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Animal Kingdom
“All you want is a rainbow,” offers the refrain to Animal Kingdom’s dreamy, elegiac album opener ‘Chalk Stars’. “And all you get is the rain.” It’s a contrast that also offers an insight into the London-based quartet’s brand of melancholy music that counters pop hooks with unpredictable arrangements and a dark, reflective soul. Although Animal Kingdom’s members enjoy a long shared history, the band has operated as a serious prospect for the past two years. Initially acoustically focused (“Everyone talks over an acoustic set,” explains bassist Hamish Crombie. “So we just started writing louder songs to balance things out”), Animal Kingdom have relentlessly honed their craft . . .
Avenged Sevenfold
As musicians, the members of Avenged Sevenfold are virtuosos in a time when being accomplished artists seemingly means so little. They are inquisitive and never fully satisfied with their own work. They seek to grow and improve every day, regardless of the obstacles or costs involved. They are a rock band. They are rock stars. They are Avenged Sevenfold. Avenged Sevenfold, the album, is a self-produced effort. While the band shared co-production credit on 2005’s million-selling City Of Evil with Mudrock, this new album is solely their responsibility — and they’re primed to accept it. Released by Warner Bros. Records . . .
Biffy Clyro
Drive for an hour so outside Glasgow, you'll find an unassuming little town called Ayr. It's a pretty but unremarkable place; certainly not the sort of place you expect revolutions to start. But then, if we know anything about revolutions, it's that they never happen quite when or where you expect. You'll have heard of biffy clyro before of course. About how Simon Neil and schoolfriend twins James and Ben Johnston formed their first band as young teenagers at school in the nearby town of Kilmarnock in 1995 over a shared love of experimental rock and hardcore. You'll know something of how they earned an army of rabidly devotional fans - christened Team Biffy – who followed them . . .
Billy Talent
Appearances can be deceiving. By all accounts, Billy Talent is a young band just releasing their second album. Hell, it’s even called II. But like most stories worth hearing, the best part often lies beneath the surface. While II is the Toronto-based quartet’s sophomore record, the number hardly seems appropriate for this group of friends that first began this journey 13 years ago. And it’s those years of grounded experience that kept them from sacrificing II to the dreaded second album curse. “There can be a bit of a curse but it’s a curse that’s explainable,” says guitarist Ian D’Sa. “You have your whole life to write your first record but . . .
Chiodos
Michigan sextet Chiodos already have a Billboard Top 5 album and 200,000 Stateside sales to their name with their second album ‘Bone Palace Ballet’. Released in North America by indie label Equal Vision, ‘Bone Palace Ballet’ receives a UK release on February 23rd as part of a new deal with Warner Bros. Records. Seamlessly combining elements of progressive rock, hardcore and hard-edged emo with an ability to craft an immediate pop hook, ‘Bone Palace Ballet’ demonstrates the visceral energy and tightly-honed musicianship that has made Chiodos such a huge proposition in the States . . .
Circa Survive
Whatever you think Circa Survive’s new album means, you’re right. However you understand the lyrics, in whichever way you construe the melodies, whatever emotions rise within you, whether it generates nostalgia or pain or hope or something you can’t name, Blue Sky Noise expands to encompass any possible perception of itself. The Doylestown, PA-based band’s multi-faceted sound has always allowed infinite space for interpretation, melding intricate prog and mind-bending psychedelia with massive riffs and singer Anthony Green’s reflective, intimate lyricism. With Blue Sky Noise, Circa Survive have crystallized their . . .
Cobra Starship
Gabe Saporta was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, a tiny wedge of a country between Argentina and Brazil. At age four he immigrated to Queens with dreams of becoming a rockstar. His father, Diego, who had been a doctor in Uruguay, sold scarves on the streets of Manhattan to support his son's habits. By age twenty, Gabe was well on his way to realizing his dream. In typical rockstar fashion, he crafted existentialist drivel out of his big bag of regurgitated bullshit, developed a messiah complex big enough to house a couple of homeless people, and spread his "gospel" to the four corners of the earth. Also in typical rockstar fashion, he talked a lot of shit, picked fights, and ended up in a bunch of legal battles.
