In true do-it-yourself fashion, Toronto singer-songwriter Danny Handes took pretty much whatever he could find—guitar, microphone, tambourine, knitting needles—and weaved an impressive debut album. The Asterisk Eye is a musical quilt, a patchwork of 14 songs that cover a lot of ground. It travels pretty much everywhere, from “So Bad” with its AC/DC-like driven riff to the softer land of “Our Leaves Are Green Again” and “Long Road,” which would be fitting on a mix-tape with the likes of Keane and Thom Yorke. “Hearts Again” is a catchy windows-rolled-down-on-a-cool-fall-night companion …

On Hold Time, his sixth studio album, Portland, Oregon Indie-rocker M. Ward sounds like a man who is thinking things through, trying to make sense of the proverbial “I’ve been a few places.” On the opener, “For Beginnings, he sings, “When you’re absolute beginners/ It’s a panoramic view,” and from there he’s off to get a closer look at things, from the underground of New York City, to next stop Shangri-La. Faith is on his mind; in “Epistemology” he reveals, “I learned how to hold on from a book of …

As the X-Men story continues to unfold on the screen, I sense some sort of panicky scramble behind the scenes of this post-Bryan Singer franchise. Like, if you’re on an airplane, and you receive word that the pilot has just had a stroke, and somebody’s going to have to land the plane: who will it be? Who’s most qualified?
Why, it’s Gavin Hood– the director of Tsotsi! Thank goodness. I thought we were screwed.
Not that Bryan Singer’s take on the franchise and its characters was flawless, but Singer has a knack …