2-SPEED CROSSWORD
THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED
CRYPTIC CLUES: Across
1. Sound prosperity (4)
3. Make oneself useful and satisfy the wife (8)
9. Ruffian out to provide popular entertainment (3,4)
10. Last sign of the Greeks (5) 11. It gives an impression of permanence (9,3) 13. Observing it's a dumb-bell? (6) 15. Literary type with a leaning to the right (6)
17. All alone, like Nelson (6-6)
20. Country requiring careful handling (5)
21. The final game ends with a drink (7)
22. Sam feels different – but isn't! (4-4)
23. It's bound to be seen in a gentle April (4)
Down
1. Act like a real pal (8)
2. Had acknowledged (5)
4. Dress carried up to a point (6)
5. A cross section of the public on parade (7,5)
6. Such things are always there and are lent out (7) 7. Means of transport, sometimes sprung (4)
8. It may result not only in the weather breaking! (7,5) 12. Sweet account I'd pursue no further (4,4)
14. Four make an appearance in a trial of no importance (7) 16. When models that have lost their shape are employed? (6) 18. Act evasively (5)
19. Experts in cards (4)
FOR THE FIRST TIME BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD ★★★★★
THIS is a group of supremely talented performers with fascinatingly diverse musical backgrounds, despite their tender years (all are in their early 20s).
Careering through post-rock and free jazz via Klezmer (Jewish party music), their debut LP For The First Time is erratic, epic and teeming with more ideas than many artists have in their lifetimes.
“I am looking at you and you cannot tell I am more than the sum of my parts,” goes the refrain on the superb anthem Sunglasses. The thing is: they really are.
MEDICINE AT MIDNIGHT
FOO FIGHTERS ★★★★★ DAVE GROHL is, famously, the nicest man in the world, so I really don’t want to be rude about his new album. Sadly, it’s not very good.
The “na-na-nas” and handclaps of Making A Fire are a jarring start, only added to by Shame Shame’s funk-pop stylings. Of the other singles, No Son Of Mine is just straight-up Motorhead cosplay – albeit packing the album’s best riffs – while the earnest Waiting On A War is a curious disappointment.
Even a poor Foo Fighters album is certainly worth a listen, but this eclectic offering lacks cohesion and inspiration.
LOST THEMES III: ALIVE AFTER DEATH JOHN CARPENTER
★★★★★
OMINOUS jabbing synths and insistent drums get the adrenaline going before a brooding guitar solo releases the tension – welcome to John Carpenter’s unique vision.
The director is known for horror classics like Halloween and The Thing, as well as cult movies Escape From New York and Assault On Precinct 13, but has actually made more albums than films. Opener Alive After Death channels the spirit of Halloween, perhaps his best-known composition, the first of 10 suspense-filled instrumentals that lie somewhere between the 1980s and the near future.
Carpenter and his son Cody bring the widescreen synths and his godson, Daniel Davies, provides the crunching guitar, so the listener just needs to sink into the darkness.
OSCAR-NOMINATED writer-director Paul Greengrass reunites with his Captain Phillips leading man, Tom Hanks, for a Western set five years after the end of the American Civil War.
Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (two-time Oscar winner Hanks) bears the physical and emotional scars of three tours of duty as a Confederate infantryman.
He travels from town to town in 1870 Texas, sharing newspaper stories with hard-working folk who have neither the time nor the energy to pore over pages of printed text in the aftermath of a bitter and bloody civil war.
On a trail leading from Wichita Falls, he stumbles upon a 10-year-old German girl called Johanna
Leonberger (Helena Zengel).
Documents found nearby reveal that her mother, father and younger sister were killed six years ago by the Kiowa people, who raised her with a new name, Cicada.
The law dictates that Johanna must be forcibly returned to her biological uncle and aunt (Neil Sandilands and Winsome Brown) in Castroville.
Kidd reluctantly agrees to become the girl’s temporary custodian. En route to Castroville, the mismatched travelling companions cross paths with a lonely innkeeper (Elizabeth Marvel), powerhungry militia leader (Gabriel Ebert) and a sadistic former
soldier (Michael Covino), who considers Johanna a prize to be wrested from Kidd’s tender grasp.
News Of The World saddles up for a visually arresting tour of familiar narrative paths.
Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski relishes the changing light and earthy colour palette while composer James Newton Howard’s rousing score incorporates piano, banjo and guitar.
Hanks imbues his travelling storyteller with quiet nobility and honour, qualities which are tested to the limit during the perilous 400-mile trek through untamed wilderness.
He catalyses winning on-screen chemistry with luminous rising star Zengel, who possess a rare ability to convey inner turmoil without saying a word.
Centrepiece sequences, including a mountainside shoot-out, are orchestrated with brio by Greengrass, who is well versed in the slambang thrills of the Jason Bourne franchise.
This rodeo is a more sedate and contemplative affair, but thoroughly engrossing.
Watch from February 10 on Netflix