The Hurst Review is on Twitter!

I’m all a-Twitter. Become a follower and you’ll tap into a rambling, unedited stream of my musings about music (natch), film, TV, and life in general. I’m like the white ?uestlove. (In terms of Twittering, I mean. Drumming, not so much.)

On Repeat: Willie Nelson Sings Leonard Cohen

Would you believe that I went to not just one, but four separate stores this morning, in search of the spectacular new Leonard Cohen live album, only to be disappointed? I’ve heard it already, obviously– thanks, NPR!– so I suppose I can stand to wait a few more days for a hard copy to arrive [...]

Swan Lake: “Enemy Mine”

It’s probably fair to call Swan Lake an indie rock supergroup — at least to the extent that there can even be such a thing as an indie supergroup. None of the band’s three members are household names exactly, but what they lack in star power they more than make up for in prolificacy: Carey [...]

Leonard Cohen: “Live in London”

“I’ve seen the future/ And brother, it’s murder,” sang Leonard Cohen, all those years ago. The great irony of that statement, of course, is that Cohen has always seemed to exist altogether outside of linear time– not just for his reputation as rock’s perpetual old man, and not always in a good way, either. As [...]

Film Break: “Monsters vs. Aliens”

My review of Monsters vs. Aliens– the so-so new animated family flick from DreamWorks– is posted at CT Movies.

Amadou & Mariam: “Welcome to Mali”

Here in the West, I think we have a tendency to think about so-called world music all wrong. The term– itself embarrassingly reductive; must we lump all non-English speaking countries into the same giant heap?– invokes images of tribal musicians huddled in a circle with hand-made instruments, banging out some kind of rudimentary, primitive folk [...]

Debating The Decemberists

Stereo Subversion– an online publication to which I sometimes contribute– is launching a new series of “internal debates,” wherein several of the ‘zine’s writers sound off on a particular record. The first installment features a smattering of opinions on The Decemberists’ new album, The Hazards of Love, including a comment from yours truly. The whole [...]

The Antlers: “Hospice”

Everything about Peter Silberman’s latest opus, Hospice– from its title, to its stark, blood-red cover image, to its conceptual structure as an album about caring for a terminally ill loved one– would seem to suggest a certain melodrama– so why is it instead a triumph of composition and craft? Silberman may wear his heart on [...]

Gomez: “A New Tide”

Gomez has always seemed wise beyond their years. Their debut album, Bring it On, received rave critical notices upon its 1998 release, not just for how great the music was, but for how incredibly advanced the band members all seemed; though the album was banged out in a garage by a bunch of upstart twentysomethings, [...]

Dan Deacon: “Bromst”

I can’t listen to Dan Deacon’s song “Snookered” without being reminded of old-timey gospel music. It’s not it resembles gospel music in either its form– it’s a slow-building, densely layered, eight-minute epic– or in its sound– there’s no church organ, but plenty of electronics– so much as it captures the spirit of a gospel song, [...]