All posts tagged: Aces

Violet Grohl: Be Sweet to Me review – alt-rock arriviste aces the part | Music

Violet Grohl: Be Sweet to Me review – alt-rock arriviste aces the part | Music

‘I’ll eat your liver,” Violet Grohl threatens on 595, a scuzzy, slasher-inspired alt-rock single that feels made for 90s MTV. Arch, deadpan verses give way to a big, bluesy, intentionally sleazy chorus, finished with blown-out guitar and squealing feedback: part Veruca Salt, part Queens of the Stone Age. Despite just turning 20, Grohl has the rock’n’roll credentials for her throwback sound. The eldest daughter of Foo Fighters’ Dave, Violet fronted a rare Nirvana reunion aged just 13 – her coolly authoritative vocals making it more symbolic than a mere family favour. The artwork for Be Sweet to Me While it’s true that her dad linked her with taste-making producer Justin Raisen (Kim Gordon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sky Ferreira) for this debut album, and its grungy tracks haven’t been road-tested in sticky dive bars that music like this usually demands, Grohl is admirably direct about her nepo status. “Decide for yourself if I’m worthy,” she told the Forty-Five. Cool Buzz, roaring and snotty, makes a persuasive case. Flashes of ska-inspired guitar à la No Doubt crash …

‘SNL’ Aces the ‘Heated Rivalry’ Meme

‘SNL’ Aces the ‘Heated Rivalry’ Meme

The reference points were readily identifiable: a chance meeting between characters from different worlds, a sport involving sticks and a flying round projectile whose nuances would be lost on the average American. Yep, Saturday Night Live was doing yet another Harry Potter sketch—but this time with a spicy twist. As those descriptions—and the furtive glances exchanged by last night’s host, Finn Wolfhard, and the SNL cast member Ben Marshall, playing Potter and Ron Weasley—implied, a page-to-screen sensation of a more recent vintage was also being spoofed. Count SNL’s writers among the many HBO Max watchers who have jumped on the Heated Rivalry bandwagon, giving us the pretaped sketch “Heated Wizardry,” an elaborate, meme-ready mash-up of J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world and the streaming show based on Rachel Reid’s hockey-themed gay romance series. For “Heated Wizardry” to land, viewers had to have at least a passing familiarity with each story’s component parts: the enemies-turned-lovers arc of Reid’s protagonists, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov; the broad strokes of Rowling’s boarding school for magical kids. Fans of the …