The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, April 10, 2019 — 5A

As part of the human condition,
there are universal moments that
will always leave us wistful and
dewy-eyed, longing for a picturesque
moment that no longer exists and can
never exist again. These ubiquitous
moments that invade human
emotion include late night
drives with the windows
down in the backseat of your
best friend’s car, or your lover
bringing you coffee in bed or,
most notably, the grandeur of
the feeling of the beach.
Circa
Waves,
an
indie
rock band from Liverpool
(kind of like The Strokes if
they were pop), captures the
art of reminiscing through
their essence of romantic,
summertime guitar pop rock.
Their junior album, What’s
It Like Over There?, exhibits their
knack for playing into sentimentality,
digging into spaces that pluck on the
human heartstrings and operate on
nostalgia.
In 2015, Circa Waves released
their debut album, Young Chasers,
which launched the wild success of
their hit single “T-shirt Weather.”
The comparisons between “T-shirt
Weather” and the single that drives
their
junior
album,
“Movies,”
are endless. Both singles feature
Circa Waves’s niche of extremely
catchy, melodic and guitar-driven
reminiscing. “T-shirt Weather” came
from an album which interrogated
life
among
the
clouds,
with
summertime lyrics: “I remember
T-shirt weather, I remember some

days, we were singing out lungs in
the backseat together.” “Movies,
”which carries What’s It Like
Over There?, operates in the same
manner, banking on the emotional
state created when driving around:
“Remember when we drove your car
down the road? It was just like in the
movies.”

While What’s It Like Over There?
regresses in some areas to the
symbolism and romantic emotions
of their debut album and at the
same time relying heavily on the
pre-released singles which carry the
album, What’s It Like Over There?
exhibits development in exploring
spaces that are authentic versus
spaces that are insincere. Circa Waves
impresses with their extension into
darker moments, weaving between
guitar driven, upbeat energy into
dark and soft moments which
cross-examine the link between our
environment and our integrity.
The opening song, “What’s It like
Over There,” starts with the stark
removal of the listener from a genuine
environment. The beginning of the

song creates an auditory heaven,
the sounds of crashing waves and
the soft chirping of seagulls in the
distance. Swiftly, this paradise is cut,
with the sound of heavy footsteps
and a garage door closing, removing
the listeners from the nirvana of the
beach. The cover art for the album,
shot at Greatstone Beach, includes
a man and woman in the
ocean, one covering the
eyes of the other. This art,
paired with the opening
track, immediately links
self-reflection with one’s
physical
surroundings.
Circa Waves plays into
the common trope of
indie-rock:
questioning
authenticity.
Circa Waves then makes
multiple
references
to
morality. The song “Me,
Myself, and Hollywood”
darkens the mood with a
savage bass line and a metronome-
esque
drum
sequence,
with
questioning lyrics: “Have I been sad
like I thought I would? And have
I been bad? Or have I been good?
In Hollywood.” Good versus evil
intent is contemplated throughout,
interlacing between spaces that
question
a
humans’
rectitude
(Hollywood) and pure, honest spaces
that are “just like in the movies”
(from track “Movies”).
The dark twists into self-doubt
paired with the airy, buoyancy of
guitar pop-rock that one comes to
expect from Circa Waves makes this
album a strong candidate for summer
time drives, with the windows down,
in the backseat of your best friend’s
car.

Circa Waves and nostalgia

ALBUM REVIEW

SAMANTHA CANTIE
Daily Arts Writer

What’s It Like
Over There?

Circa Waves

Transgressive Records

On a cold night in Oak Hill, West Virginia, I sat with my father by
the glow of a Christmas tree, waiting for the New Year’s Eve ball to
drop in Times Square, NYC. A quiet house, a quiet night, the howl of
a coal train echoing through the mountains — a timeless longing that
descends when the moon rises over the hills of West Virginia. And
as we sat there, a familiar twang suddenly filtered through the radio
— it was Willie Nelson. But not Willie Nelson as my father and I had
heard him before. I pride myself on knowing the works of Patsy Cline,
Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, Hank Williams and, of course, Willie
Nelson, by heart. But on that quiet New Year’s Eve, to our surprise, we
were confronted with a song that was new and unfamiliar.
“Look around you / Look down the bar
from you / At the faces that you see / Are
you sure this is where you’re meant to be?”
That question hung heavy in the air. Our
trip out west had been last minute and
ramshackle. It had been a fight to corral my
family together to celebrate the holiday,
full of coercion, a few tears, and blatant
bribes. The mournful, slow guitar of
Willie Nelson’s “Are You Sure” penetrated
somewhere deep in my soul. For a moment,
I wondered — was I sure this is where I was
meant to be?
Yes, it was.
And then the ball dropped on New
Year’s Eve.
Later, I tracked down the album from
“Are You Sure,” to find the Holy Grail

of Willie Nelson’s The Demos Project, Vol. One. The original album,
Things to Remember: The Pamper Demos is a collection of some of
Willie Nelson’s earliest recordings. For digital streaming, The Pamper
Demos was released as The Demos Project (Vol. one & two) in 2016.
It is a wonder, for fans new and old, to find this goldmine of
Nelson material. The album has the same familiar lonesome cry of
Nelson’s best known works, but is more bare-bones and minimalist
in the instrumentation. Everything about the album is softer, more
vulnerable; Willie Nelson’s song-writing and woeful lyrics are on
full display. While “Are You Sure” is a personal favorite — the song
is a haunting echo that strikes the soul — every track on the album is
fantastic.
“Hello Walls” opens with the whine of the guitar imitating an
answering “Hello, hello,” making for a somber, yet fun experience.

