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CD REVIEW British band blurs genre lines on debut THE FUTUREHEA»S “The Futureheads” The Futureheads ★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ By MEG MOORE THE GAMECOCK Taking rapid-fire rock to new levels, The Futureheads’ self-titled debut puts an ethereal spin on punk music. Unlike other foreign-born groups such as Keane and The Stereophonies, this British band launches aural attacks rather than creating sonic daydreams. They pack both lush sound and guitar-crunching fury into every three-minute burst of song. The album’s opening track, “Le Garage,” captures The Futureheads’ unique mix of influences from the yet-go. Throwing irreverent, sneering vocals over dreamy pop sounds, the tune mixes the brash with the intricate to create something altogether alien. Experimenting with the use of voice as an instrument, the group layers background vocals and concurrent lyrical lines, evoking a punk-infused version of Queen. “Danger in the Water” features a chorus of “doo-doo-doos” which back the melody-carrying lead voice while “Alms” almost sounds like a round with its simultaneous vocal lines. The group is also unafraid to play around with rhythms and dynamics, incorporating time-signature and volume shifts into most of their tunes. “A to B,” which begins with the harmonized repetition of the title, alternates between thick and sparse instrumentation. Toying with speed, “The City is Here for You to Use” becomes more frantic with each return to the phrase “faster, faster.” Blurring the line between dreamy pop and brash punk, The Futureheads are nothing if not innovative. Yet, overall, their sound seems more whimsical than enduring. It’s the kind of album you play to impress friends with obscure taste, not the tunes you sing along to while driving alone. The Futureheads blurring of genre lines may hint at the future of rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s a future that will need tweaking before it can be called “listener-friendly.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockfeatures@givm.sc. edu New films reanimate cartoon reality By CHRIS VOGNAR KRT CAMPUS The best thing about animation is its capacity for invention and imagination, its ability to go places and do things off limits to live-action film. A whole new set of challenges arises as the moviemakers try to strike £ balance between animation’s fanciful potential and the believability expected with the depiction of people. Two new big-budget movies tackle these challenges with novel technology and winning results. One, Pixar’s humbled superhero saga “The Incredibles,” opened Friday with some nuanced new wrinkles in computer animation. The other, “The Polar Express,” arrives Wednesday bearing a painterly look achieved through mind blowing (and not easily understood) filmmaking advances. Together, “The Incredibles” and “The Polar Express” represent bold steps in the field of humanimation. “Our goal was to do something patently unreal that feels very believable,” said Brad Bird, the “Incredibles” writer and director. That’s a tough balance, but it’s essential to the movie’s story and themes. The heroes of “The Incredibles” are superheroes forced to enter a sort of suburban relocation program after all “supers” are targeted by a rash of lawsuits. As they navigate civilian life, their dual nature as ordinary people capable of extraordinary feats comes into sharp focus. “Animation is bringing characters to life, not just making them move,” said Mary Clarke-Miller, associate dean at the An Institute of California in San Francisco. “And ‘The Incredibles’ is awesome. It’s A-plus. The attention to detail that they applied to the characters is just amazing.” “Everyone is really well versed in how humans move and how they shift their weight and how they go about things,” said Bird, who previously made the hand-drawn animated film “The Iron Giant.” “So the litmus test for what is convincing is much more thorough.” The biggest challenge was gauging how much detail to use, when to hold back and when to go all-out. Bird and the Pixar folks solved this problem by going beneath the surface. The computer models for the characters were given muscles that move with them. They also benefited from a process called subsurface scattering, which is based on what actually happens when light hits skin. “The light doesn’t just hit the surface of the skin, it also goes beneath the surface,” said Bird. “It hits blood vessels, and that scatters the light under your skin. It’s a very subtle, effect, but it’s the difference between flesh and plastic. You don’t have to do some of the surface details. We didn’t do hair follicles or pores. And it gives the character a kind of a glow.” “The Polar Express” features a completely different approach to capturing human movement and emotion. If you’ve seen the trailers, you might have noticed that the characters, .five of them played by Tom Hanks, look almost real. That’s because, oddly enough, they are real. The movie’s technological trump card is called performance capture, and it’s a lot more elaborate than subsurface scattering. On the most basic level, the characters aren’t really animated. Actors wear body suits covered with reflective jewels, which are also affixed to their faces. Digital cameras record the movements of the bodies as an