Hardcore act Touche Amore played a short set at Backside Records in Burbank, CA, to go along with the release of their album “Parting The Sea Between Brightness and Me.” Check out the whole show right here.

“Parting The Sea Between Brightness and Me” came out June 7 on Deathwish Inc. The group will be playing FYF Fest in L.A. over Labor Day weekend and have a whole slew of other dates over at their website.

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Florida ska legends Less Than Jake dropped a surprise EP this week, and now you can get one of the songs for free. Head on over here to download “Goodbye, Mr. Personality” off of the “Greetings From Less Than Jake” release.

The whole album is only $5 and is part of a new distribution model that cuts out all the middle men usually involved so all the money goes straight to the band. You can grab that over here.

The UK-based blog I Live Sweat has been putting up essays from musicians and other scenesters about sexism in the punk scene since February, and they’ve had pieces from women like Lauren Denitzio of The Measure[SA] and Mariel Loveland of Candy Hearts. Now they’ve put up a piece from Adam Obernauer of the Brooklyn-based indie/punk band Born In A Cent. Adam talks about how his sister (and drummer) Charlene schooled him on feminist issues when they were going to shows together and about the things men can do to make women in the scene more comfortable.

Once I got more into thinking about and understanding my privileges as a white man (which is a never ending road), I became more and more aware of the ‘silent sexisms’ that are so apparent in the punk scene, that I hadn’t noticed in my younger years; The whole culture of moshing, hyper-masculinity at shows, men being homoerotic, men not taking women musicians seriously, standing in the front when you are clearly larger than other people that cannot see the show, etc. The best way I’ve learned to check myself is to ask the question, “How much space am I taking up?” If there are a bunch of men continually speaking, interrupting, conducting themselves in a loud, masculine way, and not making room for women, the space is not safe and women generally do not feel comfortable.

Read the full essay over here. Once you’re done with that, flip back through the blog to read the whole series.

Philly pop punks The Wonder Years released a bonus track from their new album “Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing.” The song is called “My Life As Rob Gordon” and you can check it out right here.

“Suburbia” came out June 14 on Hopeless Records.

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Panic Records has made a summer sampler available for free. It features ten total tracks from bands like Make Do and Mend, The Anchor Boys and others. Head on over here to download it. You can also snag last year’s summer sampler and the fall/winter one while you’re there, if you missed them.

Panic recently signed Massachusetts hardcore act Powerwolves and Buffalo act Pentimento. Both have albums coming out this summer.

Click here to watch a live performance of the new song “Get It” by Florida emo band There For Tomorrow. The song appears on the band’s upcoming release “The Verge,” out next week on Hopeless. [Read more…]

New York punk outfit The Reveling have posted their newest album “Tributaries” (Black Numbers Records) using the name-your-price option on Bandcamp.com, allowing fans to pay as much or little as they wish.

The album was officially released today (June 21). Click here to purchase, download, or stream.

Get Better Records has put together a comp as a benefit for Anthony Poynter who has been diagnosed with a late stage of cancer.  The comp has a bunch of rare tracks from a boatload of great bands including, but not limited to: Less Than Jake, Menzingers, Iron Chic, Run Forever, and more

Go here to check out all the bands, stream the album, and/or download it.  It’s worth checking out.

I first learned of the Dutch band Antillectual when I heard that Propagandhi’s Chris Hannah was lending his pipes to a track from “Start From Scratch!” After listening to them and hearing Propagandhi’s influence on their music and lyrics I can understand why they choose Hannah to be a guest vocalist. Antillectual have moved a little away from their skate/hardcore punk sound on this album in a way that’s similar to the path that Propagandhi took by pushing the limits of progressive punk. This album is their best-written, best sounding and all around best effort so far. They make use of their new limits to lay out the problems of the world with a soundtrack of fresh, new, creative melodic punk music.

Antillectual sing about one of those problems on the track “Cut From The Ground,” and Hannah’s vocals matches the song as good as his attitude fits the lyrics. The song’s premise may revolve around minor problems compared to other topics touched on later (like selling sex, gun rights or political and corporate problems) but it still should piss off any punk. Remember when the mainstream wasn’t a part of the underground community? Antillectual does. “Graffiti in the galleries, studded belts at the H&M/Tattoos on the playing field, counterculture fully enclosed” are a few examples shoplifted by mass culture.

Antillectual put a humorous twist on the meat vs. veg topic with an anti-meat anthem “Some Of My Best Friends Are Meat Eaters.” They are trying to persuade the listener to “join the (vegetarian) club.” The song starts with typical ignorant answers as to why meat eaters won’t go vegetarian. ‘”It’s dead already/As if you make a difference/You don’t know what you’re missing/It’s in our nature.”’ Then backs up the quotes with some hard evidence that being vegetarian is better because “Pamela Anderson, Weird Al Yankovic, Hitler and Meatloaf can’t be wrong.” I didn’t know that Hitler was a vegetarian.

If you need a more serious problem to dig your teeth into, don’t worry: the world is full of them and Antillectual covers some on “The Hunt Is On” by taking shots at the church, corporations and politics. The lyrics are intelligent and the music is rad. I mean you can’t really ask for more when you have smart, honest, heartfelt lyrics backed up with tight musicianship.

The album ends perfectly with “So Much More,” an ode to, well, themselves and their lives as musicians. The track starts out acoustic and then kicks in to a medium-paced jam-style rock song accompanied with some gang vocals and a beautiful sounding female vocalist. There is even a little jab at Motley Crue and all their “Girls, Girls, Girls.” The song is the icing on the record and ends with switching from vocalist to vocalist, then everyone coming together to belt out “This is our life/ We put our hearts and heads into/My brain, my hands, want to be inspired.”

It’s hard to really say who these guys sound like other than they are kind of doing their own thing. If I had to pick a few bands just to describe their sound I would say some kind of mix of Forty Cent Fix, Propagandhi, The Almighty Trigger Effect and Selfmademan. Speaking of Smallman Records artist, Selfmademan, I think this release would fit nicely in the Smallman Records catalogue so if you were a fan of what the small Canadian label put out than I think you will like these dudes.