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Colour and the Shape by Foo Fighters
Colour and the Shape by Foo Fighters
1997 | Rock

"The thing about this band is that it came out of a grunge background, obviously Dave [Grohl] came out of Nirvana. But he can play guitar just as well or better than Kurt, sings great. The most interesting thing I find about Foo Fighters, and songs like 'My Hero', is that they are based in pop melodies. Not based in the blues. Which is really interesting, having that big wall of sound guitar thing with pop melodies and interesting lyrics. Just an interesting band. This album just has the songs and it has the attitude. You can have good songs on an album but... well I remember getting the Blur record [Blur] after hearing that 'Song 2' and I was shocked to find the rest of the record was just synths and stuff. What the fuck? You hear 'Song 2' and you think, 'Wow, that's great!' and then you hear the rest of the album and it's like REEEEOOW REEEOW. It's like The Communards or something. Almost disco electronica or something. So, you know, consistency is not just a big word like gymnasium, you want an album to make a statement song after song. Maybe the most consistent band is AC/DC. Song after song could almost be the same song. There is a great interview with Angus where a critic says, 'I don't want to insult you, but I think your new record sounded just like your last record', and Angus said: 'I don't agree. I think our new record sounds like every record we've ever made.' Sometimes the biggest criticism you can make can be the biggest compliment you can give. Colour is a consistent record. It makes one statement. So what that means is that they can take that music and play it live and it should sound similar to that record, consistent. I would include more if I could, but when you pick an album, it's not just a standalone item. It's about what's happening in your life, where you are and so on."

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The Missing Husband (Hanlon Series #3)
The Missing Husband (Hanlon Series #3)
Alex Coombs | 2021 | Crime, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I have read the first 2 books in the series featuring the unorthodox, tough and uncompromising DCI Hanlon and having thoroughly enjoyed them, didn't hesitate to choose the third and I wasn't disappointed although I have to admit that I struggled a little to get into this one and I think it's because there are quite a lot of characters and it was quite difficult to keep up however, that soon passed and I was, once again, totally immersed.

I do think that you need to have at least read the first book, The Stolen Child, otherwise you just won't get the full appreciation of the main characters particularly Hanlon and Demirel; having said that, if you haven't, don't let this pass you by as it still works okay as a standalone but you just won't get the whys and wherefores which, I think, makes this series so compelling.

What we have in this book is a plot that starts off seemingly innocuous - a woman comes in to report her missing husband - however, it soon becomes something much more intricate as the book develops. The pace is almost relentless, there are a few points in the book that lets you take a breath from the action which is a welcome relief. There are some pretty unsavoury characters doing equally unsavoury things and therefore, there is quite a bit of violence but nothing you wouldn't expect given the blurb and the subject matter.

As I said, the action is non-stop culminating in a heart-stopping finale in a remote farmhouse when some people definitely get what they deserve whereas others definitely do not and I look forward to finding out what happens next in the fourth instalment.

I would definitely recommend this book and the series to those who love a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred thriller.

Thank you once again to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for my copy in return for an unbiased and unedited review.

Now for number 4!
  
Annabelle: Creation  (2017)
Annabelle: Creation (2017)
2017 | Horror
This damn doll just isn't scary, people - and neither is this movie, not a single time. However, for about half the time it does succeed at being effectively creepy and sometimes even sort of fun. I mean this is still just the same two or three rusty clichés and dated, predictable jumpscares on repeat but it has a lot of half-okay vignettes... which all get soured by the surfeit of nonsensical connections to other movies in the series and the insufferable "Hey, remember when THIS happened??" bullcrap. For one I wish they'd let David F. Sandberg be David F. Sandberg here instead of yet another inferior Wan clone like they do with the rest of these. And for two I'm not the first to suggest that this movie being more concerned with milking the Conjuring mythos dry of any miniscule amount of nuance it once had through attempting to spin it thin into some sort of pointless, scuffed 'cinematic universe' kills the standalone decent horror flick this could have been (as well as devalues the originals in the process) - and I hopefully won't be the last - but Jesus Christ did it have to be so fucking long too? When this script was written, did every sentence have to include at least three sets of ellipses between words? Also the non-horror stuff is worlds better than the horror stuff - personally I would have loved to have seen the movie that was pushed to the side in here about this group of orphans finding out something isn't right with Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto or the secretive demonic stuff they've been cooking up in the background after their daughter gets killed. But no, it rushes past all the intriguing stuff in favor of a competent but saccharine and generic cash grab. Far from awful but also not all that much better than the original 𝘈𝘯𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦. Did we really need a prequel... to a prequel (which in and of itself we didn't need)?