Cute Is What We Aim For
Cute Is What We Aim For is a four-piece power pop band, formed in 2005 in Buffalo, New York and is currently on Fueled By Ramen Records. They released their Billboard 200-charting debut album The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch in 2006. Life is short and the last thing we want to do is waste your time. By now, you already know the myriad of feats Cute Is What We Aim For has accomplished since forming in 2005. The band’s 2006 debut The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch spent countless months on the Billboard Top 200 Charts; the group successfully headlined Alternative Press’ Bands You Need To Know . . .
Dead By Sunrise
You know the voice. With Linkin Park, that voice has shared stages with Paul McCartney, Jay-Z, Alice In Chains, the Doors, Perry Farrell. It’s won four American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, and two Grammy’s, and headlined stadiums around the world. Right now it is the driving musical force behind the theme song to the biggest movie of the year, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And it is a voice that is loved and revered by fans around the world. Yeah, you know the voice of Chester Bennington. And now, stepping outside of Linkin Park on Out Of Ashes, the first album from his new project, Dead By Sunrise . . .
Death Cab For Cutie
When asked to describe Death Cab For Cutie’s sixth studio album, Narrow Stairs, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Chris Walla characterizes it as “having teeth,” and we can’t think of a more apt summarization of the disc. While many bands in Death Cab For Cutie’s situation would try to recreate the success of hit songs like “Soul Meets Body” or “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” instead the band have crafted the most ambitious and varied album of their career by simply doing what they’ve been doing since they formed in Bellingham, Washington a decade ago – made a brilliant record that refuses to pander, while stretching the artistic boundaries of what a Death Cab For Cutie record should sound like.
Deftones
“Pretty,” affirms Deftones singer and guitarist Chino Moreno when discussing their new full-length studio album, Diamond Eyes. “We’re not afraid to be pretty.” It’s an adjective most riff-heavy groups might avoid, but then, Deftones have never been your average hard rock band.
As kids, the Sacramento fivesome cut its teeth on Anthrax and The Smiths, Pantera and The Cure, skateboarding and “The Smurfs.” As a band out of high school, Deftones mixed trip hop with thrash, melodic vocals with crushing reverb, and yes, pretty with ugly. As chart-toppers and headliners, they’ve crossed over genres, defied categorization . . .
Disturbed
Burbank, CA – Grammy-nominated hard rock band Disturbed are in the studio putting the finishing touches on a new album, entitled Asylum. The release is the follow-up to their 2008 platinum album Indestructible, which spawned the Active Rock smash single “Inside the Fire.” Asylum will be released by Reprise Records in late summer. As with Indestructible, Disturbed are self-producing Asylum, which they began writing in September 2009 and recording in February of this year. Front man David Draiman describes it as “still identifiably Disturbed, but showing more maturation. We feel this is one of the strongest bodies . . .
Enter Shikari
Common Dreads is the new album by St. Albans-based quartet Enter Shikari. It was born in a back garden shed in St. Albans after a mental two years (we’ll get to that in a minute) in the lives of these young men. Here, during summer 2008, in a bungalow dubbed The Low built in bassist Chris Batten’s parents’ back garden, the words and music came together. The band then moved to Arreton Manor, a studio amongst the remote and picturesque rolling moors of the Isle Of Wight with producer Andy Gray (who has not only worked with U2, Korn and Tori Amos, but penned that ubiquitous Big Brother theme music). In this the rural seclusion that seems totally odds with the apoplectic and articulate . . .
Foals
What links the minimalism of American composer Steve Reich, guitars that sound like insects and tennis player Andy Roddick? The answer is one word: Foals. The explanation is a bit more complicated. Let’s start at the beginning. Foals are a five-piece dance-rock band currently living in their home town Oxford. Yannis Philippakis (20, vocals/guitar), Edwin Congreave (22, keyboards), Walter Gervers (23, bass), Jimmy Smith (22, guitar) and Jack Bevan (21, drums) met in their native city, where they bonded over a shared sense of humour. Bored with the interchangeable electro records they heard at every party, they decided to make the kind of music they wanted to dance to. “We wanted to make music that was very technical . . .
