Thrak Attack

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today, on Music Monday, we explore the days of classic rock where "sure you can put flute into a rock song! It won't sound weird at all" and it won't because Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull make it sound like the flute belongs in rock music! So let's get into the review of the "The Zealot Gene" by Jethro Tull! First of all, I'm not the biggest fan of Jethro Tull but I have listened to them in the past. They're a strange band that love to write songs about odd things and make big long sweeping songs with flute solos in them. Now this all works because everyone is so talented! Especially Ian Anderson who sings, writes, and plays the flute.  The Zealot Gene is their newest album and I was surprised to see that they were going to release an album this year! I didn't think that they were still around as a group and making music. This album is solid though with songs like "Mrs. Tibbets...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us deep into the walls and underneath the ground to the land of Fraggle Rock. But this isn't the first time we've been here, we remember this place from long ago and it's time to go back. A reboot of a series that ended in 1987 is just what Apple TV+ needs right? Let's find out! Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock has 13 episodes in it's first season and it's just as charming as you remember. The muppets look as good as ever, the characters a charming, and the world building in this show is actually quite good! Each episode has a fun adventure with a pretty solid through line of exploring "outer space" which is just our world. There are some pretty great jokes that go along with this too. In the pilot episode one of the characters gets attacked by a dog, when telling his friends about it he says "I was attacked by the most vicious space monster" and it cuts to t...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us to the many iconic places from our childhoods if every show from our childhood was about tennis. From the Krusty Krab, to the Sewers of New York City, to the sandlot where we eat Jollie Ollie Ice Cream. Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis is the next iteration of Nickelodeon's attempt to become like the Super Mario Franchise. Let's see if it worked! Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis is available on Apple Arcade so I played it on my iPad but I think it would be better off on my phone. Some of the controls seemed a little weird to be played on touch screen but oddly enough that was only during the tutorial. The game's tutorial made me think this game had terrible controls but in actual matches it actually feels pretty good! Nickelodeon over the past few years has been attempting to create a series of video games that replicate Nintendo's approach to family fun gaming. There's a Mario kart clone,...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Todays adventure takes us to 1938 Europe on the brink of World War II. Two friends who graduated Oxford together have gone their separate ways. One is from Germany and lives in London to gain information. The other is the secretary for the Prime Minister in London. Sounds like a fast paced action film right? If you said yes you would be wrong. In such a tense time in history, this movie does a great job at creating suspense but doesn't fully deliver on the payoff of all that suspense. With a 131 minute run time with the first half of the movie spoken in whispers, it creates the suspense but the loud parts of the film aren't the resolutions. There are a few blow ups between the characters which do act as huge plot points, like one of the flashbacks at the pub in Germany, but that develops characters and not the story. I know this film is based on a novel called "Munich" by Robert Harris and I bet the pacing of ...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us to the backyard of Keb' Mo' with all of his friends and family finally back together again for a long pandemic. In his 19th studio album, it's all about making the best of life and celebrating the little things. It's a great album that I found extremely important for the time that we are in. The theme of this album is perfection. It starts off with the title track "Good to Be..." which is a song about being happy and content with being back with the people and places you love. It's a fitting album for 2022 after so many of us were unable to see a lot of our friends and family. The album continues to send warm vibes with "So Easy" and "Sunny and Warm" but it's the "Medicine Man" that reminds why we are celebrating being together and a reminder to stay healthy and safe. It sort of feels a little too on the head but still makes an impres...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Todays adventure takes us to the early 2000's where screaming rock music and metal were all the rage. Underoath was always a quiet favorite among fans, never to be in the full spotlight but never pushed aside. The band is under appreciated though, especially with their 9th studio album "Voyeurist".  It's only been 4 years since Underoath's last album and I thought it was a lot longer. Fortunately that amount of time really allowed the band to breath and take their time with this music and it shows. The album is very well paced and even though it feels like a fast and in your face style there is a lot of nuance to it. There are a lot of great songs if you take the time to listen.  