The Brown Note Movie Review

Gone But Forgotten: Amon Düül II

My intermittent series on albums, movies or bands that either were denied classic status on release or have been forgotten about since. Though their Krautrock peers, Can, Neu!, Faust and Kraftwerk still get plenty of coverage, these equally brilliant pioneers are rarely mentioned. Their first three album run, Phallus Dei, Yeti and Dance of the Lemmings (two of which are doubles) is one of the finest in rock. In fact this was supposed to be their first FIVE albums but I ran out of time (#5 Wolf City is also a masterpiece). A genuinely wild ride through some of the best proto-metal, prog rock, space rock and krautrock out there.

Overrated: Why Saving Private Ryan (1998) is the Most Overrated Film of the Last 40 Years

A new segment on this channel called Overrated. I am a hater at heart and love trashing things more than loving them. So this bit will feature things that have garnered universal acclaim, that I don't think are actually any good. Here the holy cow, that stinks up every list of best war films, reviewed in depth, where I factually and objectively state why Saving Private Ryan was never any good.

Glastonbury 2025: Charli Vs Neil, Kneecap Vs Bob Vylan

In an era where the live music mega-festival has changed, a look at two elements from the recent Glastonbury festival. Charli xcx Vs Neil Young, is live music important at a live music festival anymore? And the Kneecap/Bob Vylan controversy.

Sinners (2025) Film Review

MASSIVE SPOILERS Director Ryan Coogler certainly has critics bending over backwards, but like Black Panther, this - the best reviewed major release so far this year - is nowhere near as good as the insane level of praise it's got. A beautifully made and totally worthy watch, but a long way shy of a masterpiece in multiple ways. The first half is done so well, I kinda wished the vampires had stayed away.

Gone But Forgotten: Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers (1978....) Album Review

My intermittent series on something either denied classic status on release, or has been forgotten about since. I wanted to review this all time fave but struggled to know if it belonged here. It DID get classic status, but many years after it was made, and that was the 90s. Since then the final, notorious and never conclusively released final album from Alex Chilton's power-pop inventing Big Star, has faded from view. Like Nick Drake around the same time period, they released two classic, hugely influential, critically acclaimed albums, that sold nothing and left them to produce one final angry, dejected, hopeless finale. Often ranked as one of the darkest and most harrowing of albums, it's shot through with brilliance and bitter beauty.

PinkPantheress - Fancy That (2025) Album Review

The fabulous Victoria Beverley Walker, aka PinkPatheress, hasn't put a foot wrong with her three major releases, including this new mixtape. Unlike contemporaries like Billie Eilish, she actually is a self created bedroom star and not an industry plant, and one who wipes the floor musically with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter. In fact she is about the only peer of Brat-era Charlie XCX.

Swans - Birthing (2025) Album Review

What a con-artist Swans leader, Michael Gira is. After creating the greatest achievement in rock the last decade, the monolithic, gargantuan trilogy of, The Seer, To be Kind and The Glowing Man, he promised us he was done with these planet sized two hour behemouths and that Swans would enter a new phase of very different music. Well, they did for two albums, but he's right back into it with Birthing, another two-hour, widescreen apocalypse - and a hugely worthy addition to the now quadrilogy. And given how much fun they sound like they're having this time out, a great choice for my first Swans album for the terrified and uninitiated.

Mark Pritchard/Thom Yorke - Tall Tales (2025) Album Review

This substance free, Casio-presets, ambient waffle, is the worst album length project the (recently under fire) Radiohead front man has been involved with. Worse, it completely wastes the talents of a legend of British electronic music, who may as well not even be here, so little is his noticeable input. Someone needs to sit Thom down and say, stop commenting on the Middle East and stop releasing ghostly ethereal ballads. A total wasted opportunity.

The Accountant 2 (2025) Film Review

As a huge fan of the underappreciated original, I could not be more disappointed by this utter slop. "Critics think it's better than the original"?! How?! By watering down and denuding everything that was different and special about the first film, until it's homogenized garbage? Even Ben Affleck's lead doesn't escape, his previous intensity as the autistic hitman, is now just goofy and the usually reliable ace in the deck, Jon Bernthal, has never been so annoying.

Drop (2025) Movie Review

Not an original bone in it's body but utterly enjoyable sub-Hitchcock hokum, that makes great cinematic use of limited environs. Luckily they also have an excellent lead to helm it all in Meghann Fahy, as she traverses a dinner date with murderous complications.