RUKUS January / February 2018

12

Girls of 2017

We take a look back at the girls from 2017 and reveal the RUKUS Girl of the Year.

6 All Access

The Latest Albums Reviewed Albums Reviewed: Jimi Hendrix

Both Sides of the Sky By Silas Valentino

MGMT

Little Dark Age

By Silas Valentino

10

All Access Spotlight

Artists/Bands Featured:

Dashboard Confessional, Logic, and Justin Timberlake

By Samuel Wendel

38 Game On

The Latest Games Reviewed

Games Reviewed:

Dragon Ball FighterZ By Jesse Seilhan

Monster Hunter: World By Joshua David Anderson

42 Game On Spotlight Games Featured:

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Sea of Thieves, and God of War By Jesse Seilhan

On The Cover

Photo by Andrew Gates

Makeup & hair by Lyndsay Gabrielle

This Page

Photo by Andrew Gates

Makeup & hair by Nuen Nguyen

On the Back Cover

Photo by Andrew Gates

Makeup & hair by Lyndsay Gabrielle

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Andrew Gates

All Access Editor Silas Valentino

Games Editor

Jesse Seilhan

Art Director

Andrew Gates

All Access Contributors

Silas Valentino & Samuel Wendel

Pit Pass Contributors

Andrew Gates & Rupa Begum

Game On Contributors

Jesse Seilhan & Joshua David Anderson

Contributing Photographers

Andrew Gates & Rupa Begum

Social Media Guru

Rupa Begum

Contributing Make-up Artist

Lyndsay Gabrielle, Nicolette Melland & Nuen Nguyen

Contributing Hair Stylist

Lyndsay Gabrielle, Nicolette Melland & Nuen Nguyen

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Andrew Gates

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Double Vision

He’s hot, he’s sexy, he’s dead and his estate continues to dredge up gems from his dusty archives. Nearly 50 years after Jimi Hendrix’s premature death, Both Sides of the Sky arrives to clear out what’s left of his benevolent vaults. The LP is the finale in a trilogy of posthumously released compilation albums that would have been the follow-up to 1968’s Electric Ladyland and this one seems to be the brightest of the three due to amount of previously unreleased songs–10 total of this 13 song package. Not many artists receive a red carpet treatment long after their death but not many artists could ever hold a pick next to Jimi Hendrix.

What’s heard across this 56-minute aural sprawl is the sound of a man entering the soul of the Blues to disrupt it from the inside. Like a righteous virus, he creeps into the hollow-bodied casket of Muddy Water’s standard tune “Mannish Boy” to summon an electric ghost out of its slumber. Water’s original is marked by a 4-note lick that’s been replicated ad nauseam (looking at you “Bad to the Bone”) but on this hawkish cover Hendrix manages to pay tribute to the structure while adding a jubilant flare only he had the dexterity for creating. One part Sly & The Family Stone “I Want to Take You Higher” and one part Bo Diddly guitar waves, Hendrix’s reworking of this number not only introduces us to the album but also how he devised his tributes: tearing into them a clinched-fist force to pound away at the thing until a diamond appears.

The next notable moment arrives in the guitar-heavy “$20 Fine” featuring pal Stephen Stills on the organ and vocals. The two had met at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Hendrix invited Stills to session at the Record Plant in New York two years later. Hendrix layered multiple guitars on the track which reflect off each other while Stills wails away with his respectable white boy cry. Hearing multiple Hendrix guitar lines layered on top of one another invites listeners into the virtuoso’s mind where a delightful cacophony of screeches and squawks may have played repeatedly even when his amps were turned off.

Stills will appear again on Both Sides of the Sky during a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” written about the infamous festival which occurred only weeks before the recording of this rendition. Hendrix hopped on the bass for this one, adding rhythmic pummels that cover every square fret of the neck.

Unsung saxophonist Lonnie Youngblood appears on the sultry “Georgia Blues” that sounds like a predecessor to future Stevie Ray Vaughn and John Mayer influence. Youngblood sings with pain as Hendrix accompanies his sorrow with a sharp Fender lashings and the song hoists itself onto a high pillar during the intoxicating sax solo that carries the song to a whiplashing close. Youngblood and Hendrix would collaborate on several occasions, most notably “She’s a Fox,” but on “Georgia Blues” they sound timeless and unstoppable.

