Following their first album, “I Love You,” released in 2013, a California-based band, The Neighbourhood, debuted their sophomore album, “Wiped Out!” on Oct. 30 and has proven to long-time listeners, such as myself, they are willing to continue experimenting with different genres and sounds.

“I Love You” is a combination of the two EPs, “Thank You” and “I’m Sorry,” which were created in 2012 along with various songs not affiliated with either one of the EPs. Each individual song possessed an alternative, very soft rock sound while giving off an extremely relaxing feeling.

After that, the band completed two other projects. One being a three-song EP, “The Love Collection,” which stuck with the initial alternative sound along with introducing an unexplainable calmness in their music I have heard in other music from artists originating on the west coast.

The second project is a mixtape, “#000000 & #FFFFFF,” which possesses a completely different sound compared to their other work. Underground rappers from California are featured along with mainly hip-hop beats and various raps from lead singer Jesse Rutherford.

I can hear each individual style they have ever used in “Wiped Out!” along with the emphasis on beachy sounds and the introduction of upbeat music, which walks a fine line between the alternative and pop genres. On almost every track, you can hear waves crashing or seagulls squawking in the background. There are also longer guitar instrumentals from guitarists Zach Abels and Jeremy Freedman audible.

Personally, I believe the various challenges in musical style is what sets this album apart from the rest and why I enjoy it so much. Each track, from the acoustic sounds in “Baby Came Home 2 / Valentine” to the heavy bass in the intro of “Ferrari,” is organized almost perfectly as a song flows smoothly into the next one.

Lyrically, Rutherford has stayed the same in regards to writing lyrics all listeners can connect to at some level in their lives; however, he has also added depth in a few of their songs that really make me sit and think about the message he is trying to convey.

Rarely will I stumble across an album by a band I really like and enjoy every single song, but I find myself able to connect every track to something I am currently going through or have gone through at some point of my life.

From the lyrics, “We need to fly ourselves before someone else tells us how,” in the track “Prey” to “I don’t want to let you down, so promise you won’t let me drown,” in title track “Wiped Out!” I can find a piece of me hidden in the words, and I love that.

Overall, “Wiped Out!” still possesses the same relaxing and chill vibe I have heard and fell in love with throughout their career, but the new more quickly paced beats I really enjoy as well. Rutherford and the rest of the band have continued to prove they are able to experiment well with almost any type of music, and I cannot wait to hear what they will try next on their next album or project.

You can listen to the album here.

By Mya Cannon

I Wrote This For You is a story written by an anonymous author who goes by pleasefindthis. The book is a collection of 186 different short poems divided into four different groups: sun, moon, stars and rain.

The book’s description gives you a preview of how emotional it will be.  The description starts out with, “I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you.” This line creates not only mystery and suspense, but it also creates a feeling of sympathy for the author from the reader.

The author relates all of the poems he or she has written in I Wrote This For You back to the one person they want to read this book and calls this person “you,”

The author says in the description, “Everyone else who reads it, doesn’t get it. They may think they get it, but they don’t.” I think this shows the personal meaning behind the book and how each poem can mean something different to each person that reads them.

Each poem seems to tell a short story of heartbreak and regret. A poem from the book is called “The Skeletons In The Sea” is an example of this. 

“Truth is the last thing I can take because it’s the last thing you took,” the author writes.

One of the main feelings I get from this poem is sorrow because what I think it means is someone lied to the author right before they left him or her.

All of the poems in I Wrote This For You have very deep meanings to them even though most of the poems are only one or two sentences with the occasional poem that is a couple of paragraphs long.

My favorite poem from I Wrote This For You is called “The Children Of Time” and a line from this is, “Sunday knows she’s the end. But she closes her eyes, and she pretends with all the strength in her tiny heart that really, she’s the dawn.”

I believe this line shows that even when you know something probably will not end up going right in a situation you should still have hope because you really do not know for sure how something will turn out in the end.

Over all I think that I Wrote This For You is a really great book and I would highly recommend it.

Release date: July 24, 2015

Opening weekend revenue: $16,701,294

Lifetime gross: $51,289,443

IMDb rating: 7.7/10

Personal rating: 6.3/10

Undefeated professional boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is 43-0. His offensive, sometimes reckless, boxing style has done him well in his perfect boxing career. His wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is tragically killed in a brawl between Hope, the trash talking, title-hungry boxer Miguel “Magic” Escobar and their entourage.

After going into a harsh, depressed downward spiral, Hope ends up losing custody of his child Leila (Oona Laurence). Rejected by society and his own kin, Hope is forced to start his career over again with an underground trainer named Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) to try and defeat the current champion Escobar and avenge his wife’s untimely death.

A 6.3/10 rating is a very generous one. If  I were to rename the movie, it would be “Southpaw: the Great Disappointment.”

From the opening scene to the final credits, “Southpaw” was an enormous let down.

After Gyllenhaal’s performance in “Nightcrawler” I had high expectations for him in this follow-up film.

Gyllenhaal was not this film’s undoing. He gave a good performance for the script he was given. The issue was the poor writing and lack of connection with the characters.

There is a conversation where Hope finally gets Willis to train him. In which Willis tells Hope to be at the gym the next day, and Hope asks him “To train?” and Willis replies “No, to bake cookies.” That was one of the most pathetic, predictable, and in all honesty laughable lines I have heard out of a movie in a while.

The scene where Hope’s wife dies is an awful one. It consisted of McAdams’ poor ability to portray someone who is dying along with Gyllenhaal’s repetitive chant of saying “baby” over and over again.  

Willis is thrown into the movie way too late to be as important as a character as he is. Not only that, but the lack of background knowledge makes it hard for any viewer to feel emotionally connected to him.

Save your money, do not go to the theaters to see this movie. Stay at home, and wait to see it on TV when it plays over and over again.