Gallows
Welcome to Grey Britain. Welcome to the real Britain: a land of poverty, petty violence, bad diets, bad attitudes. A land of dole queues, decay and dealers; ignorance and Jeremy Kyle DNA tests; of knives and gangs and ASBOs worn as badge of honour. Welcome to Gallows’ new state of the nation address. Grey Britain is Gallows’ second album. It was recorded in 2008 at London’s RAK studios, alongside a 33-piece string section recorded at Air Studios and piano pieces at Abbey Road - with producer Garth ‘GGGarth’ Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Biffy Clyro) at the controls. A damning indictment and aural document of a . . .
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
So starts the second album from 21-year-old Sam Duckworth, aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. And it really is some journey, one that adds a roomful of musicians to the laptop and guitar that populated his critically acclaimed first album, 2006’s The Chronicles Of A Bohemian Teenager and that quantum leaps his sound into musically broad and defiantly joyful new territory. It marries GCWCF’s proven lyrical talent with expansive orchestration, razor-sharp laptop beats, folkish, fervent guitars and even a touch of afro-beat. “I started making it on my computer as we were touring, but the more I got into it, the less I wanted to make a bedroom sounding record. I wanted a tangible . . .
Gnarls Barkley
“There is a part of myself that I would prefer to set free. If my heart could reach its full potential inside of a lifetime, my mind would reel at its accomplishments. But my heart can’t remember which sock goes on first.” Is love ever "real"? When something ends, did it ever happen at all? If we're forever sealed in our own skins, can we connect with others, or are we doomed to face our own unique struggles alone? How do we know when it’s time to run? Are these the kinds of questions that should be addressed in brisk, infectious pop songs? Gnarls Barkley, an enigmatic presence in the entertainment business, formally introduced himself in 2006, to the tune of the popular song "Crazy." He released . . .
Green Day
DATELINE — Burbank, CA — Reprise Records will release Green Day’s long-awaited eighth studio album, entitled 21st Century Breakdown, on Friday, May 15th, 2009. The album is the best-selling trio’s first studio album since 2004’s two-time Grammy Award-winning punk-rock opera American Idiot, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, spawned five hit singles, and went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide. 21st Century Breakdown is divided into three acts: “Heroes and Cons,” “Charlatans and Saints,” and “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” and follows a young couple, Christian and Gloria, through the mess and promise of the century so far. Songs . . .
Gym Class Heroes
If you thought Gym Class Heroes were difficult to categorize in the past, with their latest release, The Quilt, it’s literally become impossible – and we mean that in the best way imaginable. In fact, the follow-up to 2006’s gold-selling As Cruel As School Children doesn’t just see the band expanding on their unique blend of hip-hop, rock, soul and punk, but transcending it. When childhood friends Travis McCoy and drummer Matt McGinley decided to start a band in upstate New York over a decade ago, they could have never anticipated how successful Gym Class Heroes would eventually become. How could they have predicted . . .
Hadouken
Looking for a band who sum up the genre-vaulting, scene-splicing, boundary-pushing spirit of music in 2008? A band who can skip between grime, emo, drum’n’bass and euphoric rave in the space of a single chorus? A band whose very existence causes division between trad-rock bores and the youthful, enthusiastic, attention-hopping minds of a younger generation? Then you need look no further than Hadouken!, a band who’ve spent the last two years surfing the cutting edge of the music scene, armed with enough sonic ideas to make your common-or-garden indie band run for cover. The last year of Hadouken!’s hectic . . .
Halestorm
Halestorm unleashes a turbulent torrent of infectious hard rock on their self-titled Atlantic debut. The band—guitarist Joe Hottinger, bassist Josh Smith, drummer Arejay Hale and singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale—churn out uncompromising rock n' roll anthems. Drawing from an arsenal of songs that she's penned since she was 13, Lzzy examines love and life on the edge. Lzzy and her brother Arejay formed Halestorm in 1998 while in middle school. They immediately began playing local shows and garnered a following across Pennsylvania. The band line-up was solidified with the addition of Joe and Josh. Further honing their sound . . .
