Sure, windmills kill birds
Just nowhere near as many as
Climate change and cats
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Public Image by Public Image Ltd.
I was just a bit too young to be a proper punk (and to be honest, I was a weedy, speccy nerd so Elvis Costello was more my thing) but I enjoyed that glorious jubilee summer of punk vicariously. After all the filth and fury had faded, nobody was quite expecting this album from John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten).
It opens with an existential howl of distorted guitar feedback before a two part screed against religion that is so fierce it makes Richard Dawkins look like a church mouse in comparison. After the ranting track Annalisa, the eponymous lead single brings a bit of focus to the album and establishes exactly what post punk was going to sound like with Keith Levene’s slashing guitar, Jah Wobble’s god like bass and Jim Walkers Motorik drums suiting Lydon’s sneering vocals.
Critics hated this at the time and it also went down like a cup of cold sick with former punks wanting more cartoon antics. It’s more interesting now to look back on this as an avant Garde experimental piece with some standout moments (Jah Wobble’s bass on the final track Fodderstompf is hypnotic) rather than a coherent album.
Critics hated this at the time and it also went down like a cup of cold sick with former punks wanting more cartoon antics. It’s more interesting now to look back on this as an avant Garde experimental piece with some standout moments (Jah Wobble’s bass on the final track Fodderstompf is hypnotic) rather than a coherent album.
Monday, April 20, 2026
Myths of the Near Future by Klaxons
A literary sci-fi concept album name checking JG Ballad, William Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon should be right up my street, but unfortunately it’s a little bit of a let down. It opens promisingly enough, sounding like a 1970s prog/krautrock album but quickly turns into something more akin to Franz Ferdinand style indie. Indeed, I would have sworn that Golden Skans, the best known hit from this album, was by the aforementioned band.
As far as the literary pretensions go, it seems to be mainly using words like ‘hypersonic’ and ‘infinity’, and chucking in the odd reference to Westphalia and Aleister Crowley like a nerdy contestant on University Challenge. I did kind of enjoy it but I got the impression that they were expecting it to be a much bigger hit than it was, and the band has been on hiatus since 2015.
https://album.link/gb/i/1442923575
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Weapons
Another Oscar winner for Saturday night and definitely one worth watching without too many spoilers if possible. The premise is that one night at 2:17 in the morning, 17 young children from the same elementary school class got out of their beds, went downstairs and left their houses, running off into the night. The next day we see an empty classroom with just their teacher Justine, and Alex, the only child not affected.
The opening section of the film is told from Justine’s perspective as angry parents demand answers and point the finger at her. She locks herself away with a bottle of vodka to escape the anonymous threatening phone calls and wakes up to find her car vandalised with the word WITCH daubed in red paint on the side. Is she really the nice, young liberal teacher that she seems?
The film then proceeds to show events from the different perspectives of people involved- a grieving father, a local cop, the head teacher of the school, a homeless person and finally the child Alex, as the truth is slowly unveiled.
This is a horror film built around a mystery that keeps you guessing until the final act, with the Rashomon style structure working well, with overlapping timelines and viewpoints. There are a couple of jump scares but the film doesn’t rely on them to build tension and the conclusion is a satisfyingly gruesome one. There is some humour too (can we say Naruto running here), that undercuts the horror just enough so that the atmosphere isn't completely grim - without getting into spoiler territory the premise is one that could easily have gone to some very dark places.
The opening section of the film is told from Justine’s perspective as angry parents demand answers and point the finger at her. She locks herself away with a bottle of vodka to escape the anonymous threatening phone calls and wakes up to find her car vandalised with the word WITCH daubed in red paint on the side. Is she really the nice, young liberal teacher that she seems?
The film then proceeds to show events from the different perspectives of people involved- a grieving father, a local cop, the head teacher of the school, a homeless person and finally the child Alex, as the truth is slowly unveiled.
This is a horror film built around a mystery that keeps you guessing until the final act, with the Rashomon style structure working well, with overlapping timelines and viewpoints. There are a couple of jump scares but the film doesn’t rely on them to build tension and the conclusion is a satisfyingly gruesome one. There is some humour too (can we say Naruto running here), that undercuts the horror just enough so that the atmosphere isn't completely grim - without getting into spoiler territory the premise is one that could easily have gone to some very dark places.
Saturday, April 18, 2026
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