STACK NZ Apr #61

REVIEWS

BEST OF

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BLOODBORNE At the time of writing, we’ve only had our hands on Bloodborne for five days, and much of that has been spent with the game. Yet, we’re almost 30 hours in and the end is nowhere in sight. If you found – and subsequently enjoyed – the difficulty level in FromSoftware’s Souls games, Bloodborne should be your next purchase. Incredibly atmospheric, the world in which you play is a terrifying place where every step is taken in fear of what will leap from a shadow and try to kill you. Audio cues are in overdrive – you will never relax. And forget about using Souls muscle memory here. There is no sword and shield, and this is the most significant change fans of From’s previous work will find. Here you will have to formulate a new

GAME of the MONTH

combat strategy with a hand weapon in your right paw, and a firearm in your left. The new regain mechanic places an emphasis on attack, too, so you have to adapt, and adapt fast. As expected, Bloodborne is insanely punishing at times, but this is the appeal; it offers challenges that the commercial triple-A brigade have long forgotten about.

Hidetaka Miyazaki is currently one of the most exciting and innovative developers in the industry; and after logging practically a working week with his current tour de force, it’s easy to see why.

Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly In 1960, American author Harper Lee released her book To Kill a Mockingbird (later adapted into a famous film starring Gergory Peck), which depicted a racially motivated miscarriage of justice in the southeastern United States. In 2015, in the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri, Kendrick Lamar releases To Pimp a Butterfly. But forget agit-political flag-waving; this album masterfully weaves the personal with the political, and juxtaposes the richness of black

ALBUM of the MONTH

like hip hop. For example, on For Free? he plays with hip hop’s lyrical cliches as a ticked-off woman relays a shopping list of demands before Lamar retorts

with a snipey “This di*k ain’t free”; it sounds faux gangsta, until he dives into a devastating semi-spoken litany of black oppression. It encapsulates much of To Pimp a Butterfly : vaguely dirty, but addressing sexual politics and consumerism via highy skilled social commentary. Lamar’s rhymes sail head and shoulders over his contemporaries, his with his incisive flow and uniquely shaped vocal style flourishing in the cavalcade of styles and ideas, where others might struggle. The character in the woozy These Walls reflects “I remember you was conflicted/ mis-using your influence/ I was the same/ abusing my power/ full of resentment/ resentment that turned into a deep depression.” As Butterfly progresses, the line repeats to reveal more of the narrator’s state of mind. To hear the culmination, you’ll have to get this album; a defining statement for 2015.

cultural history against an armoury of contemporary sounds. A scratch of vinyl opens Wesley’s Theory (produced by Flying Lotus, and featuring P-Funk legend George Clinton and bass ace Thundercat), followed by the echoing refrain that “every nigger is a star,” immediately invoking Sly and the Family Stone and the landmark There’s a Riot Goin’ On . Lamar’s use of live jazz instrumentation throughout much of the album (Terrace Martin on sax, acclaimed pianist Robert Glasper, and Thundercat on bass) not only provides a languid fluidity and sense of adventure, it also invokes the idea of jazz as an original, pure, rich expression of black America in the arts, just

NIGHTCRAWLER Expose the underbelly of Los Angeles and dark things will crawl out. One of these things is Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a slimy sociopath and common thief who turns ambulance chasing into a business. Armed with a camcorder and a police scanner, Lou lurks around accident and crime scenes to shoot the grisly footage he can sell to anchorwoman Nina (Renee Russo) for her trashy news network. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the nightcrawler motto, and the more sensational the footage, the higher its value, with little regard for the real cost in human lives. Before long, Lou is interfering with evidence and overstepping the boundaries of police-line tape in order to beat his competitors to the money shots. Writer-director Dan Gilroy’s film is both a scathing critique and dark satire on gutter

DVD of the MONTH

journalism and the greedy media and public who feed it; a scene in which Russo virtually salivates over shots of murder victims with ratings in mind says it all. Gyllenhaal is fantastic as the opportunistic, scumbag protagonist; a gaunt and soulless loner with more than a touch of Travis Bickle-like madness behind his cold goldfish eyes. His angular, skeletal features lend him the appearance of an angel of death hovering on the periphery of newsworthy carnage. Set against the glittering backdrop of the LA nightscape, this stylish ‘70s-style exploration of the nocturnal pursuits of America’s bottom feeders is one of those arthouse-thriller gems like Prisoners , Cold in July and Drive that deserved to reach a much wider audience – and now it can, when the DVD and Blu-ray arrives in JB Hi-Fi stores on April 9 .

APRIL 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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