Hard-Fi
Hard-Fi are approaching a dramatic new apex in their career. Critically acclaimed, commercially successful and tower block tall, the West London four-piece continue to reinvigorate music with raw, category-defying sounds and instant, merciless beats. Neither bound by musical restriction or industry expectation, they follow their blazing, genre-defining Number 1 debut ‘Stars of CCTV’ with the eagerly anticipated ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’, September 3rd. In short, Hard-Fi are the sound of now. Written by frontman Richard Archer and co-produced by Richard with Wolsey White, it’s a landmark LP of scopic, wide-eyed, unrepressed tracks. Mixed by Spike Stent (U2, Bjork & . . .
HIM
"It's not a happy album, I wouldn’t say that," admits HIM frontman Ville Valo of the band’s newest release Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice. "But for the first time HIM does acknowledge that there is such a thing called ‘happiness,’ even if it is far, far away. This album is more a speculation on how to get there, — and that it is possible." Such song titles as "Heartkiller" (the simultaneously gorgeous and intense first single), "Dying Song," and "Acoustic Funeral" ought to allay any fan fears, even if the album opens with the inviting and intriguing "In Venere Veritas" — loosely Latin for "In Love There Is Truth." Still, Valo recognizes that even the emotional expansion from the full-brooding . . .
Jacks Mannequin
Jack’s Mannequin will release their second album ‘The Glass Passenger’ on March 9th on Warner Bros. Records / Sire. The album follows the 2005 debut ‘Everything in Transit’ and represents their first album release in the UK. After his band Something Corporate decided to take a break in the summer of 2004, Andrew McMahon found himself writing a batch of confessional piano-driven songs that explored his return home to Orange County and his attempt to reconnect with the people he had alienated when he left to tour with Something Corporate. With the help of several musician friends (which included Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee), McMahon began recording the album ‘Everything in Transit’ under the . . .
Kids In Glass Houses
Welsh quintet Kids in Glass Houses are set to release their second album ‘DIRT’ on March 29th. The album will be preceded by the Radio 1 play listed single ‘Matters At All’ on March 15th, and will be followed by a headline UK tour in May. The follow-up to 2008’s ‘Smart Casual’ which spawned singles such as ‘Give Me What I Want’, ‘Easy Tiger’ and ‘Saturday’, new album ‘DIRT’ was recorded in Tornillo, Texas at Sonic Ranch Studios with Jason Perry (The Blackout, ‘A’) Parts were also recorded on the road during the New Found Glory tour (who appear on Maybe Tomorrow), and at Jason’s studio in Essex, where the band met Frankie Sandford (The Saturdays) by chance, and invited her to appear on ‘Undercover Lover’.
LIGHTS
Most twenty-two year pop stars have an army of professional image sculptors behind them: producers, songwriters, stylists, abused assistants. But Lights, who grew up all over the world, is used to traveling light, so she decided she'd simplify things by doing all those jobs herself. "It's easy to misconstrue a young girl singer as a total puppet. I am the opposite of that. This is what I do. I am Lights." Born in Timmins, Ontario, Lights lived in the Philippines and Jamaica during her elementary school years. "My family is very get-up-and-go if we feel called to do something different," the singer explains. "It was a really important thing to learn about as a kid, that nothing is so important . . .
Linkin Park
Minutes To Midnight (Machine Shop Recordings/Warner Bros. Records) is the third studio release from Linkin Park (Hybrid Theory, 2000; Meteora, 2003), set for release internationally on May 14, with the North American release one day later on May 15. The album, co-produced by the legendary Rick Rubin and band frontman Mike Shinoda, took 14 months to write and record. This intensive process resulted in the recording of over one hundred rough ideas for songs. The album’s first single, “What I’ve Done,” debuted at #1 at Alternative and #3 on Active charts. The album title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, a clock created in 1947 by scientists from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the . . .
