I didn’t know anything about the Ironman comics/universe before I saw it.

I saw the movie yesterday and wasn’t that impressed. It was alright I suppose. I kept feeling like it wasn’t as good as previous comic-to-movie adaptations. The characters didn’t ring any chords with me; the arrogance of Stark was mildly amusing. His capture and realisation that he was doing evil wasn’t very convincing. I mean, mostly because before he was captured, they made him out to be this super-intelligent guy. Intelligent, arrogant people don’t get my sympathy. Plus, they were never going to kill him. They wanted their missile.

The bearded guy’s surprise betrayal was good, but it didn’t eventuate into anything. The fight didn’t have enough oomph. I thought it was lame that it ended up the way it did, and he was defeated the way he was. Partly because I couldn’t identify with Stark — as before mentioned, I have no sympathy for ingelligent, arrogant people. Secondly because there weren’t enough cool effects and shit being smashed up. Thirdly, it was all too predictable: disabled protagonist outwits dumber, stronger, slower opponent, opponent is killed by the very technology he seeks to make use of to destroy others, yadda yadda. Way too self-righteous for such an arrogant bastard like Stark.

The love interest with Pepper was screaming obviousness from the very first moment you see her on screen, with her ‘throwing out the trash’ quip.

I’m hoping the second one will be better. It needs something truly bad to happen to Stark, and it needs more action.

I give it 5/10.

It’s here. It’s arrived, finally. After The Presets smashed the clubbing scene with their massive hit My People and released a single in its namesake with some interesting remixes, the album to which this song owes its creation has finally been released. My, is it a gem.

Immediately as you pop the CD into your favourite playback device — I recommend something connected to a massive subwoofer — you will be blasted away by the opening track, Kicking and Screaming. Its heavy bassline will have you bumping and jumping; punctuated with a zippy beat and echoed with airy screams and the vocals of our boys Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes, this track is a testament to the quality of things to come.

Second up is the absolutely smashing track My People, which I’m sure you’ve heard of previously. There’s so much emotion and energy here, this I would have to say is my current favourite dance track. Perhaps the best I’ve ever heard. I absolutely love this song for its grungy, deep and powerful sounds. The lyrics are obvious and easy to sing along to, and the backing vocals support and blend seamlessly with the grittyness of the track. I recently heard this song played in a club by the support act for Muscles, and it made me forget about the main act altogether.

A New Sky introduces us with a melodic chanting; a relaxed and refined track which retains the leg-jiggling catchyness of the opener; this track is a great way to pass the time to the next track, and arguably one of the best on the album, This Boy’s In Love. It’s so poppy and wonderful, you could easily be forgiven for embarassingly bopping your head to this in public places. The lyrics are so powerful and emotional; you can’t help but sing along.

Yippiyo-ay follows with some thoroughly oldschool sounds, reminding me of mid-eighties disco music; it’s catchy, smooth and suave. The perfect song to dance to with that pretty girl across the other side of the multi-coloured checkerboard dancefloor.

The rest of the album follows as the first few tracks start it off; strongly. Talk Like That and Together introduce us to some further hard-pumping beats that make you want to jump off your feet and run around the room, while Eucalyptus and Anywhere provide us more catchy tunes to hook our brains around.

If I Know You stands out as an awesomely powerful and emotional track; slow, sad, and moving. It’s kind of an anomaly to a first-time Presets fan; having not known much of their previous work. It’s different and thoroughly enjoyable.

For only $20 from JB HiFi, this album’s a steal. I thoroughly recommend you go and buy yourself a copy right now.

Cog’s latest album, Sharing Space, has been a while in the making. Since early 2007, Cog have been working on the album in the quaint town of Weed, California.

The album takes a slight detour from the stylings of its predecessor; it seems as though the boys wanted listeners to focus more on the lyrics of their songs. This is not without reason, with a few of the songs exploring an anti-establishment mindset, most notably “Swamp” in which ‘the government’ is criticised and blamed.

The vocals are wonderfully typical of Cogs previous work, with multi-layered chorus melodies giving them depth; a welcome multi-dimensional quality.

In aid to this, you won’t hear as many ripping guitar riffs that we’ve come to know and love from Cog’s earlier work; which isn’t to mean the guitar has taken a back seat, its role has merely been reprised somewhat, with less show-boating, and more effort put into making the guitar work together with the rest of the song.

The drumming is foreboding, powerful, with a certain finality to it, ever-present in the background, driving each song by pacing itself with the beat. It’s quality stuff.

The songs “Bird Of Feather” and “What If” have been floating around the airwaves for a while now, and they’re epic tracks. Although “What If” seems to be quite similar-sounding to work from The New Normal-era, it fits right in as the fourth track on the album, followed by the powerfully moving “Bird Of Feather”.

If any complaints, the only I have is that the mastering of the album doesn’t seem quite as good as The New Normal: overall, it’s quieter. I suppose some would say this is due to the quieter, less punchy nature of the songs, but I think they could have done a better job.

Taking everything into account, I’d say that Sharing Space is another quality release from the Sydney band. At only $20 from JB Hi-Fi, you can’t go wrong.

Cog is touring with support around Australia in May and June, check them out.