There are so many of these tracks that made it onto the 2022 playlist including "Hallelujah", "(No Oasis)"and "Numb" but there is so much to like here that if you're into this style you'll rea...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us to the amazon rainforest on a quest for a crystal to change humans into monsters and monsters into humans. In the 4th installment of this weirdly long running series that is the plot! Does it make sense? Is it enjoyable to watch? Are there some redeeming qualities to this series that went from theater releases to straight to streaming? We shall see. Like I said before this is the fourth installment to the Hotel Transylvania series and I did not realize it was successful enough to make a fourth one. However, the first three were theatrical releases and this time around it was released only on Amazon Prime. Due to this, Adam Sandler is no longer the voice of the lead character Dracula but instead goes to Brian Hull who has mainly done voice acting for the Pup Star series, Tangled: the Series, and a Hotel Transylvania short film.  There is something going for this movie though mainly that the cast i...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? This adventure takes us to many genres of music covered by Cat Power! From Iggy Pop to Lana Del Rey to Billie Holiday, this album takes to many genres but somehow feels stale through Cat Power's style.  I knew this was a cover album and was excited to hear all the different songs sung in a new style. Unfortunately these songs are more than just the surface songs and singles. These are lesser known songs from big artists. I loved trying to guess who's song it was and then looking it up afterwards. Even though the artists she covers are from all sorts of genres this album is such a drag to listen to. The 12 songs slog on for 43 minutes and never feel like it's going anywhere. It's like she took the personality from the different artists but not any of the passion. I felt very bored listening to the songs. Two of the songs did make it onto my 2022 playlist including "Pa Pa Power" and "White Mustang...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? Today takes us to many distant planets and worlds in a video game of exploring. Astroneer is a game originally released on early access in 2016 and was officially released in 2019 on Windows and the Xbox One and officially released on the Nintendo Switch today. The game focuses on exploration of new worlds and it is a joy! Unfortunately this is a terrible port and I know this because the reviews upon initial release were very positive.  Astroneer on the Nintendo Switch is a port from Windows and Xbox One in 2019. I know that this game works on a controller because it was on the Xbox, but for whatever reason I can't get out of the first section. I don't know if the button mapping is off, or if the way it was built on PC really doesn't translate to a controller, or if I'm just an idiot! But this game does not work on a controller. The visuals are great and are a cross between Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker and Min...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today's adventure takes us back to the days of classic rock and roll where influences came from blues music and not hip hop, where the genre felt young and vibrant and no longer stale! Elvis Costello & the Imposters brings us back to that time with their latest album titled "The Boy Named If".  This is Elvis Costello's 32nd and his 4th with the Imposters and it shows. It shows their talent and experience in the field of rock and roll unfortunately it also shows just how stale rock music has begun. The album is really good though! It sounds great with every instrument having it's time to shine and sticking out. The production of the album is spot on!  The album also is really full coming in with 13 tracks and 52 minutes which is an impressive length but sometimes that helps and album sometimes that hurts it. In this album's case it hurts, it has a lot of filler music in it. There are some really gre...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today we travel to the land of Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites where they release their 4th studio album as the duo the Lumineers. The album has many tones, themes, and styles in it's 30 minute run of 9 songs and I have lots to say about it (some good and some bad). So let's get into the review! The Lumineers have always been on my radar as a group but never were my favorite. The song that struck a chord the most with me was "Angela" off their second album "Ophelia". This album however had my interest as I listened to it but then sort of left my mind throughout the day; nothing really stood out to me. The first thing I noticed is how short the album is, with only 9 tracks it clocks in at 30 minutes which is way too short for an album! An EP is 15-30 minutes long so this is just over that limit. There are 4 tracks that made it onto the 2022 playlist (which means almost half the album because it...