, snaggletoothed children twanged out "Dueling Banjos" in the backwoods, it cultivated the image of the banjo as an instrument of some strange, southern musical torture. Today, 32 years later, the banjo is still burdened by this unjust stigma. However, hailing from Michigan (not a southern state), Sufjan Stevens is poised to return the banjo to the American masses and its rightful place at folk's right hand.
Seven Swans, like most other modern folk records, is a lo-fi whisper of
melodic instrumentation and earthen narratives. Acoustic guitars and a delicately picked banjo blend with Stevens' hushed vocals to make a sound frail and beautiful enough to accompany a rainy day. Religious themes and imagery appear throughout Seven Swans, most notably on tracks like "Abraham" and "The Transfiguration" in which Stevens retells familiar biblical anecdotes and muses on metaphysics. Despite these religious undertones, Seven Swans is a universally appealing album conceived without alienating listeners.
conceived without the influence of Seven Swans is a visceral blend of finely crafted folk and soft, melodic vocals. Stevens creates music that would not sound out of place anywhere; music that simply sounds and feels authentic. Sufjan
Stevens is deservedly at the forefront of America's new folk resurgence and Seven Swans shows his growth as well as his ability to provoke emotion. This is real music.
Grade: Aentirely incidental.
Grade: A.
See Also: Iron and Wine, Our Endless
Numbered Days; Beck, Sea Change
— Dave Rugh
Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters
Most of us missed it the first time around, so the Scissor Sisters have taken it upon themselves to repackage the worst of the classic rock era into delectable guilt-inducing morsels we all can claim we don't enjoy. Somehow the New York based band manages to revel respectfully in the most ridiculous of genes — from BeeGee's inflected electro to Bowie infused psychedelia — with a hipster's ironic hindsight. Despite a few exceptions the results are successful for what they aim to do, which is to party like it's 1979. Just cooler this time.
Though band members complain they're often mislabeled as a gay cabaret covers act, lead singer Jake Shears, an admitted gay former go-go dancer, has insisted in interviews that his homosexuality and the band's ecstatic sound are
You wouldn't know it from their iridescent cover of the Pink Floyd favorite "Comfortably Numb." Re-imagined as a disco-fever fantasy, complete with Frankie Goes to Hollywood shout-outs, the Floyd has never sounded quite so pink. Meanwhile, tracks such as "Music is the Victim" and "Laura" tread similar redemptive journeys for disgraced genre acts (Suprtramp and Donna Summer, respectively).
Even if a cut or two remind listeners two decades removed why certain seventie treasures should remain buried, the majority reach heights as triumphant as the Elton John evoking sing-along "Take Your Mama Out." Not since Cameron Crowe featured an entire tour bus mouthing "Tiny Dancer" in Almost Famous has cheese-encrusted honky tonk sounded so soulful.
With their self-titled debut, the Scissor Sisters have carved themselves the most enigmatic of pedestals -- that of the bearers of "good" bad music.
Grade: B+
See Also: Electric Six, Fire and The Detroit
— Ahsan Latif
VIDEO GAMES
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Tales of Symphonia For Nintendo's Gamecube
The thing that holds this game together is the real-time combat system. Unlike most traditional RPGs, your characters don't just stand there while you put in commands. They are always moving around the enemies trying to strike them while still trying to avoid attacks as well. You have the option of switching between characters during battles and controlling their actions. This type of combat has a lot of button pushing and
Nintendo Gamecube fans have been waiting for an RPG to call their own. Sure we have Skies of Arcadia Legends, but that's a port from the Sega Dreamcast according to the August 2004 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Tales of Symphonia has it all; great characters, epic storyline, and an excellent combat system.
The main protagonist of the game is Lloyd. Your friend, Colette, has been given the title of Chosen and the duty of regenerating the world's mana (energy for magic) flow. Lloyd, being the stand-up guy, doesn't want her to do it alone. So he grabs his best friend, Genis, and what follows is a quest with two interwined worlds hanging in the balance.
stringing together combos with your other characters. Since you can only control one character at a time, your three other characters can be set to automatic controls and will fight their own way. You can program each character's fighting strategy via the menu screen, you can turn characters into protectors, or combaters.
or combaters. The controls aren't hard to use at all and are mainly used in combat. You use your normal attacks in combination with your special techniques to maximize the damage inflicted on enemies. You assign your special moves to different combinations of the B-button and can also assign your other character's moves to the C-stick for quick access to their techniques without going to the menu telling them what to do.
Tales of Symphonia is a well-put together game. The story is in-depth and the graphics and cell-shaded character models are great. The character-to-character developments and combat system hold the game together and keep people playing.
Grade: A
— Chris Moore