Geographer – Ghost Modern

I think I write about this every time I write about Geographer, but whatever, here I go again. I feel like a crazy person for liking Geographer as much as I do. More specifically, I think it’s super weird that a band that appears to be totally credible and established and cable of putting out quality recordings on major platforms gets nothing written about them on a national level. There wasn’t a review for Ghost Modern in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The AV Club, hell, I can’t even find a mention of this band anywhere on local mega-hip station KEXP. This shouldn’t be happening, I’m not this cool or smart. Did Geographer do some really bad shit and everyone knows about it but me? That seems the most likely explanation.

I’ve been a Geographer fan since I stumbled upon their (or his? I think it’s actually just one guy who tours with a band) cover of “Age of Consent,” the best New Order song. Then I liked their 2012 album, Myth, but couldn’t write about it because I found out about it way after 2012. I think Ghost Modern is probably in the same league, and I’ve definitely listened to it the most of all three Geographer albums. In broad strokes I’d say the first album was the electro pop one, the second was the dream pop one, and this one is the closest to indie rock, in the Arcade Fire sense. In fact, “I’m Ready” has kinda been one of my anthems this year, it’s one of those great songs that just swells up into a pretty ball of awesome. Check it out for yourself, since I know you haven’t heard it… unless you’re that soulmate of mine that actually knows this band and this album.

This is perhaps Geographer’s most sonically adventurous album yet, exploring mixes of the band’s signature synths, strings, and Mike Deni’s falsetto. It goes light, it goes dark, it goes weird (a little bit). Sometimes it’s kind of like Muse, sometimes it’s kind of like Freelance Whales, sometimes it’s like St. Vincent or The National or whatever, you know how it goes. Pretty much if you like the general vibe of the music I tend to review positively, I implore you to look up Geographer. I feel like a lone explorer out in a massive expanse here, with no one else writing or talking about this band. If only I had a map or some sort of expert on like the land and shit.

Favorite Tracks: “I’m Ready,” “The Guest,” “Falling Apart”

Halo 5: Guardians

When it came out, Halo 3 seemed like the biggest deal in the world. It was everywhere – there was a Mountain Dew Flavor, Paul made a song about it… It was huge. I remember hearing about it, and later one of the Call of Duty games, in the context of video games usurping film as the biggest media releases of a year. That was then. The last eight years have made the world a lot more corporate. Now, I could barely hear anything about Halo 5‘s release between ads for Star Wars jewelry.

Seriously, it’s been about a month since Halo 5: Guardians came out and it feels like nobody is talking about it anymore. The holidays are coming, isn’t this supposed to be a system seller? Microsoft called Guardians the biggest Halo launch yet, for what it’s worth, but it simply doesn’t feel like it matters anymore. It’s not an event like these games used to be, and for non-hardcore fans of the series, that’s probably a fair level of excitement.

Guardians has moved me very little, a dismaying reality since I’ve dug pretty much all the main Halo games. This is Halo‘s big debut on modern consoles, it should be a massive showcase for the Xbox One, and to be fair, it doesn’t falter at most of what it tries. Maybe it’s just sequel fatigue, but Guardians just doesn’t stand out for me compared to games like Titanfall, Destiny, or that brief bit of Overwatch I got to play this weekend.

Take the fact that the game looks good, for an example. Not great, not the best looking game this generation or even this year, but good. And it runs at a solid 60 frames per second, which is great. But characters all look big and bulky, your guns take up a ton of the screen, and a few of the environments are pretty bland. So it’s solid, but not amazing, you know?

That problem extends to the single player story too, which I’m inclined to give a pass to since none of the Halo stories have been good. But I won’t because this one is short, bares no resemblance to any of the trailers we had been shown, and ends on a disappointing cliffhanger. You spend your time switching between a desperate Master Chief and his squad searching for Cortana, and a new, misled Spartan team led by the guy who plays Luke Cage for the Netflix branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was super confusing, with much left unexplained and again, a big dumb cliffhanger way too soon. But people don’t play these games alone anyway (which is why it’s disappointing there’s no split screen story mode).

At this point, almost everything you’d expect to be in Halo multiplayer is there. They recently patched in big team battle, and the other essential modes are all available in the Arena. I never really cared for most of them. The big new addition is a second multiplayer mode, called Warzone, separate from the Arena, which is like an even bigger team battle. It’s an evolving mode that challenges you with different objectives, like taking out powerful NPCs, while you battle the other team for territory. It’s pretty cool and definitely the most fun I had in Guardians, even though it’s centered around the game’s most troubling aspect.

This is a game free of map pack DLC, which I think is great. Map pack DLC is terrible in multiplayer games, all it does is fracture the community. Unfortunately, in its place is a card pack system. You get points for completing matches and performing well, and you can use these points (or real money) to buy packs of cards. These cards give you weapons and vehicles for Warzone, as well as boosts and cosmetic unlocks. Those cards are the only way to get better weapons and vehicles in Warzone, aside from taking them from an enemy player. It fucked with my head that, for example, when my team needed a tank, I was inclined to not spawn one just because I only had one tank card and I didn’t want to waste it. Of course, for really good players and rich players, this won’t be a problem, making the whole system all the more distressing.

Mostly my problem was that because of the cards, my incentive to keep playing the game was just gone. Sure, there was cool armor I wanted to get, but without a direct path to it, why bother? I have no interest in grinding booster packs, I did that once with Mass Effect 3 and don’t really want to do it again. At least a game like Hearthstone gives you an alternate path to acquiring a card you want if you’re really unlucky, here you’ve just gotta wait and cross your fingers.

On the other hand, free maps are great. Making sure everyone who plays Halo 5 has access to everything that really matters is great. But as someone who plays online alone, and consistently places in about the middle-to-lower third of my team’s leaderboards, there’s just not enough incentive here to really get into the game. At least not right now, when so many great games are begging for my time. Halo used to be the biggest thing in the world. Now it will have to settle for having been the biggest thing that week.

Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars

A month and a half ago, in his Depression Cherry review, Colin expressed a retiscence to submit to Beach House’s alluring ways. Their sound was consistent and unchanging, and their appeal only lasted him for as long as their latest album felt new. As if to answer Colin’s particular needs, Beach House then went out and made another album this year and got it out only a couple months after that last one. That’s really fast, probably too fast. I can’t speak for Colin, but Depression Cherry still feels really new to me. Did we need a new one so soon?

Probably not, Depression Cherry was really great. Releasing Thank Your Lucky Stars especially seems like an odd move because Beach House has been quite firm in stressing that it is not a companion piece or b-side collection. It’s simply another new album, they say. And that’s true, I don’t think you can play these back-to-back and gleam any greater meaning. Maybe you could do a crazy playlist of all the songs from both albums arranged by feel, that would be really cool. Maybe I’ll go do that next. But I guess I should tell you if I like this first.

The answer is of course I do. I’m a sucker for the Beach House. I wouldn’t put this one too high up on the list (Depression Cherry‘s still my preferred LP this year) but it still has that same ethereal, dream pop sound that I can’t get enough of and Colin can, apparently. I wish I had some incite into why some things resonate with some people more than others but I don’t. All I can tell you is that Thank Your Lucky Stars is a little more downbeat than their past few albums have been, but still quite beautiful. Lots of reverb and strategically placed wailing guitars. I’ll take as much of it as I can get.

Favorite Tracks: “All Your Yeahs,” “One Thing,” “Elegy to the Void”