assortment of three dimensional dots. The characters are then integrated into virtual sets, created in computers. (A similar motion-capture process was used to bring Gollum to life in the “Lord of the Rings” movies). “Performance capture is key to trying to do something that has always been very difficult for animators to do, which is animate correctly proportioned characters,” said “Polar” director Robert Zemeckis. “All the performances in the movie are digitized and captured in real time, along with the voice, in three dimensions. That’s why I think you have that wonderful ability to have those subtle things that actors intuitively do that it would take an animator way too many hours to try to draw.” How important are correctly proportioned animated characters? The question gets at the relationship between animation and realism, and the matter of whether animation should embellish reality or replicate it. Zemeckis sees motion capture as the perfect way to re create the impressionist look of Chris Van Allsburg’s beloved children’s book. “The Polar Express” looks like a painting come to life. “Chris Van Allsburg never wanted the movie to be animated, because he knew the animation would have to simplify and cut the heart out of his art,” said Zemeckis. “In this particular case, photo realism (or live action) would take a lot of charm out of the movie as well.” “The Polar Express” does look magical, but that’s mostly because of the settings and effects — in other words, the stuff that isn’t real. The characters certainly move convincingly, as well they should — they’re human. But the vacant look in their eyes is a bit eerie, like the neither-here-nor-there faces that made the 2001 space adventure “Final Fantasy” such a flop. “Some of the characters feel cold,” said Dr. Clarke-Miller of the Art Institute of California. “They don’t seem to light up. There’s no expression.” Bird, the “Incredibles” director, has spoken about the importance of caricature in animating humans — the art of capturing a character’s abstract essence through creative exaggeration. We see this in “The Incredibles” with Incredible’s oversized head, shaped a bit like a pineapple, and his daughter Violet’s floppy mane of black hair and big, nervous eyes. “Animation is about catching the essence of something and being truthful in the essence, but being a little bit pushed in the execution,” Bird said. By contrast, “The Polar Express” is after something closer to reality, hence the use of real actors and motion capture. But, at the end of the day, the same basic challenge feces animated and live action films: If the story doesn’t work, neither does the movie. And if the characters don’t work, neither does the stoty. Great wriung is just as key to Pixar’s incredible run as great animation. As Bird put it, “Animated films have all the strengths and weaknesses of live-acuon films. Some of them just have a little more going for them than others.” www.daitygamecock.com ■ MAMMALS Continued from page 9 Jack Gerstner, executive director for Gallery 701, said, “It is sort of an anomaly getting involved into string music in New York because (the city) is so fast paced.” By breaking from traditional string music, The Mammals manage to create a unique sound other bands of this genre don’t encompass. The quintet utilizes drums, where traditional string bands do not, and all the members’ vocals combine to make “beautiful harmonies,” Gerstner said. Because all the band members are in their twenties, they draw on whatever they are interested in at the time to add a twist to the traditional sounds of the band, Gerstner added. The Washington Post said, “The Mammals don’t suffer from multiple genre syndrome, they celebrate it, as if gleefully aware that the sound barriers separating old-timey music, vintage pop and contemporary fold are as permeable as cotton.” “This is sort of homemade music, where a lot of music now is techno and hip-hop. It is fun and energetic, but this is fresh,” Gerstner said. Gerstner added the band members have impeccable traditional playing technique. Outside of the band, members are successful in individual endeavors. Multi-talent Merenda followed hi$ successful solo debut with his album “Election Day,” which highlights his songwriting skill. Fiddler Ruth Ungar has also successfully pursued solo efforts, following in the footsteps of her Grammy Award winning father Jay Ungar. Tao Rodriguez-Seegar is the grandson of Pete Seegar who composed the ‘60s freedom anthem “We Shall Overcome.” Rodriguez Seegar is working on a solo project featuring songs in Spanish, which relate back to his home country of Nicaragua. Though most members have projects outside of The Mammals, they all combine their multiple talents to capture the soft side of folk music and the energetic side of blue grass. At the concert, the band will perform original pieces from their latest album “Rock That Babe” which was released last spring. Gerstner said the band shows its versatility by opening with ballads and then going to toe-tapping tunes that make you want to dance. Advanced tickets are available for $8 or $10 day of show. Students can purchase tickets at the door for $8 with student ID. For more ticket information call 544-6069. To preview The Mammals, visit www.themammals.net. Comments on this stony? 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