No viral videos. No interviews. No recycled breaking news. No TV recaps. No ass-kissing. No bias. No mercy.
Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.
The talent of 30-year-old New York comic Hari Kondabolu is undeniable: he’s cerebral, witty and occasionally daring. Waiting For 2042, however, is not as uniformly distinguished as its author.
Recorded in his hometown of Atlanta before a very energetic crowd, Me the Whole Time is everything a first album should be: packed with strong material from start to finish, filled with the type of memorable bits that will make people take notice and completely accessible to newcomers.
Kilgariff’s a fine singer, with a wavering, vulnerable voice that falls somewhere between coffee shop balladeer and demented children’s entertainer. Her saccharine delivery complements the murky timbre of her acoustic guitar and sells the jokes against the often bleak, angry lyrics.
Burnham is very self-aware, of his image as the nerdy theatre kid who was once picked on in school, and of someone for whom fame came quickly. And he uses all of that in his show.
He’s unapologetic about using voices, and he’s more than willing to detour around his material to play off the crowd. Those tactics make Scovel a unique talent, but it’s fair to say they might not make him the proper type of comic to record a one-off show.
Comedian feels less like an after-the-fact collection of MP3s, and more like the actual comedy show it is—vibrant, alive and waiting to be experienced.
There is some genuine heartbreak here amongst the jokes, and an earnestness that could be deadly if handled poorly. But Shillue can and does handle it, and it’s a shame there’s only one album left to go.
Cauvin is skilled at finding unique ways into tired subjects, as well as eliciting sympathy, or at the very least, compassion. What’s distinct about his persona is that it’s equally angry and intimate.
Stanhope is smart, and he takes risks in his material guaranteed to alienate a good number of potential fans. Could he be funny without doing that? Sure. But we’d be missing out.
Tole fares best when focusing on life’s intimate, cringe-worthy moments–most of which involve sexual embarrassment and end with a breathless, reference-heavy rant. But even then it feels diluted by his reliance on profanity.
You Will Die finds DeRosa looking outward more frequently, taking the same cynical, critical eye that he’s so deftly used to make light of his own flaws and using it to point out what plagues society at large.
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