"'Moving mountains' is ordinarily a phrase used to denote extraordinary effort. To the musicians and activists who put this collection together, it has two meanings. One is the vile practice of mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia, and the other is the struggle to protect the environment of the Southern mountains and the health of those who live there. Still Moving Mountains is for a good cause: the financing of the opposition. Even if it weren't a good album, it would be a project worth supporting with your purchase," Jerome Clark says. "Happily, the music is excellent."
Eyal Maoz offers
Hope & Destruction in this follow-up to
Edom. "The Tzadik Records website describes this CD as a part of 'Radical Jewish Culture,' whatever that is. Actually, I guess it is whatever you want it to be. This CD, at a radical length of over an hour, combines rock, metal, surf, avant-garde, electronica and Jewish melody in an intriguing mix," Dave Howell says.
"It seems that some of this music must be improvised, but Eyal Maoz's group of musicians never falls in to the tiresome noodling of many jam bands. Each of the 12 tracks are compositions, with a defined beginning and end, often incorporating Jewish musical elements."
Eric Bogle brings his concert experience to DVD on
Live at the Stoneyfell Winery. "Welcome to the finest live presentation of this year. Eric Bogle is a performer ideally suited both to the live show and to the DVD market. His show is not all bells and whistles, needing 40 camera angles and state-of-the-art surround sound with possibly 'vibrovision' to enjoy it. He stands, he sings, he plays, he chats and he has a brilliant team of musicians backing him," Nicky Rossiter says.
"Add to this the stature as one of the finest songwriters of modern times -- people all too often forget this attribute, thinking his songs are traditional -- and that his repertoire spans comic through historical and personal to tragic, and you have the ingredients for a great show."
The Boston Pops Orchestra blends disparate sounds on the aptly named
The Celtic Album. "For those whose musical tastes include both classical and Celtic, here is the perfect recording.
The Celtic Album, featuring the Boston Pops Orchestra, provides both on every one of its 16 tracks," Bill Knapp says. "I've had this CD for a few years, but somehow it became buried in the pile. I recently came across it again and discovered I had a perfect gem that went unheard for way too long."
It's Celtic Colours time again, and for those of us who cannot be in Cape Breton this year, Virginia MacIsaac offers these recollections of
Ceilidh anns a'Bhraigh, the
Ceilidh in the Glen.
"The Glendale concert is always one of my favourites. There are several reasons that I go out of my way to try to do Glendale. It's a small wooden venue with a welcoming old-time concert feel; it showcases lots of home-grown talent; and displays the type of concert you'd see in Glendale almost anytime of the year," Virginia shares. "The setting is a wooden parish hall on church grounds, shadowed by the imposing Creignish Hills to the west, located just a few minutes from the Canso Causeway at Port Hastings. On a clear fall evening, the roadway is dark, the parking lot is near, light and voices float through the open doors into the night as the concert begins."
Francesca Lia Block picks a bouquet of nine
Blood Roses for this new collection of tales. "In nine brief tales, a dense veil of modern fantasy is drawn over the events that take place. The mood is dark, dream-like and subtly metaphorical. Some conclusions are vague, or they are wrapped in lyrical prose that mask reality. But I'm pretty sure that in many cases here, these characters -- mostly young girls -- come to some form of unpleasantness by the end ... although, sometimes, one suspects the conclusion is more healing than harmful," Tom Knapp says.
"These loosely linked, transformative stories are magical in some ways, ripe with blossoming sexuality and confusion and, in a few cases, predation. They are beautiful and sad and quite often cautionary. Thoroughly modern, they just might steer young readers away from the Big Bad Wolf that awaits them in the woods."
Roxanne Longstreet, better known to many readers as Rachel Caine, shows off her early work in
The Undead. "
The Undead is a typical early novel in some ways. Slight gaps in logic, some disjointed scenes and other little inconsistencies sprinkled throughout prevent me from enthusiastically recommending this book to non-Roxanne Longstreet/Rachel Caine fans," says Belinda Christ.
"But if you are willing to overlook the problems, true fans will find a fairly satisfying read, with plenty of scenes in which you can see the seeds of the writer Roxanne has grown into today."
Jack Ford uncovers
The Osiris Alliance. "What makes a thriller? With so many titles printed each year vying for the attention of readers, the most important requirement of a thriller like any publication is that it attracts you. But, most crucially, the next step is to hold you. It has to make you want to know more from the first few pages, and this book does just that," Nicky Rossiter says. "In his writing debut, Jack Ford has created characters that attract the reader, but more importantly they are interesting enough to have us want them to progress and for us to follow them."
J.A. Nevling fumbles with
Burned: A Tragic Mystery. "The storyline seemed interesting enough; unfortunately, there are way too many things about it that ended up ruining what could have been a decent read," Cherise Everhard remarks.
"The mystery portion of the story was more than a little weak. I had pegged one of the culprits from the moment they entered into the story and before the mystery began. Also, the two detectives that are assigned to the case were like the Keystone Kopps. They bumble their way through the case with jokes that fall flat and questionable crime-solving skills. How they actually solved the case was the real mystery to me."
Andrew Vachss falls under Dave Sturm's microscope with
Flood. "I know all about Harry Bosch, Tess Monaghan and Matthew Scudder. (Lucas Davenport, too, but he's not quite in their league.) I hadn't met Burke yet. Now I have, in
Flood," Dave says. "All in all, I think I'll be spending more time with Burke."
Mark Allen gets beneath the skin of a classic Spider-Man villain in Zeb Wells'
Doctor Octopus: Year One. "It's always exciting when comics creators can broaden and more deeply define a classic character. And, as so many popular superheroes have even more interesting villains, this is all the more true with the bad guys," Mark says.
"Kaare Andrews lends his considerable artistic talents to the story, bringing wonderfully vibrant life to the characters. Visually, he stays true to the classic look of Ock, while being unafraid to take chances with some more realistic design characteristics where his mechanical appendages are concerned. His subtle variations were enough to make me wonder why Ditko, the Romitas, Andru or any of the other classic Spidey artists never thought of similar possibilities."
Marla Brooks attempts to unearth the spooky side of Tinsel Town in
Ghosts of Hollywood: The Show Still Goes On. "Glancing down the table of contents, the reader gets the impression that this book is packed with ghostly encounters, but in truth, the author only gives personal accounts of a few places," Donna Scanlon reports. "For the most part, Marla Brooks recounts local legends of ghosts and hauntings, usually prefaced with 'it is said.' The actual information doesn't meet the buildup; often, she doesn't even cite other people's experiences but relies on what the legends are or alludes to 'reports' of sightings."
Tom Knapp, burned once by the
Hulk fiasco, gives
The Incredible Hulk a try. "At a time when superhero movies are box-office gold, it's almost unheard of to let a prime comic-book character languish after only one film, with no sequels in sight. But, after the letdown that was 2003's
Hulk, filmmakers wisely let the green-skinned behemoth rest for a few years. When they brought him back, it was clearly a reboot, not a sequel, and everything was new, from the actors and crew to the CGI-animated Hulk himself," he says.
"Thankfully so.
The Incredible Hulk, directed by relative newcomer Louis Leterrier, puts Ang Lee's
Hulk to shame."
You think we're done? Ha!! Come back for more next week.