One number that’s pretty but all-too-similar to his previous work is the languid “Sweet Angel” that has Hendrix doing a five-finger dance on his guitar to squeeze out melodies like Gushers–but the chimes he uses on this track make this beauty seem like the neglected twin to “Little Wing” and t heir resemblance is uncanny and confusing.

10 of these 13 tracks have never been released before cementing Both Sides of the Sky as a more enticing and interesting record than Justin Timberlake’s latest disappointment–and Jimi has been in the grave for 48 years.

Written by Silas Valentino

Seeing Light

Death may be lurking in the crannies of this album but MGMT’s fourth outing, Little Dark Age , is their liveliest and most entertaining record yet. Whereas their initial success was marked by pristine singles such as “Kids” and “Time to Pretend,” this LP is a thorough 45-minute ride through death’s door that boomerangs back to suggest a hint of light amongst these darkish times.

This was a band dead on arrival: a psychedelic duo that transcended time, space and Billboard Top 100 charts. MGMT were never meant to be a household acronym but they somehow became one 10 years ago. They were inevitably marred by their success because pop couldn’t keep up with their stoney rambles (even though their sophomore release Congratulations is an underrated technicolored odyssey) but after an awkward stumble with their 2013 self-titled release, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser return with the best album of their career.

Never too cool to take themselves so seriously, MGMT begin the album with “She Works Out Too Much” that literally includes the introductory lyrics: “Get ready to have some fun!” And jokes on us, it’s hard not to. Just try not to sing along to the chorus hook of “The only reason we never worked out was he didn’t work out enough” or deny the exulting bass line that seems prime for an 8 Minute Abs workout soundtrack. The track is so much fun you can miss the point that it’s explaining why two people didn’t fall in love.

The best song on the album and a contender for one of the best songs of the year is “When You Die.” It’s a dimethyltryptamine thrill ride at just five minutes. The instrumentation is jammed with twisting melodies (courtesy of Ariel Pink who co-wrote the song) and an acoustic guitar lick that’s equally haunting as it is snake charming. The lyrics dare you not to laugh as VanWyngarden stares you in the eyes to sing: “Go fuck yourself/You heard me right/Don’t call me nice again”–but he says it with such authority you mustn’t deny him. A song like “When You Die” only comes out a few times a year, a song that’s so outrageous and interesting a listener has to keep unraveling layers to try to understand what and why it works. But don’t overthink it for you might miss the point.

After turning psyche pop inside out, MGMT nail the formula on the next track “Me and Michael.” It’s 1980s nostalgia done right: big drums, a sing-along chorus and the overall feeling of yearning. The original lyrics were “Me and my girl” but where’s the fun in that? By making this a possible love song between friends or something more, “Me and Michael” beckons for the boom box and your next summer barbeque.

“James” is the product of what happens after too much LSD. Story goes that the MGMT dudes and Chairlift’s Patrick Wimberly attempted to write music while microdosing but accidentally took too much resulting in VanWyngarden blowing out his voice. Because of this, “James” features a baritone lead vocal that’s smooth and immediately stands out.

Little Dark Age ends on the farewell note “Hand it Over.” Like a hand slowly waving goodbye, the song sways back and forth in a dreamy haze while the band laments on these trying times when the bad guys won the White House and hope seems weak. But even amid this feeling of loss, MGMT manage to make “Hand it Over”–and all of Little Dark Age for that matter–sound optimistic. It’s as though they’re telling us the only way forward is to let go, relax and take a drop of this to help ease the transition to what’s about to come next.