Little Boots
The arrival of Little Boots has signalled something of a collective epiphany. Sometimes you don’t know what has been missing from your life until it’s right there in the room with you, and then you wonder how you ever managed without it. It has been barely a year since her solo project tentatively began, and already Victoria Hesketh is UK pop music’s most talked about new star. Ticking off every major piece of ‘next big thing’ feature press without even a properly released single to her name, she’s a rare instance of mirrored and completely justified industry and public hysteria. Each crystal-tipped sabre of dance-pop truth is as instant and succinct as it is pulse-racingly powerful . . .
Marmaduke Duke
Duke Pandemonium is the new album by Marmaduke Duke. It is Part II of a musical trilogy that began with the acclaimed debut The Magnificent Duke, released in 2005 on Captains Of Industry. Marmaduke Duke is the self-created surreal musical word of enigmatic Scottish duo The Atmosphere and The Dragon, two frontmen better known as Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro and JP Reid of Sucioperro respectively. “We’re second cousins,” explains The Atmosphere. “We were drawn together by mutual friends, but it was only after we started making music together that we found out we’re related.” “Our bloodlines can be traced back to a royal dynasty over 1000 years ago,” adds The Dragon. “Our great, great . . .
Mastodon
Prog metal behemoths Mastodon, release their highly anticipated 4th album, “Crack the Skye” on March 23rd on Reprise Records. Recorded in their hometown of Atlanta, GA with producer Brendan O Brien ( AC/DC, Pearl Jam), “Crack the Skye” takes you on an epic journey from start to finish. One that involves astral travel, wormholes, and even Rasputin. Since forming in 2000, Mastodon have essentially lived on the road. After non-stop touring, the band, Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher, Troy Sanders and Brent Hinds decided to record a demo, which would ultimately be released in a shortened EP form on Relapse Records as Lifeblood . .
Mayday Parade
It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while a band comes along who have crafted a sound that's so unique it's hard to believe they haven't been playing together for decades. For the past four years, the members of Tallahassee, Florida's Mayday Parade--vocalist/keyboardist Derek Sanders, bassist Jeremy Lezno, guitarists Alex Garcia and Brooks Betts and drummer Jake Bundrick--have been perfecting their unique brand of pop-inflected punk rock, a process that is currently culminating with the release of their major-label debut Anywhere But Here. "We really just wanted to follow our own path on this record and not worry about if we fit in anywhere," Bundrick explains . . .
Muse
The Muse that drove out of Glastonbury 2004 was a very different one from the Muse that had arrived. Following seven years of near solid touring, buzzing with nervous anticipation; their escalation from being the biggest band in Teignmouth in 1997 to one of the biggest bands in Europe by 2004 had been a rocket ride but still, closing Glastonbury was a major step-up, a classic Eavis gamble, and with a weary, mud-drenched crowd facing a long Sunday night welly-trudge home even Muse themselves doubted they could pull it off. “We got offered the headline slot which scared the shit out of us to start with because we didn’t think we were big enough to do it,” says bassist Chris . . .
My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance would like to announce that its multi-platinum, critically acclaimed album The Black Parade is officially dead. Born October 23rd, 2006, The Black Parade has sold more than 1.3 million copies in the U.S. alone, spawned four smash singles, and served as the inspiration for the band’s 2007-2008 World Tour. But all is not lost. From the album’s ashes rises The Black Parade is Dead!, a live CD/DVD, released today, that features concert highlights from two very different shows on the world tour: the huge Palacio de los Deportes sports arena in Mexico City on October 7th, 2007 and the intimate Maxwell’s club . . .
Panic At The Disco
For a second, forget everything you already know about Panic At The Disco. That means forgetting that the band’s 2005 debut A Fever You Can’t Sold Out has sold over 2.2 million copies to date; that their video for “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” became a #1 hit on MTV and snagged one of the network’s video music awards for best video in 2006; and, finally, erasing from your mind all of the sold-out clubs the band have played over the past three years and the ubiquity of Panic At The Disco’s music—and mugs—on radio stations, television programs and magazine covers all over the world. These days, a sensation like Panic At The . . .
