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Iced Earth: Dystopia

by Graeme Davidson on

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That Iced Earth’s newest album Dystopia is nearly identical to its predecessors does not necessarily condemn it to mediocrity. The band’s leader (and sole fixture), rhythm guitarist Jon Schaffer, has been cutting songs from the same cloth for a long time, but has managed to produce a number of very enjoyable albums despite this.

Although it’s equal parts remarkable and disappointing that Dystopia, Iced Earth’s third consecutive album with a new lead singer, is interchangeable with the other two albums, there are things to be enjoyed here. To those who’ve heard them, Iced Earth presents the same familiar elements as other thrash/power metal groups: thundering double bass drums, palm-muted riffs, and an overwrought vocal delivery.

New vocalist Stu Block (formerly of Canadian group Into Eternity) gamely gives it his all, although his voice, often sounding like a mix between his two precursors’, doesn’t exactly bring anything new to the overall sound. Block at least sounds like he’s having fun; while his approach isn’t exactly nuanced, it nevertheless livens up the otherwise tepid material he’s provided with. The lyrics are rather middling; Dystopia is a concept album, and one whose subject is as self-evident as it is unoriginal.

The most dispiriting aspect of this album is that it all feels so rote; it reeks of something assembled, with each incorporated element checked off a list of metal clichés. Even though they are executed competently, it doesn’t offset how uninspired the effort is.

Arts & Entertainment

M83: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

by Nicholas Petrillo on

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M83’s Anthony Gonzalez has openly admitted his obsession with 1980’s synth-pop. If he were a new wave fanboy, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming would be his loving tribute. And although it’s labeled as a two-disc set, the album clocks in at a relatively short 73 minutes and plays nicely in one sitting. It begins with an introduction reminiscent of the opener from Van Halen’s “1984,” in which electronic keyboard is established as the fundamental musical element to be used extensively throughout the album.

Gonzalez has a flawless understanding of ‘80s vocal quirks.  The intro track’s gradual buildup, combined with guest ginger Zola Jesus’ angst, show hints of U2 and there are brief glimpses of David Gilmour’s echoed vocals on the acoustic “Wait.” On “Claudia Lewis,” he evokes Peter Gabriel’s strained high notes to absolute perfection.

The album’s celestial atmosphere holds strong throughout the bulk of the material, but it probably could have been just as satisfying if it spared its brief instrumental tracks. Having these occasional interruptions reinforces the cosmic vibe of the record, but it would have functioned just as seamlessly and sounded even more focused if it were trimmed to a single disc.

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a dazzling interpretation of old styles. If M83’s influence normally rests among 18-24 year olds, imagine how clearly this type of album will resonate to those outside the university demographic.

Arts & Entertainment

Justice: Audio, Video, Disco

by Iain Macdonald on

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 Webster’s English Dictionary should go ahead and put the album art for Audio, Video, Disco beside the definition of sophomore slump. The first album from the French electrohouse duo, †, was just about perfect in every regard. However, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay took many of its positive aspects and threw them out the window. De Rosnay couldn’t have put it better when he explained that Audio, Video, Disco is daytime music and not as aggressive as the first album. Unfortunately for Justice, most of their fans sleep during the day.

The album starts off strong; the first two tracks, “Horsepower” and the single “Civilization” are bangers which wouldn’t be out of place on †. However, what follows is a hodgepodge of gospel-infused, disco-house music, which is about as polished as a third grade finger painting. The sound resembles a cross between the Justice we used to know and Steve Vai. Additionally, the transitions are full stops, entirely interrupting any flow on the album.

There are a couple of tracks which succeed with the new style. “On’n’On” features a strong bass line complemented by a subtle treble harmony, and the title track is a soothing walk through Justice’s new direction.

One redeeming factor is the inclusion of “Planisphere,” a single the band released on MySpace in 2008. It’s a welcome window into what Justice used to be: dirty bass lines perfectly contrasted with vocals and treble twangs. But Audio, Video, Disco just doesn’t do the band justice.

Sports

Rivals ruin Redmen’s run

by Trevor Drummond on

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Ryan Reisert
Ryan Reisert

The McGill Redmen suffered their first loss of the 2011-2012 season on Friday night, falling to the UQTR Patriotes in overtime by a score of 4-3. Despite getting a point in the loss, the second-ranked Redmen were outplayed for the majority of the game and scored two goals in the final four minutes to force the extra frame.

