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Presented by Extensive Enterprise

Loud Guitars with a Feeling

This one was a thrasher to be remembered. It provided hours of entertainment, and there was wall-to-wall moshing throughout the night. I was particularly looking forward to seeing Voivod, as I have not seen that band before despite owning a number of their earlier albums. I'm a big fan of their first three or four albums, as they brought new rhythms and sounds to the thrash metal style and influenced extreme metal in a big way. Napalm Death were also looked forward to, as their albums have enthralled me for years, even the ones from the mid-to-late nineties that nobody likes. Either way, this an evening packed with quality.

Iron Reagan is newer project from members of Darkest Hour and Municipal Waste. They helped set the stage for the evening with a set of brief, up-tempo numbers that invoked images of the 1980s American hardcore and metal underground. Front man Tony Foresta entertained the crowd between songs with some amusing banter, including telling the audience that he didn't want to meet any of their kids, because they were more than likely to be a bunch of assholes. It was some pretty tight stuff, and I would watch it again.

Exhumed were up next. I've seen these guys before, but this time their stage show was a little more elaborate than the last time I saw them. It included beheadings, severed heads being placed in a microwave, and a crazed, blood-stained surgeon wielding a chainsaw. They played through a bunch of their newer material, as well as classics such as "Open the Abscess" and "Necromaniac". It was song after song of fine goregrind. It was great seeing this band once again, and I would definitely go another time when they come back.

Voivod were a great time live. They started off their set with "Ripping Headaches", and continued to plough through their set with songs both old and new. One thing I took away from this performance is how understated Away's drumming is presented on their albums. It always seems to be mixed in such a way that it is easily not noticed, but here in the live arena, his creativity as a drummer truly shines. There are a lot of interesting rhythms that he uses in the songs that mesh with the guitars in different ways. One highlight for me was their rendition of "Voivod", the opening song from their debut War and Pain. Everyone chanted along with chorus, and it was a great feeling in the air to behold. Good stuff.

Napalm Death were absolutely awesome. They played a number of tracks from their newest album Apex Predator: Easy Meat, and they also performed crowd favorites such as "Scum", "Walls of Confinement", "Unchallenged Hate", and "Suffer the Children". I think the mosh pit was the most voluminous it had been all night for this set. People were going crazy with circle-pitting, slam dancing, and just general thrashing about. Vocalist Barney Greenway<.strong> talked to the crowd as a long-serving comrade, and the crowd roared with approval each time he spoke. It was distorted madness and brutality for a good hour, and I can't wait to see this band again.

--Sean Z. hosts the Sublime State Of Doom, only the heaviest and most brutal metal every Monday from 8 to 9 PM on CJLO.

Hosted by: Danny Aubry

Stories by: Danny Aubry, Celeste Lee & Julia Bryant

Produced by: Julia Bryant

Sub Pop, 2015

Josh Tillman. What a cool-guy. If you haven't heard of Josh Tillman or Father John Misty, you've probably heard of Fleet Foxes, the band for which he was previously a drummer and vocalist. He's released several records as J. Tillman, including the spare but excellent Vacilando Territory Blues. More recently he's taken the moniker of Father John Misty, a bizarrely self-reflective, sardonic and hilarious Americana Dude. His last album, Fear Fun, was a profoundly underrated record full of engrossing stories and lyrical gems. I Love You Honeybear is a continuation of that, with Tillman perfecting his unique lyrical style and surrounding it with lush and diverse instrumentation.

The record starts off expectedly based on Tillman's previous output with gorgeous soul and folk infusions before taking a surprising left turn on the third and stand out track, "True Affection". Unlike most songs on the record, and anything Tillman has done before, the song is rich on breezy electronics that blend in perfectly with vocal harmonies and more traditional instrumentation. The following song, "The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apartment" returns to the short story folk song writing we're more used to from Tillman. And the song is hilarious. He goes through just about everything he hates about people, malapropos, that "soulful affectation white girls put on", and people who are just too full of shit to realize it. "Nothing Good Ever Happens At the Goddam Thirsty Crow" and "Bored in the USA" denote other lyrical and musical peaks on the record. "Bored in the USA" especially fires on all cylinders hitting multiple targets. It's a questioning and mocking of the aspirations of our generation, while getting in some digs at the social structures of privilege that many take for granted. It's self-effacing stuff, and it's hard to tell sometimes whether the target of Tillman's songs are his audience, characters he's met, or himself.

One of the reasons it's so easy to love Tillman is his way with words and vocal execution. He manages to come off as sarcastic, soulful, dismissive, witty, and remarkably literate all within the same song. That's no easy feat. I Love You Honeybear, for all of its excellent musical achievements (this is a beautifully produced album), is ultimately a songwriter's record. It captures the spirit of "Our Times" in the snarky, self-depreciating and internally anxious voice of the generation that's living in it. To say the least, it's a worthy breakthrough for Father John Misty.

Best For: So you've stepped into a bizzaro-world that's filled with characters that came out of a hybrid of "Inherent Vice" and a Jonathan Franzen novel? This record will help you navigate through the assholes.

