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The Sandman Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking comic series receives an outstanding adaptation in this audio drama starring James McAvoy, Kat Dennings, Riz Ahmed, Andy Serkis, Taran Egerton, Michael Sheen and more. Audible.
OUR PICKS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
MUSIC
PODCAST
CRITICAL ROLE So you’re curious about Dungeons & Dragons, but you don’t want the commitment of actually playing a tabletop role-playing game. Thanks to the internet and its robust nerd culture, you can live vicariously through other people’s fantasy adventures. Podcast channels are full of folks broadcasting their games, but Critical Role is one of the biggest and most popular. Every Thursday at 7 p.m. the group—comprising its voice actors—livestreams their campaigns at twitch.tv/criticalrole, which are then available as a podcast. For all the ways to enjoy, visit critrole.com. –C. Moon Reed
WASHED OUT: PURPLE NOON Thanks to artists like Tame Impala and Washed Out, it’s likely we’ll soon enter a modern-day phase of what karaoke addicts call “yacht rock.” That’s fine; after four years of orange-tinted kleptocracy, we could all do with a sailboat ride, bottomless mimosa and music that sounds like silk undergarments feel. With its fourth album, Purple Noon, Washed Out—still one Ernest Weatherly Greene Jr.—breaks decisively with the “chillwave” sound that made its early records Life of Leisure and Within and Without must-haves, embracing hookier choruses, chewier beats and more intelligible lyrics. It’s still good— “Too Late” deserves to be a radio hit, if such things still exist—but the spacey shimmer of earlier songs like “Before” is refined away. That’s all right. Once you’re onboard, it’s smooth sailing. –Geoff Carter