Photo by Brad Eltermant

Written by Silas Valentino

Logic, Bobby Tarantino II

Logic’s latest mixtape Bobby Tarantino II opens with a short skit featuring the characters from the beloved cartoon Rick and Morty. They’re debating what’s better: Logic’s albums or his mixtapes. That’s because there’s a notable distinction between the two. His albums have been ambitious, streamlined affairs that sell well with mainstream audiences, featuring catchy sing-along choruses and universal messages. Meanwhile, his mixtapes have been loose, boisterous affairs unencumbered with making larger points. The Rick and Morty skit is a bit of nice self-deprecation, clearly based in fact. Last year, Logic released his third studio album Everybody, which saw him score his biggest hit to date: the anti-suicide anthem “1-800-273-8255.” Certainly a worthy topic to shine a light on, but one that also falls into the same arena as earnest-types like Macklemore. Clearly trying to avoid being pigeonholed as a preachy rapper, Logic has quickly pushed back with Bobby Tarantino II . As with his other mixtapes, it’s stripped down and more entertaining than his studio albums. He has always been a talented lyricist, and on his latest mixtape he lets it fly, not worried about being PG. All told, Bobby Tarantino II is carried by Logic’s charisma and carefree attitude, backed by production that is consistently hard-hitting. Standout tracks include “Contra, “Yuck,” Warm It Up” and “44 More.”

Dashboard Confessional, Crooked Shadows

More than a decade after mainstream emo peaked, the pioneering act Dashboard Confessional have returned with Crooked Shadows, their first album in nine years. As a genre, emo has long been tough to definitively define—but Dashboard Confessional and its vocalist Chris Carrabba undoubtedly helped make emo accessible to a wider audience in the early 2000s, before it became the domain of interchangeable poppunk acts. They delivered honest, teenage agony with soaring sing-along choruses, but with a sound not dissimilar to the prevailing alt-rock trends of the day (see: Coldplay). Dashboard’s heyday may be gone, but Crooked Shadows shows they haven’t forgotten their craft, delivering their signature thrills adeptly—although some of the raw energy that propelled earlier albums is missing, swept away by clean, stadium-sized polish. Crooked Shadows has appropriately been gussied up with contemporary pop production. There are more pop elements here, most notably synths. Still, many tracks largely fall back on formulas that should be familiar to Dashboard fans, with plenty of strummed acoustic ballads across the album’s brief runtime. Standout tracks include “Heart Beat Here,” “We Fight” and “Belong.”

instagram.com/justintimberlake

Justin Timberlake, Man of the Woods

Leave it to Justin Timberlake to trade a suit and tie for a flannel shirt and a pedal steel guitar. In an era where seemingly nothing is sacred, it appeared earlier this year that the pop icon was intent on doing his best Bon Iver impression with the release of his latest album, Man of the Woods. Initial promotional materials positioned it as a left-turn into country or folk. Turns out it was mostly smoke and mirrors. Instead, Timberlake has delivered a strange, scattershot album that largely adheres to his trademark pop exuberance—but with slight twists. Man of the Woods mixes big, sleek R&B jams with just a bit of countrified twang, along with other experiments. Ultimately, it’s music that would sound at home in a Timberland factory outlet store, rather than the actual Timberland. Although it’s driven largely by electro-pop sounds, Timberlake gamely sticks with the rustic, backwoods theme throughout. There’s the track “Say Something” featuring country star Chris Stapleton, and song titles like “Montana” and “Flannel.” Sometimes it works, other times it ventures a bit too deeply into the woods. Although ultimately inconsistent, Man of the Woods is mostly infectious and entertaining. Standouts include “Midnight Summer Jam,” “The Hard Stuff” and the title track.

Written by Samuel Wendel

RUKUS GIRLS of 2017

RUKUS readers it is our pleasure to announce 9 years of keeping the dream alive. It is always a great time of year when you can take a look back and get a glimpse of the future. As per usual; we bring you the girls of the past year and select the RUKUS GIRL of the Year. We look forward to bringing you more in the future and Thank You for your continued support. Enjoy!

