New Jersey doesn’t seem to deliver a great many things of interest. Hardly surprising when you consider it’s nickname (the “Garden State”) and that fact that it is overshadowed by it’s close neighbout, New York. 

And then, from completely off the rader, came the Gaslight Anthem.Sounding like the result of a drunken tryst including Bruce Springsteen and the Killers, the New Jersey quartet pull together elements of punk, folk and blues into something that’s as perfect for a midnight drive with your sweetheart as it is for drinking with your buddies.

The follow-up 2007’s Sink or Swim LP, Gaslight’s latest offering brought them to the bigtime, including slots on Jay Leno and David Letterman. Not without good reason either; The ‘59 Sound is a solid record throughout. 

Each song is so strong that it becomes hard to predict the singles, or even pick a stand-out track. Album opener ‘Great Expectations’ sets the tone straight away, while the title track’s almost Cure-like guitar and big chorus shows the band can manage variety and a consistent sound at the same time - something even bands with 20 years experience sometimes struggle with.

What follows is track-after-track of, basically, genius. For twelve straight songs, Brian Fallon’s voice creates amazing pictures of love, loss and friendship, while the rest of the band - Rosamilia, Levine and Horowitz - surround it all with beautiful music that sounds equal parts the Clash and Johnny Cash.

Without question, the album of 2008.

Rating: 10 out of 10 Beans

Everyone loves a good time, and nobody brings the fun like the Presidents of the United States of America. Throughout their sixteen years, PUSA have gifted us with song after song filled with the catchiest, bounciest hooks. 

These Are The Good Times People continues the trend, and within seconds of album-opener ‘Mixed Up SOB’, everyone in listening-distance will be grinning. But just three minutes into their latest album, PUSA seem to suddenly take their collective foot off the pedal-on-the-right.

While the album is consistently chirpy, the pace is pretty obviously different to their other albums, including 2004’s Love Everybody. While the songs will undoubtedly keep everyone in the room smiling, the bounce seems to have slowed to a sway, and that signature sound seems to have faded. Instead, a huge chunk of the songs soung pretty… well… regular. Which, really, defeats the whole point of the Presidents.

There are certainly still some great moments on Good Times - ‘Bad Times’ is sentimental and soppy, in a hilarious way and ‘Truckstop Butterfly’ is as nonsensical as PUSA ever were, but it’s on ‘Ghosts Are Everywhere’ that the Seattle trio start to sound like the PUSA of old, with the huge, simpler-than-thou chorus. 

While the album as a whole is fun and almost every song gets in your head like Kurt Cobain’s last shotgun shell, there is now a polished sound that didn’t seem to be there before and a more-than-welcome number of almost acoustic sounding tracks. ‘So Lo So Hi’ sees the band again turn back to their signature sound, which seems to remain for the rest of the tracklist. By that time, the end of the album is in sight, but at least it was a fun journey, despite the new speed-limit.

Maybe PUSA are just growing old, but at least they’re still doing it with a smile on their face.

Rating: 7 out of 10 Beans

With their second effort ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ they pretty much exploded, bringing out classics left, right and center including ‘Clocks’ and ‘In My Place’, so when album three dropped using a ‘Clocks’ rip off in the form of ‘Speed Of Sound’ I shed a small tear. ‘X & Y’ as far as i’m concerned was not the best thing i’ve heard from Coldplay and I don’t think I was the only one.

Don’t get me wrong - there is some good stuff on ‘X&Y’, ‘Square One’ for example, a great track and was ideal as the opening track of their live shows back then, but the album just wasn’t that great as a package.

So, Album 4 is here and it’s already selling huge, it was bound to be, whether reviews were damning or not, it was always going to fly off the shelves, thankfully I haven’t anything particularly damning to say about ‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’ as I think it’s a giant step forward for the band.

There was criticism regarding ‘X & Y’ having a lack of musical oomph, not really trying anything different in the way they had from ‘Parachutes’ to ‘A Rush…’ so in Chris Martins’ own words the rest of the guys in Coldplay ‘took back the music’ from Martin and did things their own way, and it shows.

The music is much more focused now, everything is much more experimental and really proves that Buckland, Champion and Berryman pull the musical strings, with Martin almost taking a backseat this time around compared to the almost ‘Martin Only’ tracks such as ‘Fix You’ on ‘X & Y’.

‘Life in Technicolor’ is an excellent start to the album, showing you straight from the get-go that these guys are trying something a little different, ‘Cemetries of London’ is also another great track with a wonderful, yet simple guitar solo from Buckland.

The album never lets up with my only dissapointment being ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’ just isn’t my cup of tea, not to worry however as straight after you have what, In my opinion is Coldplays best ever song in ‘Viva La Vida’, a great track, showing Martin has really matured as a lyricist and that musically the band are on top of their game.

The album ends where it started off looping with track 1 in the form of ‘The Escapist’ which, is probably my favourite track on the album and a great way to end the whole affair, at around 47 mins long, the album isn’t the longest, but there is a lot to say and a lot to prove in that time and they certainly achieved what they set out to do.

If you didn’t like Coldplay before, then nothing will make you change that fact here, but if you’re a fan, efforts like this only help to galvanise your faith in the huge British stars, more of the same please.

Rating: 9 out of 10 Beans

Despite looking like Professor Snape these days, there’s no denying that Trent Rexnor is something of a musical genius. Shame then, that The Slip is such a poor show.

Usually Nine Inch Nails records run like the soundtrack to a lapdance, but this is more like a librarian conference than a raunch bar. 1,000,000 shows signs of promise from the beginning but it sounds a little too polished and strained, not as grimy and filthy as it should be. From there, The Slip descends into the kind of dull background music usually expected from no-hope-in-hell alternative acts from Grimsby.