Paramore
As Paramore embark on the most successful year of their career, there seems to be no limit as to what they can accomplish. The band’s last 2007 album RIOT! has sold over two million copies worldwide, the group was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2008 for “Best New Artist” and even their live CD/DVD The Final Riot! has gone gold. However while these statistics are impressive, record sales have never been the driving force behind Paramore—and that fact has never been as evident as it is on the group’s highly anticipated third full-length brand new eyes. In fact, as excited as this group of young adults from Franklin, Tennessee are to have had the opportunity to tour with their heroes like Jimmy Eat World and No Doubt over the . . .
Pendulum
Pendulum formed in their home-town of Perth (Western Australia) in 2002, when producers Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen teamed up with acclaimed local DJ Paul 'Elhornet' Harding. While their individual formative roots ranged from producing drum & bass, breakbeat and hardcore, to playing in metal and punk bands, their comparable talents proved an unstoppable force when they managed to single-handedly conquer the world of drum & bass in their first 12 months together. So apart from that, what the hell are Pendulum all about? In the words of the boys themselves. "We want our music to be an escape. While . . .
Regina Spektor
APRIL 13, 2009 – BURBANK, CA -- Sire Records and Regina Spektor are very proud to announce the release of Far; the highly anticipated follow up to Spektor's gold album Begin to Hope. Set for a June 23rd release, Far continues to reveal new layers in Spektor's songwriting as she pursues the next level in her inimitable musical style. With her uninhibited imagination and her hands-on approach in the studio, Far not only succeeds with 13 impressive and accessible tracks, but it spotlights Spektor's remarkable gift to craft intelligent and refreshingly honest odes to life. Four exceptional producers collaborated with Spektor on Far: Jeff Lynne (ELO, The Traveling Wilburys), Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre,
Seasick Steve
Steve Wold is called Seasick Steve because he gets, erm, Seasick!
After leaving home at the age of 14, he became a genuine hobo (hopping freights, working the farms, getting locked up and such ) in the 1950’s and 1960’s – but always dragging along his 100-year old guitar with him, playing on street corners to earn enough to eat. This era is the inspiration behind the music he plays today, and boy does he have an arsenal of tales to tell! He started to get asked to perform in and around his native Bay area of Cali, and opened for Son House amongst other blues giants, and actually played in Lightnin’ Hopkins’ and John Lee . . .
Shinedown
Early in 2007, producer Rob Cavallo asked Shinedown frontman Brent Smith about his goals for the band's new album. Smith didn't hesitate. "I said, 'You know what -- when I'm dead and gone, when everybody in this band has passed or what have you, I want the world to remember this as a record that needed to be made, and that there was a reason for it,' " Smith says. "That was the motivation behind this album.” "And part of the reason it took so long to make!" Welcome then to THE SOUND OF MADNESS, Shinedown's third album -- and the Florida rockers' boldest effort to date. Like its two predecessors, 2003's Platinum . . .
Silversun Pickups
The L.A. quartet has emerged from the depths of recording studios and is ready to flaunt their new material, including a performance at Coachella Friday, April 17. “I’m really proud of Swoon,” singer/guitarist Brian Aubert says. “I felt that we started this thing with a complete blank slate just kind of staring at a big mountain, not knowing where this was going to go. Everyone worked so insanely hard and I feel like you hear that we were in there every day trying to make the best songs that we could.” A pair of these new songs will be unveiled just prior to the album’s release as part of an exclusive Silversun Pickups Track Pack . . .
Simple Plan
Two albums. Seven million copies sold worldwide. A string of hits like "I'd Do Anything," "Addicted," "Perfect," and "Welcome to My Life." A worldwide legion of fans who can testify to the power of one of the fiercest live shows ever to hit the boards. At this juncture, Lava/Atlantic rockers Simple Plan simply seem to have it locked. So for their crucial third album the group could just head back into the studio and do just what's worked so well in the past, right? Not quite. Welcome to "SIMPLE PLAN," not just an album but a statement of artistic ambition and growth from the Montreal-based quintet. As you'd expect from any band that . . .
