What review of a new Metallica album could be had without first firing a 21-gun salute over the body of St. Anger? So let’s get that out of the way– it certainly had its part to play, but what was it? It was like a vivid nightmare. Did we imagine it? It makes me feel existential and a little pissed off, like how I feel at a funeral; like life is long and mean and disorderly, and when it passes we feel like we barely knew it at all.
But it’s …

The inherent danger with a politically grounded novel is the potential to read the book as an author’s manifesto. There is a desire for the reader to take a Rhetorical Critic’s stance on the text and interpret every politically-backed statement as the author’s personal belief. And with this danger comes the potential to polarize audiences. Joey Goebel’s third novel, Commonwealth, is weighed by this dynamic, however he has the storytelling chops to move beyond treatise territory and deliver a great story, helped, not hindered, by the political setting.
Commonwealth follows the …

“I won’t settle nope not a little bit.”
If it sounds like a proclamation it should, and it comes beautifully by way of Emma-Lee, Canadian singer-songwriter on “Where You Want To Be.” Since last time we heard from her she has managed to get exactly where she wants to be. Her debut album, Never Just A Dream, which was given 4/4 stars from the Toronto Star—and also fared quite nicely with Oxyfication—is a brilliant beginning-to-end coming-of-age listening experience that defies genre classification. For the better part of the two years leading …

A clever songwriter with a classically divine voice Toronto, Canada’s Emma-Lee spins songs of mass seduction on her debut album, Never Just A Dream. Built from ambivalent tales of heartbreak and redemption that everyone who has loved has gone through, the songs are like sonic submersibles, delving their way into the parts of you that make you tick. The catchy lyrics and osmotic melodies follow you and before you know it you’re bopping right along.
The luscious landscape of “That Sinking Feeling” sets the proper mood for what you’re going to …

The plot of The Golden Calf, Henry Baum’s second novel, reads like it was born of a dare. “Henry, I dare you to write a novel with a sympathetic Hollywood stalker. Give him a dull life, a dull job, call him Ray. Then turn him into an anti-celebrity missionary disgusted by the wealthy man’s ignorance of the Everyman’s plight. Make him pity Hollywood while simultaneously conscious of the need to help those wrecked by the Hollywood lifestyle. Most importantly, Mr. Baum, make me agree with this man.”
“Sure,” Henry Baum says. …