Rating: 4.5/5

--Kenny Chatoor is former CJLO radio DJ and magazine contributor currently living in Ontario, "Yeah things are good, there is definitely nothing like CJLO in Toronto though, which is a bummer."

I was not looking forward to Kingsman: The Secret Service. When I first heard that it was adapted from a comic book miniseries by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Nemesis,Wanted,  Marvel's Civil War) my stomach churned. I've definitely enjoyed director Matthew Vaughn's (2004's Layer Cake, 2011's X-Men: First Class) work in the past. Still, my experience with Millar's portfolio has been plagued by interesting concepts that often get buried under too much juvenile blood n' guts excess to stick the landing and deliver on their initial promise. Though I shrugged at preview pages for The Secret Service back in 2012 and was fully prepared to feel the same way about the movie's explosions and head-shots, I did not expect that Matthew Vaughn & co. would be so deceptively charming. That's Kingsman for you.

Vaughn, who also co-wrote the script with Jane Goldman, borrows only very loosely from Millar and artist Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) in crafting the spy world of Kingsman. Dropping audiences into a desert mission gone sour, the movie's opening introduces Kingsman as a secret cabal of finely-coiffed Englishmen that, code-named for the knights of Arthurian legend, stand in contrast to the comics' foregrounding of actual British intelligence agency MI6. Feeling responsible for the death of an agent, Colin Firth's sharply-dressed Harry Hart (code-name: Galahad) visits the newly-widowed Michelle Unwin to deliver a token and a promise: say the words, and Kingsman will look after you. Although the grief-stricken Michelle rejects Galahad's offer, the Unwin family surfaces on Hart's radar a decade or so later when her son Eggsy (newcomer Taron Egerton), now-fully grown and facing police charges for a brilliantly-shot reverse car-chase, calls in the favour. This meeting couldn't be better timed, because Galahad is also investigating – and looking to replace - the murder of present operative Lancelot.

As Galahad digs deeper into his colleague's death and uncovers the cellphone mind-control plot of sinister techno-philanthropist Valentine (a gleefully lisping Samuel L. Jackson), the streetwise Eggsy is brought from a hidden tube-line under a prestige tailor shop to Kingsman HQ. Through a series of tests designed by Kingsman head Arthur and his advisor, Merlin, Eggsy competes with a series of mostly interchangeable sneering rich-kid archetypes for Lancelot's deserted chair. These trials slowly mold Eggsy from an estate hoodrat into a fledgling gentleman-spy - “aw, like in My Fair Lady,” he nods – but can he save the world and protect his mother from her abusive boyfriend?

There's a lot to like in Kingsman. Despite a pretty uninspired schoolboy rags-to-riches character arc for Eggsy and a typically-insane super-villain doomsday plot, Vaughn and the cast maintain a playful self-awareness that winks at spy-movie excess without ever biting the hand that feeds them. In all his scenery-chewing, Jackson's Valentine dances around the conventions of the super-villain role. Though he acknowledges a love for one-liners and exposition, Jackson chomps on a Big Mac and literally voices the intention to subvert expectations by taunting, “this ain't that kind of movie”.

Kingsman certainly earns its USA R-rating with multiple coat-rack impalings and Zippo lighters to the face. Still, Vaughn keeps a steady hand to temper the nihilistic streak that often bubbles up in Millar's work. Through fistfights, firefights, and a minutes-long carnage-orgy set to a Lynyrd Skynyrd soundtrack in an American church, Vaughn's camera never loses track of the action and never loses its joy for the Edgar Wright school of frenetic cartoony filmmaking.

Vaughn's passion also appears to be infectious, and his whole cast seems to be having an equally great time. Playing off of Sam Jackson's energy, Firth brings a Roger Moore swagger and smile to what has to be the first time I've ever seen “Colin Firth: Action Hero”. In Eggsy's journey to gentleman, Taron Egerton's smirk narrowly swerves around the pitfall of Forgettable White Guy Hero that too often claims actors like Garrett Hedlund and Sam Worthington. Even Valentine's stoic bodyguard Gazelle, standing on razor-tipped Oscar Pistorius prostheses, looks like she's enjoying every second of the absurdity.

A victim of expectation, I was fully primed to hate Kingsman: The Secret Service. I've learned to be skeptical of Mark Millar's work, and Matthew Vaughn's last crack at working with Millar (2010's Kick-Ass) left me feeling pretty flat. And yet, even with a confusing message that critiques social elitism while celebrating the “gentleman” class and selling a new line of designer suits, Kingsman is – surprisingly -  a really good time. Despite my reservations, Vaughn's shown that he can be trusted to deliver on an adapted idea. I don't know if it's in the pipeline, but now I'm finally excited to see what he can do with an original screenplay.

Bottom Line: I may have had my own hang-ups to overcome, but you should see Kingsman: The Secret Service if:

• You like the self-aware goofiness of Roger Moore's James Bond movies, but could do without all the dad-jokes

• You crave an action sequence that can actually keep track of the action

• You think that Colin Firth can only get sexier if he were to murder a bunch of dudes

• You don't mind wondering why all the women are damsels in distress, bodyguards, or competition for the male protagonists

• Samuel L. Jackson never fails to brighten your day

--Dan Corber is a published author and all around cool dude