Manchester electro hotshots Delphic arrive festooned with the legacy of their city, but also a burden how could their debut album live up to long- gone musical lore like The Hacienda and Factory Records? Its easy to trace Delphics influences (particularly 1980s-era New Order, but also Kraftwerk and 1990s dance acts like Way Out West), but they bounce off these reference points rather than getting bogged down in them. Their high-drama songwriting balances electronic and guitar rock elements with great elegance, and endearingly plaintive vocals from James Cook. Singles Doubt and This Momentary succumb to alluringly clubby beats, and the title track provides the incandescent heart of this album. Even when Delphic get swept away on flights of fancy, theyre strong enough to carry you with them. Arwa Haider Anyone who has seen brain- implodingly boring reality show The Hills and wished the cast would be thrown down a mine shaft has their prayers answered, sort of, in the first ten minutes of Sorority Row. The Hillss Audrina Partridge is embroiled in a party prank gone awry, winds up dead and is dumped into said chasm. The sorority sisterhood then have to cover up their grisly blunder while unsuccessfully dodging a nutter. Hooray! The script has its moments and, refreshingly for a film with such flesh-flashing potential as this, theres only one scene of a nude young woman getting pestered in a shower. The momentum dies halfway through as proceedings morph into an episode of Gossip Girl with added scenes of facial mutilation (the gals seem particularly prone to dying by having things shoved in their mouths). All this and Carrie Fisher stomping around with a shotgun. Jumps aside, the big shock is learning Rumer Willis, as swot Ellie, can act. Not bad. Extras: deleted scenes, shower scene rehearsal, out-takes, set reports. Andrew Williams BOOK OF THE WEEK Smile Or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich Granta, 13 US political activist Barbara Ehrenreich has been the scourge of reigning orthodoxies since the 1970s, and has written scathing assessments of Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes. So her latest choice of target seems surprisingly tame, since here she launches an unqualified assault on the craze for positive thinking. In her overview of this phenomenons history she notes how an enormous multi-million-dollar industry has developed around the insistence that looking on the bright side is the only healthy attitude to life. The seriousness of her anger, however, soon shows that this is not merely glib contrarianism. The book begins with a look at the notion that thinking positively is the key to surviving cancer, the medical realities stacked against this and the emotional cost to the patient. From there, Ehrenreich goes on to note how the same slogans and methods have not only come to dominate business conventions but have had remarkably wide influence in US society. Even the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism of American Christianity is being erased by a cheerful, blander version, with the new positive mega-churches raking in mega-bucks as a result. She goes on to show the doctrine has now reached politics, where assuming things would go well led to the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan and ignored warnings of the financial downturn. Not every chapter sustains this degree of gravity, and her detours into motivational speaking and pseudopsychology risk over-stating the case. Still, this remains more than a plea for cynicism Ehrenreich has written an original, well-researched study that shows the value of genuine critical thinking. Robert Murphy D Wednesday, January 13, 2010 metrolife 13 Looking down on the upside TV Pick Of The Day Na Cloigne TG4, 10.30pm Viewers of a nervous disposition should stay away from this three-part supernatural thriller from TG4, but those looking for some gripping drama will lap it up. DJ Sean (Dara Devaney) and artist Nuala (Siobhn OKelly, pictured) find themselves entangled in a dangerous situation when mutilated bodies start cropping up near their home. But does one of them know more than they are letting on? Adam Hyland GIG Wolfmother With Led Zeppelin declining to do the decent thing and reform on a long-term basis, it falls to Australian hair-rockers Wolfmother to feed our cravings for full- fat riffola bashed out by men who appear to take their leather jackets as seriously as their music. Not