Articles by Alex Knoll

indierockreviews.com   Fun’s name itself is the best descriptor of their music. The band’s second album, Some Nights, was released in February, and their single “We Are Young” skyrocketed to the top of the charts, making them the first band since 2002 to reach number one on the Billboard Top[Read More…]

Fans of Great Lake Swimmers can stop holding their breath-the band has released New Wild Everywhere, their first release since 2009’s Lost Channels. The new tracks sound strangely familiar, as is the nature of Tony Dekker’s wonderfully peaceful voice, and with the exception of a few songs with feet-stomping appeal[Read More…]

Vanessa Heins “Death country” might seem like an awkward pairing of words, but once you’ve heard the music of Elliott BROOD, you’ll understand how perfectly this self-labeled genre can work. Although the label is descriptive of their older work, the band’s newest album, Days Into Years, strays from this categorization.[Read More…]

screeninvasion.com   Whether you’ve taken PSYC100 or not, you have heard of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Modern psychology has grown into such a broad field that it’s easy to overlook how it all started: with verbalized thought and a couch. Director David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method is the epic[Read More…]

I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas music, but A Very She & Him Christmas has some renditions so refreshing and sweet they actually make me excited for a holiday I don’t celebrate. Zooey Deschanel’s charming voice is at the forefront accompanied by minimal instrumentation, mainly guitar and ukulele from[Read More…]

Do you ever feel left out during the holiday season because you don’t celebrate Christmas? Why not cure this alienation with comedy? This was precisely the thought that sparked Kosher Jokes for the Halaladays, a comedy show intended as a Christmas present, if you will, for Jews and Muslims. Featuring[Read More…]

Coldplay have been around for over a decade now, and while immensely popular, they haven’t gone without criticism, often getting labelled as unoriginal and uninspired, both in their music and lyrics. Even so, they continue to produce music that their fans love. The band introduced a more upbeat, poppy sound[Read More…]

Florence is back and her machine is in full throttle. While the new album, Ceremonials, isn’t a total stylistic departure from Lungs—it has that same dark, dramatic sound that so pleased critics—its material offers a newfound catchiness and a slightly more conventional pop feel that might appeal to an even[Read More…]

Arcade Fire proudly put on a remarkable show for the thousands of people that crowded the Quartier des spectacles on Thursday night. The band’s passion for their beloved hometown shone through in their performance, and it was clear how happy they were to pay tribute to the people and city[Read More…]

Symposium All the Mistakes You Can Make and How (Not) to Make Them Friday, Sept. 23 14:30-16:00 Location: L’ancienne École des beaux-arts de Montréal Even the indie music industry is still an industry requiring business sense and navigation. Those aspiring to be the next Arcade Fire can soak in the[Read More…]

Thailand. Guatemala. Panama. Fiji. Micronesia. The list goes on. Any television show filmed in these places is automatically cool in my books. Of course I’m talking about Survivor, the best show on television. I usually get the same reaction when I talk about the show; “You still watch that?” Or eve; “That’s still on?” Yes, Survivor is still on and I still watch it.

After seeing the preview for Ben Stiller’s new indie-drama Greenberg, the first thing I thought was, “Wow, that looks awesome.” The second thing I thought was, “Wait, has Ben Stiller acted in a serious movie before?” In Greenberg, Stiller is an irritable, cynical, and on the verge of a midlife crisis.

Tim Burton has a distinct, dark, and quirky style that puts him in a cinematic class apart from any other director. The problem is that after creating so many successful films, his new projects are always going to be compared to his earlier “glory days.” The empire he has created is subject to unwarranted, faulty criticism merely because of the expectations that he’s planted in viewers’ minds.

The Buggles need to come out with a new one-hit wonder: “Internet Killed the Video Star.” This is the sad but true fate that our music age has come to. Remember when VH1 only played new music videos? How about MTV? Or MuchMusic? For the latter, you may be thinking, “but MuchMusic still plays music videos.