McGill got on the board early, as rookie Guillaume Langelier-Parent knocked home a rebound just 2:53 into the game. The Redmen held the lead until the eighth minute of the second period when UQTR’s Michel Ouellet tied the game at one. Ouellet netted his second goal of the night at 8:51 of the third and Félix Petit added another just two and a  half minutes later as UQTR moved ahead 3-1. The Redmen clawed back with just over four minutes remaining, getting goals from captain Evan Vossen and sophomore defenceman Vincent Bourgeois in a span of 1:49 to force overtime. The comeback would fall short, however, as UQTR’s Félix Lefrancois beat Redmen goalie Hubert Morin with 50 seconds remaining in the extra period.

With the victory, the Patriotes improved to 5-2 on the season and moved into first place atop the OUA East Division. Despite being outshot 30-29 on the evening, UQTR played an excellent defensive game, keeping McGill to the outside of their zone, and allowing very few quality scoring chances. Though the game was back and forth in the first period, the Patriotes controlled the majority of the play and looked especially sharp after drawing even in the second.

Although they rallied late to steal a point in the losing effort, the Redmen were far from satisfied with their performance. “We stopped moving our feet,” McGill Head Coach Kelly Nobes said after the game. “We have to put together 60 minutes against a good team like that. We made a comeback there in the third, but I didn’t think we deserved to win.”

McGill’s top line of Francis Verrault-Paul, Alex Picard-Hooper, and Andrew Wright consistently controlled the puck in the offensive zone, but failed to generate anything substantial. “We’re successful when we get the puck down low and start using each other,” Wright said, who echoed his coach’s words, adding, “We weren’t moving our feet like we normally do, and for that reason we weren’t getting open and we weren’t getting clear shots. I don’t think any team could keep up with us if we play a full 60 minutes.”

The strength of this Redmen team is their speed and forechecking, but they have yet to establish either over the course of a full contest so far this season. Their depth has been a large factor in the team’s 4-0-1 start, despite the lack of consistency. McGill dropped their second OT decision of the weekend by a score of 3-2 at Concordia’s Ed Meagher Arena but they will get a quick chance to avenge the defeat Friday, Oct. 28 when the Stingers pay a visit to McConnell Arena.

Arts & Entertainment

Two-dimensional plot, 3D action

by Lauren Pires on

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Hollywood seems to be lacking in original ideas. If they can’t revamp an older movie and call it a prequel they turn to books for inspiration, to varying degrees of success. The remake of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers is one of the better efforts. It walks the fine line between cheesy and awesome, and though the schmaltz sometimes wins out, it doesn’t detract from the heroic, feel-good dynamic of the story. It also manages to revitalize a classic tale of heroism and fighting for what is right.

The writers can be credited with sticking to the original plot. Young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) travels to Paris to join the now retired Musketeers: Athos (Matthew MacFadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), and Aramis (Luke Evans). Together they must foil an attempt to start a war between Britain and France, ignited by the crooked Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) by retrieving the young Queen’s necklace from the Duke of Buckingham’s (Orlando Bloom) personal vault in the Tower of London.

The plot is rather straightforward, but its simplicity allows for a rabble-rousing hour-and-a-half of explosions, fencing duels, and flying ships to take over your imagination with little resistance. The steampunk universe is one of a corrupt cardinal ruling through a young, naïve, and love-struck king, where the villains wear black and war is fought on Da Vinci’s secret war machines. It’s reminiscent of the Sherlock Holmes remake, and that’s not a bad thing.

The film reaches a happy medium in employing 3D technology for both depth and texture, and its more classic use of simulating objects flying directly towards your face. The most striking part of this film is the mise-en-scene, and having these elaborate, gilded sets, which look like Renaissance tableaus, brought to life is fantastic. Coupled with flying cannon fodder and fire pouring out of flying ships, the 3D really works.

What’s more, Paul Haslinger’s original score is fantastic, taking the intensity of a full orchestra and fitting it to the silver screen. The battle scenes are tense and the music swells and falls at all the right places. It’s enough to carry you through the movie if you let yourself get wrapped up in it.

The movie is simply a thinly veiled coming-of-age story where love eventually conquers and virtue is rewarded, but what’s wrong with that? It’s an archetype that works, and the characters are classic heroes that are complemented by the knee-slap humour and epic battles on rooftops.