“A Moment Isn’t Very Long” also has the same brand of lonesome
country that Willie Nelson is known for. While “Things to Remember”
is a self-deprecating — even sarcastic — spin on pining heartbreak. In
the song, Nelson makes an amusing list, “Things to remember/ Plans
that were set/ Things didn’t work out/ Things to forget,” the lament all
too relatable. I was also surprised to find a rendition of Patsy Cline’s
hit “Crazy” — only to find later Nelson himself originally that “Crazy.”
But what’s most striking about the album isn’t solely that the songs
are good — which they are — or its hidden gem status (due to criminal
under-promotion by the label). Rather, that the album acts as a time
capsule for the start of Willie Nelson’s career. These songs symbolize
the beginning of a musical career that would define the country and
rock ‘n’ roll genres. Here, it’s a man, his guitar, and a dream to make
it big. And Nelson, like maybe country artists before him, game “late”
to the game, a family man with some life
experience already under his belt. Despite
the youth and vibrancy of his voice, the
pain and regret eternalized in all country
songs is ever-present.
Willie Nelson has been a well-loved
friend for many. His music is there for
heartbreak, for the lonesome cowboys, and
the travelling friends “On the Road Again.”
In the end, though, listening to The Demos
Project feels like a proper introduction.
Willie Nelson with his trusty guitar and
rockin’ pigtail-braids seems like a constant
fixture in the industry and the country
genre. As his career stretched into what
may be the last home run, it is all too fitting
to go back to the beginning, at least one
more time.

What I’m Listening To: Willie Nelson, aren’t you?

MUSIC: WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

MADELEINE GANNON
Daily Arts Writer

Twenty years after a high
school clique was involved in an
incident that led to the gruesome
death of one of their members,
a series of mysterious deaths —
suicide, accident or otherwise —
threatens to reduce their circle to
zero. One thing is clear:
Someone knows.
Allie Garvey was the
odd one out in the group.
At 15, her sister died of
cystic fibrosis and her
mother was depressed. She
wasn’t pretty like Sasha
Barrow, athletic like David
Hybrinski or even as rich
as Julian Browne. Allie
was linked to the popular
kids by a secret. After Allie
twisted her ankle while running,
Allie happens upon Sasha then
Julian and David, innocuously
fiddling with something under a
tree. It was a .38 revolver. By all
rights, a gun incites fear. How
could it not? For Allie, who was
still grieving the premature death
of her sister, it did. With Julian
and Sasha — two privileged teens
— it was an object that elicited
excitement. For them, it was a toy.
When a new kid, Kyle Gallagher,
moves to this upscale Philadelphia
suburb, the clique decides to
play a game of Russian Roulette
using their newfound toy. It was
supposed to be a prank — the gun
wasn’t supposed to be loaded —
but it goes horribly wrong. Two
decades later, Allie Garvey returns
to her childhood home to mourn

the death of a childhood friend
and unearth the truth of what
really happened that horrific night
so long ago. In her investigations
of the past, she uncovers a gut-
wrenching secret. A secret that
could jeopardize her own life.
Lisa
Scottoline’s
“Someone
Knows” is split into two parts.
The first half is set in the 1990s

and the second is in present-day.
For close to 200 hundred pages,
the readers are immersed in the
minds of five 15-year-olds. While
I find the idea of kids doing bad
things shockingly delicious, the
juvenile tone and their weighty
issues don’t quite align. On one
hand, each teenager is dealing
with something heavy, from child
molestation to a philandering
father. The rotating perspectives
functions to add depth to each
character. Still, the issues are
interspersed with stereotypical
generalizations.
For
example,
Allie Garvey claims she’s different
because she doesn’t fit with
any of the “cliques” like “pretty
princesses,
the
field-hockey
jocks, the fast girls who smoked,
the Goths, druggies, mathletes,

or Ecology-Club hippies.” It’s a
superficial insight that’s more apt
for a young-adult novel than a dark
thriller.
In spite of that, it was hard to
abandon “Someone Knows.” It
was like watching a car-crash in
action. You know that it would
end terribly, yet you still can’t peel
your eyes away. I was gripping the
edges of the novel, hoping
that all the characters
would be OK yet knowing
they won’t.
The
second
half
forgoes the wonderful
slow-tension that the first
built up. The readers are
still
offered
alternating
perspectives, but it relies
heavily on the point-of-
view of a new character,
Larry
Rucci,
Allie’s
husband. Unfortunately, the new
perspective squeezes unnecessary
background
information
that
wasn’t relevant to the first half.
Once again, the readers are
reintroduced to another internal
conflict and backstory at the
expense of the plot. The effect
results in a rushed and dramatic
ending. Instead of dropping my
mouth open in astonishment, I’m
left wondering if I just watched a
Lifetime movie special.
If you’re looking to read a cheap
thriller on your next domestic
flight, Lisa Scottoline’s “Someone
Knows” includes all the typical
tropes: suspense, murder, marital
problems and twists. If you’re
seeking an intricate mystery that
blows your mind weeks after, look
elsewhere.