Sneaky Sound System
Arguably the biggest band in Australia right now is Sneaky Sound System. Their single ‘I Love It’ had the longest chart run in Oz history, their debut album has gone twice platinum and at one point they had four singles in the Top 40. They played the Antipodean Live Earth concert, supported Robbie Williams, and cleaned up at the Arias, the down-under version of the Brits. Yet Sneaky are not a hard-touring rock band or a manufactured pop act. They’re certainly pop and proud of it, but their background lies in their country’s exploding dance scene. Sneaky Sound System are Sydney trio Miss Connie (Connie Mitchell) . . .
Switchfoot
“Hello Hurricane acknowledges the storms that tear through our lives,” states Switchfoot singer and songwriter Jon Foreman. “This album is an attempt to respond to those storms with an element of hope, trying to understand what it means to be hopeful in a world that keeps on spinning.” With Hello Hurricane, Switchfoot is set to thrive in 2009 with a newfound independence: a new home studio HQ, a new label, and a return-to-roots creativity and sense of purpose. After ten non-stop years of working as the world’s most humble multi-million selling rock band, the hard-charging North County San Diego-based quintet saw . . .
Taking Back Sunday
New Again – For Taking Back Sunday it’s more than an album title, it’s a declaration. “We kicked around a bunch of different titles, but that one always remained the top of the list, and that’s because it really does feel like a new band,” vocalist Adam Lazzara says. Taking Back Sunday is not turning their collective back on what is already a storied past, not when their resume boasts three gold albums, two of which hit the top five (including a #2 debut for 2006’s Louder Now), extensive touring with the likes of Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, and Jimmy Eat World, as well as co-headlining the Warped package and appearing at the . . .
The Days
Another day, another sparkling pop gem comes winging out of a grungily cool west London recording studio. The Days are hunkered down in Eastcote, the vibey little wellspring of much of the last Arctic Monkeys’ album. They’re hard at it, demoing new songs: b-sides, future singles, ideas for albums two, three, four. Blessed with a profusion of crisp tunes, The Days have put in serious studio time, some of it with Youth. Now, some young bands would be daunted by the prospect of working with the uber-producer behind records by everyone from The Verve to Primal Scream via INXS – as The Days cheerfully admit, ‘Youth is mental, in a good way. He knows how to get the best out of people.’ But
The Enemy
Return with April 27th release of bold new album ‘Music For The People’; album preceded by single ‘No Time For Tears’ on April 13th. The Enemy follow their all-conquering, chart-topping debut ‘We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’ with the release of their bold new album ‘Music For The People’ on April 27th. Released on Warner Bros. Records, the album will be previewed with the April 13th release of the single ‘No Time For Tears’. Recorded at Monnow Valley Studios towards the close of 2008 with producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight), ‘Music For The People’ is a bold step ahead of the Coventry trio’s debut album, mixing . . .
The Flaming Lips
Nowadays, here in America, there is a deluge of metaphysical paranoia constantly flowing out of the new, smart, radical, fanatical, hippie, drug culture underground. It almost always centers around the exaggerated evil powers of George W. Bush and the exaggerated benevolent benefits of psychedelic drugs... mostly Ecstasy and L.S.D. And, inevitably, the speculative conversations suggest that perhaps some of the (spoiled, radical, hippie, enfant terrible) sons and daughters of the most influential power lobbyist pals of the Bush administration should somehow infiltrate a Camp David assemblage (or any secret meeting) and give them all a
The Friday Night Boys
It may seem like Fairfax, Virginia’s The Friday Night Boys have led a charmed life thus far, but to say they don’t deserve everything that’s come their way would be an out-and-out lie. Like many of today’s breakthrough musical acts, The Friday Night Boys—which features frontman Andrew Goldstein, bassist Robby Dallas Reider, guitarist Mike Toohey and drummer Chris Barrett—got their start on the Internet. However where their story goes from there is where things really get
interesting. Just one year after this group of tight-knit high-school acquaintances formed The Friday Night Boys, they decided to . . .
