We don't usually preview upcoming gigs, because we're not in the habit of regurgitating PR pieces for bands that generally don't need it. When you get down to it, what can a preview really say? It can't talk about the gig itself, because that hasn't happened yet. It can't just be an interview with a band member, because interviews are their own thing. It can't just review the album, because a band's live show is by its very nature something entirely different. So for a preview to be of any use whatsoever, it has to carry the weight of a recommendation from a trustworthy friend. It has to make you want to get out of your seat and go buy a ticket. It has to convince you that this band, more than any other band playing in any given town on any given night, is worth your time and your money, and the only way for it to do that is if its writer is willing to get shamelessly personal about how much this band means to him or her. For now, Japandroids is that band and I'm that writer. Things might be about to get weird.

So we're back, kind of. The first review in our planned ongoing revival is up now, and it finds us entering the brave new/old world of DVD and Blu-Ray reviews alongside albums, gigs and new cinema releases. Mainly, this is just as an excuse to cover anything we miss in cinemas - we're not going in-depth with special features or technical details or anything, so don't get your hopes up. Although anyone who hasn't yet got on-board with Blu-Ray should really sort that out ASAFP (The Godfather in particular has had wonders worked upon it, although I always feel like telling people that will inevitably lead to this kind of reaction - 'what, you gonna call Coppola with ideas on how to fix it?').

As we begin to shake off the rust and get back into the way of things, new stuff should appear with increasing regularity and, being the forward-thinking kinds that we are, we have one of these here 'Facebook' pages, as I believe the youths are calling them. Any new updates'll get posted there, so if you want kept up to speed and, like me, are still a little bit afraid of RSS feeds, then go ahead and join.

A vampire film from the director of Oldboy is not what you'd expect from any of those words.

Fairly or not, both Park Chan-Wook movies and vampire movies carry certain expectations. Park is, of course, most famous for his 'Vengeance Trilogy' - Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance - a collective fever dream of deliriously stylish baroque revenge schemes, filled with hammer fights, eye-gouging and, in one instance, a scene that gives horrendous new meaning to the old line about a queue at an execution. Vampire movies, though tamed of late by Twilight and its ilk, by definition run on blood. Thirst, then, billed as Park Chan-Wook's vampire movie, would seem to give the Korean provocateur license to run riot, dousing the screen in creative blood-letting whilst restoring a sense of tragic grandeur to the genre. Which he does. In a way. But Thirst is defiantly not the film the words 'Park Chan-Wook's vampire movie' might lead fans to expect.