After briefly reuniting with his previous threesome for the album Sonic Fiction — on which they were joined by sax and clarinet player Mat Walerian — jazz pianist Matthew Shipp has once again assembled his current trio for their third album, Signature (CD, digital).
But it seems the time apart may have done them some good. For while Signature is as solid as the trio’s previous albums, The Conduct Of Jazz and Piano Song, it is a much more varied, and thus more interesting, collection.
Like all good games, the post-apocalyptic shooters in the Metro series have evolved with each iteration. But while Metro Exodus (Xbox One, Limited Edition Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Limited Edition PlayStation 4, PC) does so in some interesting (though not unexpected) ways, some of the new aspects of this sci-fi first-person shooter don’t work as well here as they do in other games.
Released in 1998, the original Resident Evil 2 was, at the time, one of the better survival horror games ever made. But times change, and if 2015’s faithful remake of Resident Evil is any indication, the original Resident Evil 2 wouldn’t hold up today. Thankfully, the good people at Capcom have gone a different route with this new edition of Resident Evil 2 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), which not only boasts modern-style controls, but reworks other aspects to make this feel like…well, not a whole new game, but certainly a revived one.
This past summer, when Bethesda announced Fallout 76 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), director Todd Howard made a point of noting that while the game was multiplayer focused, you could still play this post-apocalyptic adventure on your own. As someone who prefers to play games that way, I decided to put this assertion to the test, and what I found was that while you can go it alone in Fallout 76, you may not want to.
Though uneven, the 2012 animated movie Wreck-It Ralph still managed to be a good time thanks to some inventive and insightful jokes about video games told by multilayered characters with real chemistry. Not surprisingly, the sequel Ralph Breaks The Internet has many of the same qualities…and many of the same flaws.
Like the ones they released for Kill ‘Em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master Of Puppets, Metallica have packed a ton of stuff into the Deluxe Box Set reissue of their 1998 album …And Justice For All.
Unfortunately, this 11 CD, 6 LP, 4 DVD collection doesn’t have everything a hardcore fan would want, and a lot they don’t need, a dubious distinction given that this costs more than buying all of their other albums combined.
Thanks to such classic tracks as “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp,” “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” and their iconic cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower,” Electric Ladyland was yet an instant classic when it was released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on October 16, 1968.
In honor of the album’s fiftieth birthday, Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings have assembled the Electric Ladyland: Deluxe Edition 50th Anniversary Box Set, a mostly interesting but also somewhat flawed 3CD/1BD or 6LP/1BD collection that includes the album, demos, a previously unreleased concert recording, and a making-of documentary.
In my recent review of R.E.M.’s The Best Of R.E.M. At The BBC [which you can read here], I explained that while that two-disc compilation had some good songs on it, it really just made me want the all-inclusive boxed set from which it was culled, R.E.M. At The BBC (CD, digital), a seven CD, one DVD collection that presents everything the band ever recorded for BBC radio and TV. But as with any big, multi-disc collection, the question is always how big of a fan of the band do you have to be to make this worth your while.
Like similar collections by Guns ‘N’ Roses [Appetite For Destruction: Deluxe Edition] and Pink Floyd [The Early Years 1967–1972: Cre/ation], R.E.M.’s The Best Of R.E.M. At The BBC (CD, vinyl) is a two-disc sampler from a much larger boxed set, the 8CD/1DVD R.E.M. At The BBC (CD, digital) [my review of which is here].
But while there’s a lot of good music on R.E.M.’s Best Of collection, it’s hard to recommend when the vastly superior complete collection is so readily available.