The Tribune

me-review.net No Room for Rockstars, which chronicles the 2010 Vans Warped Tour, faced the seldom attempted, and typically unmet challenges set to all music documentaries. On the one hand, it is obliged to focus on the bands and organizers who make up the annual music and extreme sports festival, sating[Read More…]

radioscreamer.com Stacey Jackson might not be your typical dance diva, but this down-to-earth mother of four knows how to get a party started. Her latest EP, Live It Up, is a compilation of upbeat, feel-good dance songs that Jackson hopes will convey the mantra she lives by: “Life isn’t a[Read More…]

The tone of Eat a Peach, the sophomore release of self-described “quirky Canadian piano-pop singer-songwriter” Darrelle London, can be easily construed by the title of the album itself. Not only does London impressively blend clever quirkiness in a way that is similar to modern British indie-pop icons like Lilly Allen[Read More…]

Delta Spirit’s self-titled third album sees the band attempting to shake their “rootsy Americana” label, offering their sleekest, most polished, and accessible record to date, for better or worse. The new direction isn’t completely unexpected considering the prominence of rock-based songs on their sophomore effort History From Below, but it[Read More…]

creations-gallery.com West Wind: the Vision of Tom Thomson by Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont, isn’t a documentary so much as a detective story. Yes, there is a love triangle, and an unexplained death that may or may not be a murder, but these aren’t the mysteries Hozer and Raymont are[Read More…]

  Primal Rock Rebellion is the rather unlikely collaboration of Adrian Smith and Mikee Goodman: the former a guitarist from one of the titans of metal, Iron Maiden, and the latter a vocalist from the underground, and now dissolved, progressive/mathcore/avant-garde group SikTh.  Their first album together, Awoken Broken, is a[Read More…]

Part of what makes Rose Cousins’ music so touching is its deeply personal nature. While her slow and folky strumming might be a far cry from Adele’s upbeat pop ballads, the two songstresses’ music have one thing in common: raw emotion. Like Adele, Cousins grants her listeners an all-access pass[Read More…]

Though crooked celebrities are in no short supply, controversy shook the Grammys last month when Chris Brown won Best R&B Album for his latest release, F.A.M.E.  He may be a good R&B artist, but many were outraged—how could the music industry endorse someone who physically abused his girlfriend (in his[Read More…]

smashinglist.com St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the most conventional starting point for a book review. The only reading usually done on St. Paddy’s tends be a cursory glance at a drinks menu. Yet it is a celebration of the Irish presence in Canada nonetheless, so it can still be deemed a[Read More…]

Big K.R.I.T. is a rapper with very few vices. Sure, his carefree attitude and occasional codeine references are consistent with most up-and-coming MCs, but besides these infrequent mentions, he’s the closest thing to what hip-hop fans could call straight-edge. While the rest of southern rap remains fascinated by drug-themed lyrics,[Read More…]