Music | Grace/Wastelands
Pete Doherty / Astralwerks
Underneath all the hoary rock clichés and idiotic PR stunts surrounding Doherty’s drugged-out career, he’s actually a severely talented songwriter—a little Costello, a little Buckley and a litte Bacharach, with a bit of mid-90s Britpop flair and swagger thrown in for good measure. I’ve always been an unapologetic fan of his work as Babyshambles, and I’ll stand by his eponymous solo work as well—it’s sharp, clever and catchy, representing some of the best-constructed pop released thus far in 2009.

Music | Blitz
KMFDM / Metropolis
I could have sworn this band broke up years ago, but the almighty Google tells me that they’ve released no less than five albums in the time since. I’ve never really had any issue with KMFDM—out of their mid-90s industrial peers, they always had the best sense of self-aware humor and irony—but THIS ALBUM SOUNDS LIKE THE SAME OLD INDUSTRIAL POP GRIND THEY’VE BEEN PRODUCING FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES. Let’s all grow up a little, huh?

Music | Crack the Skye
Mastodon / Reprise
The new Mastodon album is apparently about quantum physics and astral travel, and blathers on somewhere in there about Stephen Hawking. But you know what? All you need to know is that this is the first Mastodon album in three years, that it doesn’t hit with the immediacy of their last effort, but it’s still a very good metal album and it is BRUTAL AS FUCK. This probably won’t be my top metal album of the year, but it’s definitely in the top ten.

Book | Songs for the Missing
Stewart O’Nan / Viking Adult
This book begins like a run-of-the-mill police procedural about a missing girl, but it soon turns into an engrossing (if exhausting) portrayal of sadness and recovery. O’Nan keeps his focus on how the girl’s loss affects her friends and family, offering deeply moving character studies about the nature of loss in the process. The novel’s a bit over-crowded, and the ending is a tad too tidy, but it’s a nice—if somewhat heavy—read.

Movie | Praying with Lior
Ilana Trachtman / First Run Features
This sickeningly sweet documentary is about a boy with Down syndrome who is, according to his family and neighbors, some sort of spiritual genius. And it almost works, especially when Trachtman tries to capture the quirky family dynamics in play between Lior and his family. But every time she turns the camera to Lior, the film quickly goes downhill, turning into a pathetic pity play about how disabled people REALLY CAN LIVE NORMAL LIVES! Fuck that condescending bullshit.