Okkervil River – Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)

By Anthony A. Choman

One of the best kept secrets in all of indie-rock is Okkervil River – a unique sextet of melody makers that calls Austin, Texas, home. Okkervil River is a band that sounds a skosh like The Decemberists, but with just a mattering of new-wave from The Cure for good measure. Their new album, Stage Names, is a collection of nine songs that enrobe the listener in a fuzzily-wrapped sarcophagus of fun.

Stage Names is a broad mosaic of pastoral paroxysms where chord progressions and unfettered vocals run free. One of the best tracks on Stage Names that illustrates this manner of soundscape can be found on the track “”A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene.” Other tracks, such as “Unless It’s Kicks” and “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe,” seem to almost embody the personality of the bands main lyricist and vocalist, Will Sheff – not an entirely bad thing.

If you have heard the babbling beats of this river before, then you’ll be sure to notice a change on this album from that of their last release, 2005’s Black Sheep Boy. Change is a good thing, and the gentlemen of Okkervil River are not ashamed of it; rather, they are basking in the deliciously warm rays of plentifully-pleasant measures and modes.

As a band, Okkervil River is rapacious-rapid that is running free and wild, so stand up and get ready to be washed away to a place where music and fun frolic freely. Review: Marathon: Durandal

Rating: *** out of ****

By: Daniel Alexander Nigro

I remember playing Marathon: Durandal on the Mac when I was a little boy, back when it was released in 1995. When I found out that it was making its way to Xbox 360, I was more than just excited.

The story is a standard, first-person shooter fare with a science fiction tale of battling against aliens. But the hook is that the story is told through computer terminals, which was innovative at the time of its original release. The Xbox Live Arcade version keeps the game play the same and adds several additions, such as upgraded graphics, multiplayer through Xbox Live and a survival mode that throws lots of aliens at you to see how long you can last.

It is a wonderful relic of days gone by, and I really think that it stands up to the test of time, especially with the upgraded graphics. The new version keeps the art the same, but it smoothes them out to make them look better. The game is exactly the way I remembered, but even better. The multiplayer is very well done, with same screen multiplayer for up to four players – eight players over Xbox Live in death-match and co-operative play.

The only flaw I can think of is that the upgraded graphics may cause motion sickness, mainly due to the faster frame rate that the game runs at. I personally find that turning on the “camera bob” option and turning down the controller sensitivity fixes that for me. However, I recommend trying it before buying it first to see if this works for you. If you can handle it, you will see why just one play makes it a classic.

Marathon: Durandal

Xbox 360 (Digital Download through XboxLiveArcade.com)

Die Laughing

Funeral farce is jam-packed with witty British humor

by Phillip Valys

A stark-naked Brit on a mescaline trip plants his tushy on a row of roof shingles, preparing to jump. A well-mannered drifter dwarf threatens to blackmail the surviving family of a dear departed father with naughty photos of their homosexual rendezvous if they don’t cough up £15,000 pounds.

In a nutshell, it is Death at a Funeral. It is all-out pandemonium, and that is just fine.

This unfolds in an escalating chain of laughs, hijinks and uproariously embarrassing humor that clash and jibe with upper crust English etiquette– all ensuing at perhaps the unlikeliest (and ironic) venue- a funeral service.

Muppeteer Frank Oz (who first laid inroads in pop culture as Yoda) directs this desecration-of-the-dead British comedy with ambitious ease. An aspiring writer, (Matthew Macfadyen) cowering in the shadow of his successful novelist brother, corrals the extended family for one final sendoff of their patriarch. The silver spoon-wielding relatives are pompous (“pish posh!”) and easily offended, which is why the following has juicier resonance.

In crisp domino effect-like silliness, the eulogy scratches to a halt when the aforementioned acid fiend (Alan Tudyk) lurches into the room, blubbers “there’s something moving inside that coffin!” and promptly tips the casket over, the corpse tumbling out to shrieks of horror.

The dwarf then swoops in, ushering in a memorial that swiftly descends into screwball chaos and gut-busting hilarity. It plays not only to veteran Frank Oz’s breakneck pace from having worked with Muppet creator Jim Henson, but to the motley of character actors running rowdy on the material.

A trusty league of Brits make Funeral a modest guilty pleasure for all.