Album Review: Forest Swords- Engravings (Tri Angle Records; 2013)

BY HAYLEY GAULT It is always a challenge for artists to bring something new to the table in the over-saturated  world of electro and dub, yet UK producer Matthew Barnes’ strikingly original and thoroughly refreshing new album Engravings  offers to do so. The Wirral born, creative force behind Forest Swords spent a year on the

Arts Feature: How to shake off the cold and boredom in Belfast this Easter

By PETER MCLOUGHLIN Happy Easter everyone! We at the Gown understand, implicitly, that one must prioritise discipline in one’s chosen degree to ensure prudent progress in life (the old ‘differed’ rather than ‘immediate’ gratification conundrum).  Yet each and every one of us must occasionally unwind; whether a quiet night in the Movie House, or a

Film Review: Good Vibrations (2013)

BY PETER McGORAN “I knew there were other people like us, they’d just fallen in-between the cracks.” So Terri Hooley takes us on a tour of 1970s Belfast like you’ve never seen it before. The radical, eccentric music-lover risks home and family to open up a record shop on the most bombed street in Europe

Film of the Month: Stoker (Fox; 2013)

BY STEVEN ARMOUR In the opening scenes of Stoker we see a young girl, carefree, frolicking through a lush woodland area in search of something – something she will not find until the end of her very unconventional coming-of-age journey in this perverse tale the Brothers Grimm would be proud to have concocted.  Outsider India’s

I Give It a Year (Working Title Films; 2013)

BY STEVEN ARMOUR 2011 saw a new standard set for the comedy genre when the box-office smash and critically acclaimed Bridesmaids became a cultural phenomenon, successfully blending crude humour with more relatable gags, and presenting flawed but eccentrically endearing characters. I Give It a Year – a film much smaller in scale but likewise in