And so it is a good thing this was available from the Nine Inch Nails website for free for a while. At no point could this be considered worth parting with money for. The pace simply never picks up on this record. Trent Reznor must have written this from a nice bubble bath; there is none of the venom or the attitude of previous records. At some toward the end The Four Of Us Are Dying grabbed some attention for sounding like Radiohead, but then when you’re listening to Nine Inch Nails you probably don’t really want to find a lost Radiohead track.

The Finger was heading down for a brutal 3/10 until something of a diamond in the rough popped up with Head Down, at which point the record stopped feeling like a total waste of time for all of five minutes, before the drudge continued.

Rating: 4 out of 10 Beans

Starring: Milo Ventimiglia, Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka, Jack Coleman

For those who don’t know what Heroes is: Go watch it now, or you ain’t no friend o’ mine.

Heroes is the popular US drama series following the lives of a group of seemingly normal people - almost all of whom have incredible powers of some kind. Whether they are indestructable, possessed of super-human strength or able to travel through space and time, these people are some of the most engaging characters I have seen on TV for a long, long time.

Season Two picks up four months after the end of Season One, pitching straight into another story which twists around the world and even in and out of time. While the first season was critically acclaimed, winning a ridiculous number of accolades, Season Two took a little flak. Midway through the season, which was cut brutally short by the Writer’s Strike, hacks were complaining that the story was too ‘lovey-dovey’, which I agreed with. For about three episodes. But with the return of old characters - Peter Petrelli (Ventimiglia) is less annoying, Claire (Panettiere) is still jailbait and Hiro Nakamua (Oka) is still funny - and the introduction of some great new ones, pretty soon I was hooked again.

Heroes still looks and feels like the greatest comic book you’ve never read, with stunning visuals and some amazing directions. Every shot, whether it’s an abandoned Times Square, a sun-scorched desert or an old warehouse, is stunning and the original characters make it that bit better.

Season Two does stumble a little at the start, like most difficult second series/albums/movies - but soon it is up and running, twisting and turning as much as ever. In fact the plot twists toward the end - which comes far too soon at Episode 11 - rival that of a whole series of Lost.

And with Season Three premiering in the States on September 22nd, I for one can’t wait.

Rating: 7 out of 10 Beans

I went into Sex in the City with an open mind. I’d seen a few episodes of the series before and they weren’t too bad, and as I had made my girlfriend see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull a few weeks before I had to sit through this - I may as well try to enjoy it.

And thats the thing. Don’t tell anyone I said this but… I kinda did enjoy it.

The opening montage stunk of cheese and when I saw the outfits that all the chick magazines were all raving about I almost vomited, but pretty soon I forgot that as a guy I was supposed to hate this stuff. There were even a few moments when I laughed out loud.

Some of the stars - notably Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw and Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones - have aged a little too much to be doing this kind of thing but I guess that’s the beauty of modern Hollywood polish: you don’t really notice.

The story predictably revolves around Carries relationship with that chubby old guy with the bushy ‘brows (You know. That ‘Big’ fella) as they decide to get married. There are all kinds of wedding-based jokes and shenanigans for a while that I don’t understand, being a straight guy and all, but I think I laughed in all the right places and pretty soon we were in territory I understood: drinking and doing fuck-all. From there I was in good hands; they even threw in a poop joke that I feel was specifically added for me. Cool Beans holds a lot of sway, don’t you know.

Basically, if you liked the series and you’re into shoes, stupid dresses and bright cocktails you’ll love this flick and no doubt nod sagely at the jokes aimed at men because, hey, we’re crap. The gags are a little predictable - much like the series - and you’ll probably see the ending coming from the first few minutes, but if you’re willing to turn off your brain for a few hours - it really is a little too long - then you’ll be OK. I promise.

Rating: 6 out of 10 Beans.

I remember seeing trailers for Be Cool in 2005 and thinking it looked like a Tarantino flick with a bit of Hollywood polish - quirky characters, slick dialogue, and a big fat injection of cool. Instead, what we got was a who’s-who of pop culture and very little actual content.

This sequel to Get Shorty follows Chili Palmer (Travolta), a former loan-shark turned movie-producer, as he attempts to break the music industry after being forced to make a lame sequel (oh the irony). Christina Milian is hot but predictable as Linda Moon, an up-and-coming singer, and Uma Thurman is likeable as Travolta’s love interest, but Pulp Fiction this is not. Instead, we’re treated to just under two hours of cameos, ‘cool’ music and a story that doesn’t go anywhere.

There were admittedly some funny moments and some snippets of great writing (Steven Tyler: “I’m not one of those singers who appear in movies. I made it this far without doing it.“) and at times Be Cool even manages to be clever, but for the most part you’re left wondering what could have been. With some of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time (Vince Vaughn, Harvey Keitel, The Rock, Cedric The Entertainer, OutKast’s Andre3000) and an expensive soundtrack (Aerosmith, Christina Milian, and a boring scene with Black Eyed Peas to name a few) it seems like the writers didn’t quite put in 100%, knowing that the cast alone would draw a crowd.
The cinematography is impressive throughout, with some really great shots and references to both Get Shorty and other flicks, and at times the choice of music is genius (especially when The Rock - playing a gay bodyguard - is trying out his new suit) but it still fails to distract from some of the grating characters. While some of the characters have fun relationships (Chili and Dabu are especially funny together), most of the cast are basically there as Chili’s comic releif. Raji (Vaughn) is especially irritating, and whoever wrote his lines should be peeled with KFC sporks.

In all, a watchable film chock full of celebrities and black-American comedy but don’t go rent it expecting to get the next cult classic.

Rating: 5 Beans out of 10