Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Pagans in Vegas by Metric:
The latest album from Metric is consistently good -- though nothing jumps out with the quirky idiosyncrasies of Grow Up and Blow Away, the songs are polished and employ electronica effectively without going overboard (unlike the Cardigan's Gran Turismo album). A representative song that I enjoy is Fortunes.

Final Grade: B+

Mad Max Fury Road (R):
This is a completely pointless movie in the "Tom Hardy has his mouth covered up so you have no idea what he's saying without turning subtitles on" genre. It's an art director's wet dream and does some effective world-building in between endless sequences of action, but unless you're in the mood for a two hour car chase, or are a Mad Max aficionado, you're not going to get anything out of watching.

Final Grade: C-

Dust by Hugh Howey:
The final book in the trilogy returns to the characters originally introduced in Book One, which makes the plot more empathic. The story has a few great reveals left up its sleeves, and the ending is satisfying, although one of the story threads seems to end very abruptly in order to give more space to the other. I'm not a fan of the tagline on the cover, which sounds like a Mitch Hedberg joke. "Every beginning has an end. That's a good place to stop!"

Final Grade: B+

The 40 Akerz Project by Nappy Roots:
The latest album from Nappy Roots is boringly forgettable. It sounds like most of their best voices have left the group, and the bulk of songs are just raps over mellow, repetitive loops. It also sounds like one of the members is a recent atheist, and you know this because he tells you about it every time he gets to insert a verse. Stick with Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz and the era of the rapping Waluigi.

Final Grade: D