Photo by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by: Lyndsay Gabrielle

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by Nuen Nguyen

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by Nuen Nguyen

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by Nicolette Melland

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by Nuen Nguyen

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by Nuen Nguyen

Girl of the Year

Photos by Andrew Gates

Make-up & Hair by: Lyndsay Gabrielle

Rock The Dragon

Written by Jesse Seilhan

Few franchises have found a way to be both overwhelmingly popular and underwhelmingly represented in video game form as Dragon Ball Z. The Budokai and Xenoverse series’ have both tried to recreate the anime magic of pitting hundreds of insane characters against one another in flying fisticuffs, but nearly every single one lacks the connection to the source material or an engine quick enough to accurately represent what makes DBZ so much fun. Who would have guessed that a fighting game built by Arc System Works (makers of BlazBlue and Guilty Gear) would be the savior, but Dragon Ball FighterZ is the best love letter fans of the series could have ever hoped for

As a fighting game, this title is insanely fun. It takes a bit from other anime fighters but really feels at home in the Marvel vs Capcom camp, with screen jumps, tag-ins, and dramatic combo counters that soar near the hundreds. You pick three characters from a roster of over 20, from throughout all Dragon Ball franchises, from the original to Super. This means you can play as three different Gokus against enemies that never knew of one another. Once the battle begins, the animation and art style is strikingly perfect, looking exactly like the cartoon, even as things pop off and fireballs start flying. Rounds can be finished with a flourish, kicking your opponents into a mountain or destroying the planet you’re standing on, making the next round begin in a pile of rubble and ash caused by your super fireball.

Those aforementioned fireballs are easily fired, as every character literally has a fireball button, meaning you don’t really need to apply old Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat techniques to this game. As with any good fighting game, the barrier to entry is low while the skill ceiling is enormous. If you are the type of gamer that likes sitting in the lab and cranking out combos until you can pull off a 30-hitter in your sleep, this is the game for you. The dynamics between characters and tag-in potential means you are always just a button input away from stringing together something truly impressive and the host of online battle options means you should always have someone to play against. Unfortunately, the story mode is not where you’ll be spending most of your time because it is forgettable.

The main DBZ narrative is sort of insane and all over the place, which could easily translate to a fun and compelling single player storyline for this game. Instead, we have an amnesia story where Goku doesn’t know who he is, clones have invaded the planet, and you fight wave after wave of pushover robots that don’t really teach you anything about the game nor compel you forward to see the next flaccid cutscene. Even if you don’t want to play against others, the game immediately forces you into a lobby with other players, who are split between training, online battles, and “arena” battles, which act like a King of the Hill type mini-tournament that is always moving. But these lobbies aren’t always stable, meaning you kicked out from time to time and are forced to find another lobby before you can literally do anything. Once you get into an actual match, the servers seem to hold up fine without much lag, but the road to get there is sometimes brutal.

If this was just a review of the time between the word “FIGHT” and “VICTORY,” this would be a glowing recommendation. The moment-to-moment gameplay is unlike any other fighter on the market and brings together so many different styles and characters into something really fresh within a stagnant scene that rests on minor iterations from sequel to sequel. For Arc to have crushed it so hard on their first time out is remarkable, but the lack of modes, a less-than-forgettable storyline, and lobby server woes makes it stumble just enough to cause an issue. Still, this beloved franchise has never been so lovingly crafted and put on display in a way that both fans and newcomers can enjoy. Anime fighters have gotten a bad rap over the years, but Dragon Ball FighterZ is a stellar first entry into what should be a long-running series.

Fantastic Beasts

Written by Joshua David Anderson

For more than a decade, the Monster Hunter series has been a mainstay in the gaming world, though it had never really hit the zeitgeist. Largely played on handhelds like the PSP and the 3DS, the series has always been huge in Japan, but somewhat muted here in the West. Some of that had to do with the games being on handheld, but the series also had strange mechanics, like the obtuse combat mechanics and the multitudes of systems and menu screens to navigate. With complexity being more accepted by gamers, and titles like Dark Souls kindling an interest in deliberate combat types, Capcom wanted to make a new version of Monster Hunter that could hook a new generation of players. With Monster Hunter: World, they seem to have done just that.

