Imagine your photography being seen by millions of Metro readers worldwide! Its that time of year again. Yes, the Metro Global Photo Challenge is back! This year the themes will be: People, Places and Climate Change. For your chance to see your work in print around the globe and win one of 3 trips for two to a Metro city of your choice simply submit your photographs by Sunday 18th October 2009. No entry fee required. Go to www.metrophotochallenge.com/ie for more details. Now let your imagination run wild! Upload your photos at www.metrophotochallenge.com/ie LET THE WORLD SEE THROUGH YOUR EYES sponsored by WIN A TRIP TO ANY METRO CITY WORLDWIDE! THEATRE REVIEW Kamp Thursday, October 1, 2009 metrolife 13 Staying In Music Reviews Album Of The Week Deadmau5: For Lack Of A Better Name Virgin As names go, Deadmau5 the moniker favoured by Grammy- nominated/Juno-winning Canadian electro producer Joel Zimmerman is pretty terrible. But what does that matter when this sequel to 2008s breakthrough Random Album Title effectively channels all his vivid imagination, spiky wit and verve into the music instead? Deadmau5 has fine-tuned a distinctive, acid-edged production style which definitely comes into play here what gives his material the uppercut, though, is the fact that he hasnt spent all his time holed away in the studio. More than anything, For Lack Of A Better Name reflects the fact that hes learned to work a live crowd. The record might not have the entertainment value of the giant cartoonish rodent headgear he sports for his concert sets, but it isnt lacking in memorable tunes or frisky twists, including a funeral march that morphs into an electronic stomper. A great dance album shouldnt be exclusively pitched at all-night clubbers, but it does need to be an exhilarating listen, and thats where Deadmau5 delivers. His beats flow smoothly into album form, theyre pepped up with a few moody vocals (including Rob Swire of drumnbass metallers Pendulum on the current single GhostsNStuff), and he keeps the atmosphere pepped throughout with some nifty build-ups and breakdowns, including the sci-fi- style soundtrack of Bot and the heady downtempo turns of Soma. Even a ten-minute-long number, The 16th Hour, is unflaggingly thrilling. What a darned catchy critter he is. Arwa Haider 20% - Dont be a restaurateur... 50% Booze! 30% Food! The Holocaust, despite what a certain Meath comedian might believe, commands respect and defies satire. Dutch outfit Hotel Modern certainly give the subject due deference in this adult puppet show where a vast, detailed scale model of Auschwitz fills the stage at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and 8cm-tall figurines represent prisoners and guards. Theres no narrative as such and no dialogue. Instead were privy to a series of gruesome scenes from everyday life in the concentration camp with puppetmasters/actors filming the action, which is then projected on to a screen overhead. So we see a train arriving with new detainees, its wheels screeching off the tracks and piercing the air like a deathly wail, followed by a lingering, panoramic shot of the confused prisoners lined up, their mouths agape in horror. But the most disturbing image here is that of prisoners huddled into a gas chamber their bodies translucent from neglect while noxious salts are poured into a chamber overhead. Its a gruelling watch but it goes a long way to capturing some of the horrors of genocide and the use of video cameras gives an eerie documentary-like feel to the piece. Theres scarcely a glimmer of hope, however, and if, like this reviewer, youre hoping to see the camp liberated at the end, youll be disappointed. But then, for the majority of inmates at Auschwitz, liberation was something they didnt live to see. Daragh Reddin Until Sun, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College D2, 7.30pm (Sun mat, 3pm), 22 to 23. Tel: (01) 677 8899. www.dublintheatrefestival.com Kiss: Sonic Boom Roadrunner Swaggering, tongue-waggling US rockers Kiss were probably the first outfit to become a brand rather than a band, and what with their mass merchandising business condoms, pinball machines, coffins and suchlike its actually a wonder that theyve found time to record their first album in 11 years. Sonic Booms new tracks mostly penned, as ever, by frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley prove that their ludicrously raunchy riffs remain in full working order. Numbers such as Modern Day Delilah and Yes I Know (Nobodys Perfect) actually make a virtue out of their throwback feel, and boldly complement their older tunes; the albums special edition includes a CD of re-recorded Kiss Klassics (no Crazy Crazy Nights, outrageously). Its undeniably ballsy fun the smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd and the twang of the spandex hit you the instant you press play. AH Lethal Bizzle: Go Hard Search And Destroy London grime star Lethal B might now be finding favour with NME crowds at Leeds and Reading, but third album Go Hard doesnt offer much to suggest hes making the step up from energetic hype man to main attraction. Bizzles bludgeoning approach generally involves beats of a pretty uninspired cut here, Mark Ronson contributes a (frankly annoying) hoe-down fiddle on Lost My Mind, and Gallows rock out for Rockstar but its mainly monotonous, one- finger rave. His nuance-free, hard- bragging rhymes, meanwhile, mean its hard to know whether the fact that a track called Money Power Respect Fame celebrates eating in Nandos is ironic or not. Funky star Donaeo pops up a couple of times once on the title track when Bizzle makes a fair fist of riding an old- school New York hip-hop beat. But his download-only, guaranteed crowd-pleaser version of House Of Pains Jump Around highlights how his sights are firmly set on NME innit rather than any sort of innovation. Siobhn Murphy Air: Love 2 Virgin Is this the purest Air album to date? Love 2 is the fifth LP from Gallic duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benot Dunckel but its also the first theyve produced themselves in their own Paris studio, without guest singers. A lush 1960s- flavoured haze sets in from the psychedelic opening number Do The Joy, while Airs coy, androgynous vocals gently take command on feel- good grooves including latest single Sing Sang Sung. Left to their own devices, the duo have always tended to meander, and the dreamy chill-out of new numbers like Tropical Disease might just verge on snooze-inducing. Still, these melodies will almost certainly grab you not immediately, but kind of subconsciously, with a slow-burning passion. Be prepared to give Love 2 repeated listens, and youll get the most out of it; this albums a keeper. AH Theres a great deal of postmodern navel gazing and millennial angst sloshing around in The Crumb Trail, a baffling multimedia riff on the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, Hansel And Gretel, which receives its Irish premiere at Dublin Theatre Festival. The narrative, if it can be called that, unfolds in a series of unconnected dream sequences. Fragments of dialogue sit between incomprehensible bursts of wacky dancing, mimed rock performances and interplay with a video screen. Occasionally, bubbles of coherence rise to the surface, such as when Hansel (Bush Moukarzel) and Gretel (Aoife Duffin) are led into the woods by Gina (Gina Moxley, who also wrote the piece) and Arthur (Arthur ORiordan) and, left alone, starts to meditate on loss, loneliness and what it means to be human in the modern world. But mostly, Moxley seems more concerned with evoking a mood somewhere between Kafka and Lars Von Trier, perhaps than presenting any kind of cogent message. The key prop is a laptop set on a trestle table at various points, characters mime along to YouTube clips and hallucinatory images are projected on a back screen in the form of home video footage. It all adds up to a concept- heavy muddle of ideas where meta is king and intelligibility takes a back seat. All of that being said, a handful of visual motifs stand out from the avant- garde mugging and leave a chilling touch. Lost in the forest, Hansel and Gretel clasp each other for comfort, their stooped, intertwined silhouette projected hauntingly against the green-tinged back wall. What this was supposed to signify is hard to say but the image, along with several others, lingers long after final curtain. Eamon de Paor Until Sun, Project, 39 East Essex St D2, 7.30pm (Sat/Sun mat 1pm), 22 to 33. Tel: (01) 677 8899. www. dublintheatrefestival.com THEATRE REVIEW The Crumb Trail index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html