With a pleasant variety of tempos and styles, the latest Victory Records compilation is more accessible and overall more enjoyable than previous albums.

Leading the way are New York's Snapcase and Ontario's Grade, dishing out tight, frenetic doses of crunchy, raw hardcore.

However, the alternate version of Grade's "A Year in the Past" lacks much of the gutteral passion present in the original recording found on Under the Radar.

Amidst the angst of love comes Comatised by Leona Naess. Though the perpetual love-and-relationship theme may be a little heart-wrenching for love-phobes, the album is a refreshing change from the many broken-hearted songs in existence.

Songs such as "Anything," "All I Want," and "Paper Thin" are lyrically lovely, set in catchy tunes and mellow melodies laced with poppy anthems.

"The courage to follow your dreams."

Theatre Calgary's latest production, Holiday, is a romantic comedy about manners, dreams, courage, people, and society. While these themes are important, they are not what bring this work of art to life; it is the characterization, dialogue and acting. The characters' caustic bitterness, heartbreaking sorrow and gut-splitting wit combine to make Holiday truly memorable.

Don't take Calgary Opera's latest offering, Johann Strauss' operetta Die Fledermaus too seriously. Yes, it may contain betrayal, flirtation, revenge, and passion, but in Act II of this entertaining production, the cast also sings a tribute to, of all things, champagne.

Ever since "Stuck in the Middle with You" made a butchering appearance in Reservoir Dogs, movie music took on a new role. Instead of simply supporting a scene, music served to diffuse explosive situations--that and mutate a song and/or band into something bigger.

For local act El Chupacabra, it means a possibility of playing mafia shows.

CBC Television recently created an important dramatic series, Drop The Beat. A behind-the-scenes look at the Canadian hip-hop industry and the culture that surrounds it, the show follows two twenty-something males, Dennis and Jeff, who host a bi-weekly hip-hop campus radio show on the fictional CIBJ in Toronto. Dennis (Merwin Mondesir) is an up-and-coming music promoter who also manages the mc/DJ duo Projekt Flow featured on the show.

Instinctive Reaction to Struggle have represented the Canadian hip-hop underground for a few years now, as part of one of the tightest crews in Toronto known as Monolith. They were responsible for most of the production behind Monolith's 1998 EP The Long Awaited… in addition to performing on the album.

Scarborough-bred duo Citizen Kane, comprised of J-Spade and Rob Blye, manage to combine deep-conscious lyrics while still maintaining their hard-edged delivery. After 10 years of hard work and dedication, CK have graduated from b-boys to being one of the most respected hip hop duos in Canada, receiving critical praise for their 1999 Juno-nominated debut, Deliverence.

"Help people who listen to it get something from it. For the betterment of the future no matter what people's skin colour or hair style is or religion or anything like that, help us to band together. You know, I don't plan or I don't even pretend to be a saviour or a preacher or anything like that, but I know we can do a lot better job at loving each other in this life. So I thank you for love, I thank you for my life and I thank you for The Book of Daniel, Lord. Amen."

"There was a void in Calgary radio, [we] just wanted to fill it," explains CJSW DJ Drew Atlas on why he and fellow Groove DJ "Gummi" created an urban music radio show.