Overall, for such a light-hearted flick, it manages to successfully address one of the biggest challenges faced by movies: the translation of book to film, especially one with as much history and influence as The Three Musketeers. This movie manages to be a brand new film about a story that’s already been told, and that’s impressive considering all the disasters we’ve seen before.

Opinion

The filling of a bucket

by Ricky Kreitner on

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Despite the obligatory pledges to myself that precede every semester, promising that this time will be different, I always end up choosing one or two classes to prioritize over the others. I track down interesting texts mentioned off-handedly by the professor. I start researching the day an assignment is announced. I brainstorm term paper topics in the margins of my notebook on the first day of class, already distracted. My other courses necessarily suffer.

It was for the sake of an upcoming exam in one of these latter courses—on moral philosophy—that I recently found myself speed-reading through the used textbook I’d only just bought on Amazon, trying to cram at least some of its contents into my sleep-deprived, coffee-inflated brain as efficiently as possible. While skimming the readings for what I could only guess the professor might want me to be skimming for, I happened to stumble upon to the following passage by John Stuart Mill:

“Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance … Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes … and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.”

Of course, this had nothing to do with the exam. If I were a better student, I would have used my time wisely and just kept skimming. But I found myself drawn into the passage and had to lift my eyes from the textbook for a few seconds to let it sink in.

I realized that McGill is precisely one of these hostile environments, the life of the student today is precisely one of these positions in life mentioned by Mill. Instead of reading his essay for such thought-provoking, timeless truths as the one above, I had only been looking for little nuggets of information that would help me place Mill correctly in whatever theoretical schema the prof had devised for himself and for us, and thus hopefully to do well on the exam.

But good grades are just an updated version of the gold stickers we accumulated in elementary school as a physical embodiment of our precious self-worth: they’re an easy way to mark easy achievements, but fail to capture the difference between an hour spent meditating on Mill’s actual wisdom and an hour spent mindlessly compressing his whole philosophy into a few sentences of uninspiring dogma. Thus, an addiction to “inferior pleasures,” the petty Pavlovian morale boost of getting good grades, replaces our “capacity for nobler feelings” and “intellectual tastes,” which we can now neither enjoy nor pursue.

William Butler Yeats once said, “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.” I’ve thought a lot about that quote since I saw it on the Cyberthèque walls in first year, mostly not straying far from my original astonishment that people can manage to study down there, what with the ever-present stench of such incomparable hypocrisy. Perhaps, deeply focused on their studies, they’ve failed to notice a glaring truth: the university is where Yeats’ type of education now goes to die.

News

Homecoming weekend draws parents, alumni to campus

by Eric Mauser on

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Anna Katycheva

This past windy, rainy, weekend, students had a glimmer of hope: their parents came up to visit, and alumni from past years met current students at homecoming.

“Every year McGill welcomes back thousands of graduates for homecoming. Alumni not only get the chance to reconnect with the university and each other; they also have the opportunity to attend dozens of entertaining and educational events,” read a statement on the Alumni Association website.  

Many parents and students took advantage of the weekend as a way to reunite after weeks apart.

“We came to see our daughter here at McGill,” Brad Klassen, one parent who came to McGill over the weekend, said.

“We just wanted to engage into her life, and so when she’s telling stories, we know [what] she’s talking about,” Angela Klassen, his wife, added.

The Klassens, who visited McGill from British Columbia, had not seen their daughter, Christina Klassen, U0, since she began the year at McGill in late August.

Christina Klassen added that she had several friends who were also excited to have their parents come up and visit them.

Another set of parents, the Mendelsons, said that they also enjoyed coming up and seeing how their U0 son has been doing at McGill.

“We went out on a pub crawl with our son last night, and today we went down to the Old Port,” Houston Mendelson said.

“He also introduced us to poutine,” Maggie Mendelson, his wife, added.

Even students who did not have parents coming to visit them seemed enthusiastic about the weekend.

“For students to have their parents here is a good support system,” Obed Cundangin, U0 arts student and New Rez President, said.

“All these first-years are kind of lost, and to have their parents here stabilizes them and helps them put their feet back on the ground.”

Cundangin also encouraged   his fellow New Rez students to go to homecoming last weekend.

“We’re trying to get people out, show some spirit,” he said. “It’s a precedent for the rest of the school year. If we can get people spirited now, then we can get people spirited the entire way through [the school year].”

While new students prepared for their first homecoming, many former students came back to McGill to enjoy the day as well.