that theirs has been a bump-free ride by any means. Having fairly exploded onto the scene in 2006 with a mix of irony-free posturing and fretwork that seemed eager to carve a space between The White Stripes and Def Leppard, the group spontaneously imploded, leaving chief songwriter Andrew Stockdale (pictured) contemplating the dreadful vista of the heavy rock solo career. Rather than boring us senseless with an over-indulgent singer-songwriter project, however, he wisely hired a new drummer and bassist and reconvened Wolfmother for last years entirely respectable soft-metal odyssey Cosmic Egg. Of course, its in concert where Stockdales crotch- thrusting theatrics truly make sense. On record, its sometimes hard to work out whether you are listening to an artfully crafted pastiche of or heartfelt tribute to 1970s heavy rock. Looking in the whites of Stockdales eyes, theres no doubt that you are witnessing the real thing in all its sweaty, absurd glory. Eamon de Paor Tonight, Olympia Theatre, 72 Dame Street D2, 7.30pm, 25 (returns only). www.wolfmother.com Very Best, he said Vampire Weekend reminded him of the music he grew up with in Malawi. Koenig says hes most proud of Contras diversity but hes also keen to point out the records continuity from its predecessor. All the bands Ive ever loved, like The Clash and Radiohead, have changed so much over the years but you can still hear the links between their records, he explains. Theres even a visual link in Contras artwork like its predecessor, the album cover features a found Polaroid this time a photo of a mystery woman, dating from 1983. The look on her face reflects some of Contras themes, says Koenig. Her age is ambiguous and she looks like shes on the cusp of something. Batmanglij notes that when they first released the LP anonymously, an internet posting likened it to the plot of a William Gibson novel. Does that mean Vampire Weekend can be filed under cyberpunk, as well as reggaeton, ska pop, soukous, baile funk and indie rock genres? Well, Ive never believed that playfulness and seriousness are mutually exclusive, says Koenig wryly. That mixed-up mood is more representative of real life, wherever you are on the planet. Contra (XL Recordings) is out now band DVD Sorority Row E1 Entertainment, 15, 23 CD Delphic: Acolyte Chimeric/Polydor NET RESULT www.celebritiesthattwitter.com They say everybody is doing it, and since so many celebrities communicate with their fans via Twitter (some even gaining a large following), a site specially designed to showcase what they are saying was probably inevitable. If you like to stay up to date with what mainly US celebrities such as Lil Bow Wow, Kirstie Alley, Demi Moore (pictured), Tony Hawk, Ellen Degeneres, Perez Hilton and Alyssa Milano are tweeting, then check out this site, which also includes links to their Facebook pages. Anthony Gibson THEATRE REVIEW I Am Of Ireland Edward Callans assemblage of verse, letters and biographic research is an absorbing hymn to WB Yeats which, unlike the Dublin-born poet, seldom strays into sentimentalism. This Yeats, played flawlessly by Bosco Hogan (pictured), waxes lyrical in every sense, his poetry and vignettes about life, love and rubbing shoulders with Oscar Wilde, JM Synge, Ezra Pound and President Roosevelt virtually interchangeable. But the magic really happens in the smaller biographical details, from paraphrasing Wildes post-prison quip likening a brothel visit to a supper of cold mutton, to celebrating his 1923 Nobel Prize win not with champagne but a sausage supper. The passage that criticizes poetry recitals specifically actors who recite verse like prose is clever, while Yeats admiration for Mussolinis education bill reminds us of his more dubious allegiances. Dapper in a tweed three-piece suit and sporting a thatch of white hair, Hogan, as always, gives a star turn. Of course he has solid writing to play with, not only Yeats but Edward Callans, who expertly weaves the poets verse in and out of the narration (though which largely sidesteps seminal Irish socio-political events). Yet its Hogans meditative delivery that gives flesh and blood to a national icon who, with the fog of time, has become almost as one- dimensional as his ubiquitous sepia portraits. Lucy White Until Jan 30, Bewleys Caf Theatre, 78/79 Grafton Street D2, 12.50pm, 15 incl light lunch. Tel: 086 878 4001. www.bewleyscafetheatre. com index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html