Brightest Day returned last Wednesday after a week off and focused on Hawkmen, Hawkwomen, and other assorted bird-, cat- and fish-people. PTB and I are keeping our discussion of the book on our original bi-weekly schedule even if the book isn’t, so let this hold you over until issue #6 next week.

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So I haven’t bought a lot of new music lately, probably because I’m behind the times and have been busy, but that changed this past weekend. I picked up 3 discs for 9.99 each at FYE, which, incidentally, is the least I’ve paid at FYE for cds ever. Here we go with some short and sweet:

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The World Cup is over and could not have ended with a worse game. Holland versus Spain was not a showcase of the best soccer has to offer. That would go to the third place game between Uruguay and Germany. Pretty much any game Uruguay played was great soccer. Even the game against Ghana when their striker, Luiz Suarez, used his hand to keep out a sure Ghana goal in the 120th minute. Both Holland and Spain played boring, diving soccer. Just embarrassing. Yet, Spain is your World Cup champion. I guess it is fitting considering it was not really a memorable World Cup.

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No comics shipped this Wednesday due to the 4th of July holiday, so new books will be in stores tomorrow, July 8th. Tomorrow will be particularly special as Marvel has declared it “X-Men Day” since we’ll be seeing the launch of a new X-Men series with a number one issue. This is the first “X-Men #1” in 20 years, so it’s fairly momentous, but I find it more confusing than anything.

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I’ve been meaning to write about this record for over a month, but I guess I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. There’s no doubt that when the songs are good, they’re great. From what I can gather, the band is made up of a bunch of nerds from North Jersey and is named after Shakespeare’s play. The record is full of Civil War themes including clips of recited speeches from the era crossed with seemingly anachronistic references to modern ideas like cars. I often describe the record as Civil War punk, but punk doesn’t really accurately describe the diversity of their sound. The lyrics tend to be appropriately angst-filled but that angst is often hidden behind fun sing-a-long chants like “The enemy is everywhere!” and “You will always be a loser!” The whole package is nothing if not interesting.

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