“I really missed Montreal and I wanted to see some of my friends so I came [to homecoming],” Damian Burd, who graduated with an MBA with the class of 2001, said.

Burd encouraged all alumni to return to their alma mater.

“If I could,” Burd said, “I would come back every two or three years.”

News

Life after Gaddafi roundtable discussion

by Hannah George on

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Sam Reynolds

Montreal may seem worlds away from Libya and Muamar Gaddafi, but McGill professor Rex Brynen would argue otherwise. Having spent the summer in Benghazi as a consultant to the rebel leadership, Brynen is all too connected to the Libyan situation.

Brynen took part in a roundtable presented by the Atlantic Council of Canada on ‘Life After Gaddafi: Prospects for Post-War Libya’ on Oct. 13 at McGill.  The roundtable consisted of five guest speakers debating issues pertaining to the future of Libya.

“The real challenge in constructing and rebuilding Libya will not be physical reconstruction, but institutional,” Brynen said. He explained the need for widespread, functional changes in response to factionalism and cronyism currently present in the Libyan system of government.

“I’m absolutely gobsmacked by how many people have turned up for the event,” Dr. Bernd Goetze, one of the event hosts and director of the Atlantic Council’s Quebec division, said.

The Atlantic Council works to build public knowledge of international peace, security, and NATO through the publication of articles, roundtable and youth events, and competitions.

At this particular event, speakers discussed a range of issues, from personal accounts of Libya’s history under Gaddafi to the much more optimistic current situation from Salhin Gheriani, who concluded that “Libya is full of activity, and you have to prepare to be amazed.”

Dr. Miloud Chennoufi of the Canadian Forces College explained the role of the rebel leadership in the National Transitional Council, cautioning against too much optimism for the country’s future.

“The West is not interested in democracy in the Arab world. It has never been interested in democracy in the Arab world,” he said.

Dr. Imad Mansour, a faculty lecturer at McGill, took a more removed view in questioning Libya’s prospects for peace or violence.

“We are seeing more continuities than ruptures, but the problems will continue,” he concluded.

The final panelist was former diplomat Mr. Paul Chapin.  He took a positive stance, asserting that the revolution will provide peace and prosperity for the Libyans, but emphasized the importance of nuanced foreign involvement.

“We’re not going to make the mistake of coming in and telling them how to run their country,” he said.

After the presentations, the speakers discussed the results of the roundtable.

“I thought it was an excellent discussion,” Brynen said. “There were a broad range of perspectives offered by the panellists, and the large student audience seemed informed and engaged.”

Tom Aagaard, a research analyst from the Atlantic Council, agreed.

“There’s so much momentum behind this issue,” Aagaard said. It was surprisingly easy to get people involved because it’s such a hot topic right now. Although the tone was a little cynical tonight, the council does go for honest and critical discussion with a variety of perspectives.”

Michal Khan, U3 Middle East studies and political science, found the talk especially relevant in its discussion of the impact of policy on the Libyan community.

“Often in university events on politics like these, academics like professors are the only ones involved. So we get the analytic academic side of the story. The strength of the panel in my opinion is that we not only got different academic perspectives but also how the events in Libya impact governments and their officials and the Libyan community,” Khan said.

News

BaSIC survey gives voice to students on MUNACA strike

by Nathaniel Finestone on

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Sam Reynolds

On Oct. 1, the Bachelors of Arts and Science Integrative Council (BaSIC) asked its students what stance they wanted to take on the MUNACA strike.

When the results came in, the favoured response, with 44 per cent of the vote, was to maintain neutrality. Supporting the strike was selected by 37 per cent. The remainder, 19 per cent, were against the the strike.

As a result, BaSIC decided to remain neutral on the strike.

“We didn’t even discuss it in the executive. At AUS council, our VP external abstained. We would just go with whatever the surveys said,” Hubie Yu, BaSIC’s president, said.

In addition, the survey had an optional and anonymous comments section in which students could post their thoughts about the issue. Some questioned the validity of having a stance on this issue as a student group, while others criticized the lack of a fourth option condemning the strike. One commenter simply said they would rather see the money MUNACA might eventually get put towards more valuable uses like keeping tuition fees down.

Some students were pleased that BaSIC conducted the survey and consulted students before taking a stance.