The Swellers
From the perpetually down-on-its-luck, blue collar, rustbelt factory town of Flint, Michigan, comes new Fueled By Ramen signees The Swellers, a punk band that knows a thing or two about making hard, no-nonsense, but infinitely catchy music. Following in the footsteps of other hard- Flintites who've made their name on the world stage—film provocateur Michael Moore, ’70s hard rock pioneers Grand Funk Railroad, ’80s grindcore/deathmetal pioneers Repulsion, and the late rapper M.C. Breed—The Swellers have forged a hardedged, yet accessible style of punk over the better part of a decade, the last three of which have
The Used
A few years ago, while preparing to send the album art for b-side collection Shallow Believer to his record label, Bert McCracken scrawled the word “Artwork” across its cover in silver ink. The sentiment, which, to Bert and his bandmates in The Used, resonated with both extreme simplicity and indescribable complexity, said everything without really having to say anything. Now, the Utah band has titled their fourth full-length album with that very word: Artwork. The group started writing the album after finishing the Taste of Chaos International tour in 2007, slowly collecting and jamming out ideas with no concrete intention
The Veronicas
Already massive pop stars in their native Australia, 24-year-old twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso, known as The Veronicas, spent most of 2008 winning over legions of new fans while on the road with Natasha Bedingfield, Hanson, and the Jonas Brothers in support of their red-hot second album Hook Me Up, which was released by Sire Records in August 2008. Clearly, all their hard work has paid off. “Untouched,” the first single from the electro-rock sizzler Hook Me Up, is the girls’ first-ever gold record in the U.S., having sold more than half a million downloads. The track caught fire at radio (especially New York’s trend-
The Virgins
If someone made a film about The Virgins, the director’s pitch to the studio would be Stand By Me meets The Goonies meets Kids. It’d be an adventure story full of crime, hedonism, self-discovery and, more importantly, friendship against-all-odds. Three boys from opposite sides of NYC with polarised backgrounds, united in bizarre twists of fate and a shared love of good-times and guitars. This time last year, few could have guessed that this bunch of tear-aways would be preparing one of 2009’s gleaming radio-indie Trojan-horse albums. ‘The Virgins: The Movie’ idea wasn’t without substance. The band’s core trio are . . .
The Wombats
At first, The Wombats were a joke they didn’t want anyone to find funny.
“For our first gig we wore jesters’ hats with sunglasses,” says guitarist/singer Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy. “They had bells on the end,” adds drummer/singer Dan Haggis. Murph: “In the middle of the songs we’d break into uncontrollable screaming. The idea was not to be funny.” Dan: “If people laughed we’d be like ‘ah we dogged it’. We wanted it to die on its feet. Literally people would just stand there and there’d be this awful silence. You know like in The Office when there’s a dreadful silence, and the next day we’d be like ‘Ah that was amazing that bit . . .
Versa Emerge
For some people creating music is a choice, but for others it’s what they were born to do. VersaEmerge clearly fit into the latter camp. VersaEmerge was formed by drummer Anthony Martone and guitarist/vocalist Blake Harnage back when both members were in high school. Although the duo instantly experienced regional success selling out their first ever gig and gaining critical acclaim in their local music scene, it wasn’t until the band solidified their line-up—which currently includes guitarist Jerry Pierce, vocalist Sierra Kusterbeck and bassist Devin Ingelido—that things really started happening for this dedicated . . .
Wilco
As 2009 begins historically in America, so begins what is shaping up to be another historic year for the Chicago rock band Wilco - the group formed by guitarist and songwriter Jeff Tweedy in the mid-1990s. 2009 will see the release of a new studio album – their seventh. It follows their Grammy-nominated 2007 recording Sky Blue Sky (which followed their 2005 double Grammy winner A ghost is born). Recordings have been underway at the band’s Chicago studio, The Loft. The current plan is to emerge from Chicago’s deep freeze with a completed album by the spring thaw (which in Chicago could mean summer…).
