Niki N. Phaser

One of 2009′s alternative promising revelations, White Lies, seem anxious to show the world that they are more than… well, one 2009′s alternative promising revelations. The indie trio, composed of the ever so serious Harry McVeigh, Charles Cave and Jack Lawrence-Brown, have been working on a new album, with producer Alan Moulder, after touring their debut To Lose My Life… as much as humanly possible.

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          Yeah, this time it was for real, Peter Steele, iconic frontman of metal band Type O Negative has really died. It happened two weeks ago, but we all know that with Lord Steele we have to wait a little bit and be sure that we are not supposed to laugh at yet another dark joke of his. It is only appropriate that we should remember Type O’s Everything Dies, from 1999′s World Coming Down, a perfect song to qualify them as more than a metal band, but an alternative (and loud) way to deal with universal themes of death and love and fear of all that these two can bring. Still, this is not what you would call a mainstream track, but you can definitely spot a genuine ballad behind all the grunting from the intro, combined with something which sounds like a Hitlerjunge convention. It was just like Type O Negative to go for weird mixing choices, but this is one of those songs that you have to listen with one hand on the volume. That haunting piano from the verse is so addictive that you just have to hear it better and then the chorus kicks in, loud and celebratory, as if hailing death as the one thing in life that is certain — the grounds on which you can build your existence. RIP P.S.

Everything Dies here

                It’s always a shock when someone young dies and it was an even greater one yesterday, when it was announced that young actress Brittany Murphy has passed away. She was 32. If you wonder why this ‘preferential treatment’ shock-wise, it’s because whenever I would hear her name, her big childish smile would flash before my eyes. And now, if I think about, that probably woun’t change. Girl, Interrupted is the first movie that I remember her from because, though a supporting character, she really made you believe that her character had a story even more interesting than that of the main character. The last movie I saw her in was The Ramen Girl, a unique kind of a cooking movie, where she was this lost American in Japan, who finds a brand new way of giving meaning to her life… We can only say ‘thank you, Brittany’ for adding something to our lives.

The Ramen Girl Interrupted