“It’s just amazing that BaSIC, as an organisation, is willing to engage its membership and find out their views on a controversial topic such as this; it would have been unfair of them to assume their constituents are for the strike,” Brendan Stevens, a U2 political science student  and member of Conservative McGill, said.

Other students wondered why more organisations did not conduct similar surveys.

“Student groups should consult their constituent members, which SSMU did at the General Assembly, but there were only 100 people out of the huge amount that represents SSMU at that and they tend to be the ones who are more politically engaged anyway and more likely to support the strike so it really depends on the organisation,” Grace Khare, a student at McGill, said.

AUS and SUS have not taken positions on the strike due to opposition.

“We haven’t taken a position: there was a motion put forward two councils ago saying that we take a position on the strike, which did not go through,” Jade Calver, President of the AUS, said.

SUS President Akshay Rajaram noted that while the society has not taken a stance, this is as a result of a lack of information on how the strike affects their students.

“We discussed the issues affecting students in general council and with our dean but we haven’t formally taken a stance,” he said. “Depending on the year [at McGill], students are being affected differently in regards to the strike.”

News

McGill hosts conference on clergy sex abuse

by Eric Mauser on

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Lindsay Cameron
Lindsay Cameron

To many, the clerical abuse scandal in the Catholic clergy was something that happened in 2002 when media reports were first released, and has only appeared in the public consciousness sporadically since then. This is certainly not the case within the Catholic Church. On Oct. 14 and 15, McGill hosted “Trauma and Transformation: the Catholic Church and the Sexual Abuse Crisis,” a conference which drew together seven bishops, 50 nuns and priests, dozens of academics, and around 20 students to talk about clergy abuse, and how to resolve and prevent it.

“It is significant that this is the first time there has been a major academic conference that is at a secular university,” Dan Cere, a McGill Religious Studies professor and conference co-host, said.

“Most of the conversations that have gone to date [within the Catholic Church] have tended to focus on …  ‘what are the codes, what are the protocols that we need to put in place to stop this?’ They haven’t really looked at what the systemic issues are.”

A study released in May 2011 by the John Jay School of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York looked at statistics of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church from 1950 to 2010 in America. Principal investigator Karen Terry found that incidents of abuse had peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, implying that abuse may not, as previously thought, be endemic within the Catholic Church, but could be linked with particular phenomena of that era.

“We found that the rise in abusive behavior within the Church was consistent with rises in other types of behavior in society,” Terry said.

These included rises in crime, drug usage, divorce, and premarital sex. While Terry emphasized that these behaviors did not cause abuse, the social factors that caused these behaviors to increase may also have contributed towards the increase in abuse in the Catholic Church.

“The dioceses at this point need to continue to provide safe environment programs … but they still need to be held accountable, and they need to increase their transparency in responses to abuse,” Terry said, recommending changes for the church based on the study.

Archbishop Mancini of Halifax suggested that reforms need to be made within the church, including the church’s age-old teachings on sexuality.

“The fact is that sexuality is part of the human condition, and when it is ignored, minimized, or inadequately understood, the result is devastation in people’s lives.”

Instead of ignoring sexuality the way the church has in the past, Mancini urged more discussion on the subject, specifically to allow priests to understand themselves and develop.

Another conference participant, Fr. George Wilson, indicated that the Catholic Church should allow parishoners more power in matters of faith than had been previously granted.

“We should have laymen and laywomen on the board [to ordain priests] making that decision [of who becomes a priest and who does not],” Wilson said.

McGill Student Ombudsperson Spencer Boudreau felt that the abuse that occurred within the Catholic Church could be examined as a case study for other large institutions.

“I think the conference has a message to students that it’s important to speak about any kind of abuse,” Boudreau said.

“I’m in education. A big issue now for example is bullying that goes on in schools and on the Internet … that’s a form of abuse that maybe all of us have to be more sensitive about … I think that we always have to be sensitive to abuse.”

Students felt that the experience was unique and contradicted the views long thought to be true about the Catholic Church’s attitudes towards sexual abuse.

“I think the image from this conference is one that sharply contrasts the one that the mass media has been portraying since this issue erupted … that the church is complacent, that it’s not interested in improvement … but the sense that you get from a conference like this … is that they do care and that they are being proactive…. ” Julian Paparella, a U0 science student volunteering at the event, said.

“As the younger generation, we’re not necessarily directly affected as individuals by this particular issue, but it’s one about which we need to be knowledgable in order that in the future, we may not experience what we did in the past.”

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