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I JORDAN REDMOND THE GAMECOCK Pink Grease — This Is For Real Once upon a time, disco and rock ‘n’ roll stood at a crossroad. To this day, many rock ‘n’ rollers still decry the use of programmed drumbeats or syn thesizers, and elec tronic music fans scoff at what they consider a tired way of making music. What the two sides fail to see is that ex cess is excess no matter what the proverbial drug. Pink Grease is a band that, given the existence of time travel, could have nipped this feud in the bud. This Sheffield, UK, band has a sexy swagger that screams decadence. Marrying the timeless rock elements of The Stooges and The New York Dolls with inventive electronic tomfoolery, Pink Grease seeks to sway your mind and your ^ hips into a state of perpetu al motion. With its ultra sleazy aesthetic, this band is tailor-made to score a re make of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” PJ Harvey — Uh Huh /Her Not many acts have made it out of the early ‘90s alt-rock explosion intact. Countless alt-rock icons have not aged well, by either losing the creative spark (Billy Corgan, Tricky) or bounding blindly and blissfully into sad, dig nity-destroying projects (Audioslave, Zwan). It’s perhaps a blessing that P J Harvey has never gained much commercial success. However, there have been loads of critical acclaim under which Harvey has thrived, changing from record to record but always re sponsive to her own needs as an artist. This is her sixth album, the first in four years, and it contains all the introspection and attention to detail one would expect from the intimate yet mysterious Harvey. Her voice alone is capable of filling any room with a smoky haze. This ability is aided by sparse, stripped to-the-bone instrumentation. “Uh Huh Her” is yet another strong al bum from a strong artist. The Dirty Projectors — Slaves’ Graves and Ballads ' The word “visionary” is thrown around rather casually these days. With the ease provided by mass communication, any two bit thinker can publish his thoughts and amass a cult follow ing. Dirty Projectors maestro Dave Longstreth has a vision: to save both pop music (in the tradi tional sense, not the Britney Spears sense) and orchestral mu sic from the doldrums. “Orchestral Pop” has been done, but not in the way Longstreth cre ates it on his third album. “Slaves' Graves and Ballads” sounds like a bizarro 1930s radio program, with Longstreth’s awkward croon ing clamoring over whimsical or chestral pieces from the First Orchestral Society for the ^reservation oi tne Orchestra, a ragtag band of classical musi cians assembled by Longstreth. At times unwieldy but always intriguing, Longstreth’s musical creation has a charm all its own. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockfeatures@ gwm.sc.edu n icmmu liOVISORY |i7T7imrmrfTi Movie.Review ‘Chronicles ’ doesn’t entertain THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK One out of five stars BY CHRIS HEWITT KRT CAMPUS “The Chronicles of Riddick” is a sequel to “Pitch Black,” but Riddick is all the movies have in common. Whereas “Pitch Black” served up witty, elegant sus pense, the new one is dull, blunt gun-and-run. Whereas the first one was a thriller with sci-fi trap pings, the sequel is a sci-fi war movie with philosophical trap pings: “The Matrix: Recycled.” But the bond that unites “Pitch Black” to “Riddick” is Vin Diesel as Riddick, a good guy who acts like a bad guy and who does many of the same things in both movies: stare down a spe cial-effects demon, make nice with a little girl, wriggle out of bondage. “Riddick” requires Diesel to save the planet from a megalo maniac (Colm Feore), but the other characters are so indis tinct (including the tangential Judi Dench) and their dialogue so dull that we don’t have root ing interest in anyone. Especially since it’s impossible to tell one guy from the next. Instead of auditioning actors, the casting director must have just measured the actors’ biceps, be cause this is the tank-toppiest film of the year. Watching it, I kept flashing back to a moment in “Pitch Black” when a man, on the run from “ Alien”-like creatures who are afraid of light, watches his torch go out. Then, it flashes back on for a second and we see he’s been instantaneously surround ed by the voracious creatures. It’s a thrilling, pulpy, funny scene, and its 30 seconds are more entertaining than all of “Riddick” put together. England CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 unimpeded by the English de fense. In what had to have been one of the top chokes in the history of English soccer foul-ups, goal keeper David James purposefully tripped up Henry in the penalty box and drew a yellow card. Zidane was given the chance for the last-second shot at a win with the penalty kick, and suc cessfully knocked the ball past James for the victory. Naturally, the English, with a long history of drinking and a re cent history of hooliganism, wouldn’t take the loss lying down. According to The Guardian newspaper, about 400 fans in Croydon went wild, throwing bot tles at police and damaging police vehicles. In Birmingham, 200 people tore through the city center, damaging several pubs and a bus while causing the largest street in town to be shut down for 45 minutes. Similar instances happened in other places in the country also, leading to numerous arrests. In Portugal, one English fan couldn’t wait for Sunday, so he attacked a French fan Saturday. The English say that they don’t boast about winning and have an easy attitude toward los ing. i seem to remember a Carolina-Florida football game last fall in which it looked like the Gamecocks would take the big win, and instead managed to give Florida the game. At least Gamecock fans knew how to do it right — the best way to get over a bad loss is to have a night on the town with your friends, not to destroy the town with your friends.