The premise of Monster Hunter: World is pretty genius in its simplicity: You have travelled to a new continent to research and learn. Your expedition has to set up a new home, and you have to protect it from the wild beasts that threaten it. Monster Hunter: World wastes no time in getting you to a point where you need to hunt monsters. This works much better than the actual story campaign, which is largely forgettable and tries to make hunting monsters seem more important than it actually is. Whether you skip the cutscenes or watch them all the way through, your end goal will always be to kill or capture a large animal, and use its parts to make new armor and weapons for you to fight the next monster in the food chain. Along the way, you can join a guild, grow and harvest items for crafting, participate in special events, or help out other players in their hunts. There is a lot to do here.

There is also a lot to see. Monster Hunter: World is the first title in the series to be made on current gen hardware since the PS2, and Capcom made sure to use all the fidelity that the PS4 and the Xbox One offer. The maps in Monster Hunter: World are large and detailed, with lots of verticality and hidden areas. They also differ from the old games in one crucial way: there is no loading between areas of the map. This single change makes the game feel faster and fresher than the past entries. The titular “monsters” all look fantastic, with detailed animations and believable behaviors. You can truly become proficient in hunting a certain monster once you dial in on their actions and the way they fight.

But aside from all of this, the real reason why Monster Hunter: World really works is because of the core gameplay loop. Completing the story or finishing missions become secondary to the real goal of the game: making the best armor and weapons for your hunter. There are over 45 different monsters that each have an armor set to craft, and there are 14 different types of weapons that have multiple upgraded versions, so there is plenty be chase. Where Monster Hunter: World really shines is that it allows you to largely grind for exactly the gear that you specifically want. If you want to just mess around and explore the maps, do an Expedition. If you want to fight a specific monster, do an Investigation for that. If you don’t what you are hunting, just answer SOS flares sent out by other players. You have tons of goals at any given moment, but Monster Hunter: World lets you zero in on a specific goal you want to complete.

Monster Hunter: World is a game about big obstacles and even bigger victories. It feels great to fight a smaller monster for the first time and beat them without too much issue. However, it won’t be long before you hit a wall that just happens to look like a fire breathing T-rex, and that is where the game really gets going. Beating the monster that has killed you 7 times prior feels even more amazing, and soon you are off to the next giant challenge. Monster Hunter: World finally feels like the game Capcom always wanted to make with the series.

Written by Jesse Seilhan

God of War

Not a remake, but a reboot was in store for the God of Water franchise. Kratos has gotten old, grown a beard, and somehow tricked a woman into procreating, as his son is tagging along for this adventure. The game is not the same as it was before, as instead of a top-down arcade experience, where dozens of enemies filled the screen while Kratos threw axes and swords all over the place, this takes a more nuanced approach to both storytelling and combat, with an over-the-shoulder view getting you closer to the action and story beats. But don’t be afraid, all of the violence and folklore is still present, as you will most certainly face off against creatures and monsters lost to time. Out on April 20th, this return to the franchise is much needed and should hopefully be the good kind of nostalgia that actually improves on the original instead of repeating it.

Sea of Thieves

Microsoft needs a win and they are hoping Sea of Thieves is it. A console exclusive (unless you have a PC and want to play it there), this genuinely open-world semi-MMO seafaring game is built for those that like to team up and explore an unknown world with their friends. You can do just about any pirate activity you can imagine, from sailing the high seas and fighting Kraken to drinking on the pier and singing old sea shanties. The combat is pretty basic, as it the art style, but the draw here isn’t the aesthetics, it’s the freedom to be a freaking pirate. Load up on grog and dive for treasure later this year, or get it for free as a part of the Xbox Game Pass, where all new first-party Microsoft games will come out day and date!

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Yakuza 0 was a revelation. For the first time in the franchise, Sega found a way to make the series palatable in the West by creating a semi-open world filled with amazing stories, memorable characters, and a fighting system that harkens back to classic brawlers from the arcades. But they aren’t resting, as Kiwama came out and was also great, but Yakuza 6 looks to continue the franchise and narrative forward, with protagonist Kazuma Kiryu wrecking shop and taking care of bad dudes in Japan. While this is running on the same engine as the previous few, that engine is a solid foundation for these games and should make for another worthwhile 50+ hours of side quests and brilliant cutscenes. Pick it up when it comes out this April.