Scottoline’s latest is tropey

BOOK REVIEW

SARAH SALMAN
Daily Arts Writer

Someone Knows

Lisa Scottoline

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Apr. 9, 2019

I’m a sucker for a horse movie. Growing up, classics like “Black
Beauty” and “Spirit” and low-budget family flicks like “Virginia’s
Run” and “Dreamer” were staples in my cinematic diet. In my
preteen years, I was one of those “horse girls.” I took riding lessons
after school, begged my parents for a pony and, admittedly, even
had a few pieces of horse-themed clothing in my closet. Though
I’ve since sworn off ever pulling on another pair of riding breeches
and I no longer dream of having a pet horse named Stormy or Star,
I’m almost always up for a horse movie. While a bit heavier than the
lighthearted, inspiring films from my childhood, “The Mustang”
was a pleasant surprise with its impressive acting and unimposing,
quietly profound story.
For the past 12 years, Roman Coleman’s (Matthias Schoenaerts
“Far from the Madding Crowd”) life has been suspended in the
soul-crushing limbo of prison. Existing in a state of blankness and
solitude, as he puts it himself, Coleman is far from the man he used
to be. His emotionless daze is interrupted, however, when he gets
an opportunity to join a government rehabilitation program to curb
the overpopulation of wild mustangs by training them and readying
them for resale. Despite his lack of experience, Coleman slowly
forms a connection with an especially wild mustang, Marcus.
Through his relationship with Marcus and the other inmates in the
program, Coleman rediscovers a slice of the purpose formerly lost
within the void of the hopeless and hostile prison environment.
Matthias Schoenaerts was 100 percent made for this role. There
are few actors who can give a masterful performance without
relying on the crutch of dialogue and Schoenaerts proves he is one of

them. Fully embodying Coleman’s disinterest in human interaction,
outbreaks of aggression and complicated relationship with his
daughter, Schoenaerts expertly conveys both his character’s quiet,
subdued exterior and emotionally heated and broken interior.
We would guess that the interactions between Coleman and
Marcus would look more like soliloquies than dialogues. But

they aren’t. Instead of sharing words, Coleman and Marcus share
movement. Through the way Marcus positions himself away
or toward Coleman and the sounds of annoyance or gestures of
affection he makes, we don’t miss the dialogue because we realize
we don’t need it. This synchronized body language established
between Coleman and the mustang is a form of communication in
itself, and it allows us to perceive Marcus as an actual character,
with feelings and an attitude, rather than as just an animal.
What’s more, the relationship is refreshing, straying from the

over-affectionate and cheesy characteristics that are typically
highlighted on screen between horses and humans.
Aside from Schoenaerts’s acting, in tune with the low-key vibe of
the film, the use of setting to showcase an unseen side of prison life
is especially impressive. Throughout the film, there is a tug of war
of sorts between sweet and bitter. We follow the pivotal friendship
between Coleman and Marcus, contrasted with the bleak reality of
the prison system. In one moment, we are witnessing a tender or
humorous exchange between Coleman and Marcus, and in the next
we are sobered up through clips of an anger management session,
where close up shots of prisoners solemnly revealing the contrast
between the mere seconds it took to decide to commit their crimes
with the years they now face as punishment. The juxtaposition
between these two sequences builds on the larger theme of
confinement that encompasses the film. Outside on Marcus’s back,
Coleman literally holds the reins in his hands. He is in control. But,
back within the prison walls, Coleman is incapacitated, with his
hands tied behind his back. This later image is one that emerges
again and again in prison films, a vision of handcuffs, convicts
in orange jumpsuits, dismal living conditions and knifings in the
yard. Though still including these conventional elements, “The
Mustang” presents an unfamiliar twist to the prison narrative,
painting a picture that is far more dynamic and, by extension, more
humanizing.
Maybe it’s the former horse-girl in me talking, but this is, quite
simply, a beautiful film. Though it revolves around the bond
between Coleman and Marcus, at the center are deeper topics
of broken families, the desolation of the criminal justice system
and the human necessity for purpose. Delivering quality acting,
powerful visuals and an untold story, “The Mustang” is not your
average horse movie and it’s well worth the watch.

‘The Mustang’ isn’t just about horses, and it’s stunning

FILM REVIEW

SAMANTHA NELSON
Daily Arts Writer

The Mustang

Canal+

State Theatre

These songs symbolize the beginning of a musical career that would
define the country and rock ‘n’ roll genres