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? This adventure takes us to the world of Johnny Test and back to the year 2005. Little me was cycling through all of the cartoon channels until a new show came onto the screen, a show called Johnny Test. It wasn't my favorite show but it was enjoyable enough to watch at the time. I was 14 years old at the time so maybe a little too old but the sci-fi and adventure aspects of the show did keep my interest! Last year, Netflix picked up the show to create new seasons after a 7 year hiatus and now season 2 of that revitalization has arrived. So here is my review of the second second season of Johnny Test! The premise is simple enough, and very similar to Jimmy Neutron, except Johnny Test is not the genius but instead it's his older sisters Susan and Mary. He has a talking dog, of course, and he has one smart parent and one insane parent. So it's a pretty typical cartoon family. The catch is that Johnny is not the best ki...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? This week's adventure takes into the world of Cece Bell's graphic novel turned into an Apple TV+ series titled "El Deafo". It is a semi autobiographical tale of her early life and dealing with her struggles of being deaf. The series also features original music from Waxahatchee a very underrated artist in my opinion! So let's get started on our review and head to Virginia to meet Cece Bell in "El Deafo" First off I would like to say the character designs are super cute and enjoyable to watch. I love the design of the rabbits and the clean lines of the show are very pleasant to look at. The tone of the show is very colorful yet muted and pastel which I really enjoy.  Now I won't give away the plot but as you can guess from the title and the poster that this is the story of how Cece lost her hearing. It is great to see a story for children addressing this topic for them to understand the issue ...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack, what's your adventure? I have never heard of Gunna before today, I don't usually follow hip-hop artists or keep up with this music. But his album was released yesterday and I thought I would give it a shot and review it! Now I must remind you that I don't know much about modern hip-hop. I know about the history of the genre, the major artists, and that's about it. So this review may be very biased and uninformed but I am a musician with a degree in music so I will review it to the best of my ability. So here is my review of "DS4EVER" by Gunna. This is Gunna's third album since 2019 but it doesn't show it. It still feels like he's trying to make a name for himself as a rapper which is probably true. Considering I haven't heard of him until today I feel like he does need to push his music more to make it to the mainstream. Regardless of his past music, we're talking about "DS4EVER" which is a decent a...

  Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today we go on an adventure to the catwalk with RuPaul. From the stage to the catwalk RuPaul has style and attitude which bleeds into this album and you can hear all over it! Unfortunately for me, it felt like a sugar rush. So let's dive right in and see how the catwalk sounds on "MAMARU" by RuPaul. This is RuPaul's 14th album, he's been releasing them consistently since 1993! I know she is a busy person and has her hands in many different media outlets but I honestly did not know she had this much music under her belt! But enough backstory, let's talk about "MAMARU".  It started off strong with "Just What They Want" with some great fast lyrics and a really cool production quality with tons of great sounds throughout the song and then "Catwalk" comes on and it sounds exactly the same except with Skeltal Ki's hard to hear verse. After that it just keeps throwing sound a...

  Welcome Back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Today's adventure takes to the smooth world of "Dawn FM", a fictional radio station created by The Weeknd. This is his 5th album and it diffidently feels like it! The album is much more mature sounding and sounds like a seasoned artist making art because he feels the need to and not an up and coming artist releasing an album to become famous. The Weeknd has made it! He performed at the Super Bowl two years ago, he's at a point where he can make music the way he wants to because it's been proven it works. The album "Dawn FM" showcases The Weeknd's singing ability to it's fullest extent especially on tracks like "Gasoline" and "Starry Eyes". His voice is killer on most of the tracks and only a few times felt like they weren't up to the quality it usually is. Other music in the genre usually rely on vocal effects but rarely does he rely on this technique. No complaint...

 Welcome back to Thrak Attack! What's your adventure? Welcome to 2022 and Season 4 of Thrak Attack! This season will be a little different, instead of doing a monthly Top 10 post there will be individual reviews for individual releases. Each review will have a blog post, podcast, and YouTube review which will be posted all on the same day! So if you're not much of a reader there are other ways to enjoy Thrak Attack! You can find those links on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! This post is not a review, its just a look ahead into 2022 and all of the major releases throughout the year! So let's jump right in! Here is a color code for the releases... Movies , Games , Music , Shows January 7th- The 355  (Theater) RuPaul, Eric Nam 14th- Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (Amazon) Elvis Costello & the Imposters, The Lumineers 20th- Tom Clancy's: Rainbow Six Extraction (PS5) 21st- Cyrano (Theater) Band of Horses, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards Fraggle Rock Bac...