August Burns Red have posted another new track off their upcoming album “Leveler”.  The newest song is called “Poor Millionaire” and you can check it out right here.

“Leveler” will be released June 21st on Solid State Records and is the follow up to “Constellations” from 2009.

Don’t forget to check out our sister site Metal Riot if this news gets you excited!  We think you’ll like what you see.

Portuguese melodic punk act Defying Control are currently in the studio recording tracks for a brand new digital EP they plan or releasing sometime next month.

If you haven’t heard of these guys and fancy yourself a fan of technical, melodic punk (aka “skate punk”) check out the video for their track “Leap of Faith” from the band’s second full-length, “Stories of Hope and Mayhem” right here.

.

.

.

[Read more…]

Florida’s folk rockers Fake Problems are here to save your day!  That is, of course, if a video of supposedly grown-up musicians acting like children would make you happy! Personally, I love it.  Check it out here!

Keep an eye out for guest appearances by a kazoo, Laura Stevenson, and James Bowman of Against Me!.

Fake Problems last released “Real Ghosts Caught On Tape” September 21st, 2010 on Side One Dummy Records.

[Read more…]

Love it or hate it, Green Day‘s “American Idiot” has sold over 14 million copies worldwide.  It has become a broadway musical, and in the not too distant future it will also be coming to a theater near you.  That’s right, Green Day is hitting the silver screen.  You can find a few details here.

For those who can’t be bothered to click over, the film will be directed by stage director Michael Mayer, and will be released by Tom Hanks’ Playtone Productions sometime in 2013.  Green Day singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong will reprise his role as St. Jimmy.

Green Day are currently working on new music to follow up 2009’s “21st Century Breakdown”.

The Damned Things may be something of a metal and rock supergroup, but read this interview and you might not get the sort of attitude one expects from such an assembly.

Featuring members of Anthrax, Every Time I Die, and Fall Out Boy, The Damned Things are gearing up to headline the Inked Magazine Music Tour this summer with Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.  A full list of dates and ticket links can be found here.

“Ironiclast”, the debut full length from The Damned Things, was released December 14th, 2010 on Mercury Records.  Take a spin around our sister site MetalRiot.com if this news made you happy.

Sounds like Chicago punk rockers Vacation Bible School might be getting up and coming to your town soon, but no promises.  Head on over here to read a cool interview with lead singer John Polydoros.

In addition to giving a history of the band, of which I was sadly unaware, Polydoros mentions that the band “recently discovered that people in other places like our band, and now that the shock of that has worn off, we’re gonna get off our asses and try to hit the road to play for some of these people”.

Vacation Bible School most recently released a limited CD pressing of the album “Ruined The Scene” last summer through Underground Communique records.

Of Mice and Men have released another track off their upcoming album “The Flood”.  This song is called “Repeating Apologies” and you can check it out right here.

.

This song will appear when “The Flood” is released on June 14th through Rise Records.

[Read more…]

Joey Cape’s Bad Loud continues to keep us in suspense waiting for new material, but right now you can get a feel for the band’s sound by checking out their take on some of Joey Cape‘s solo songs.  Click here to hear some Bad Loud, and maybe even donate some money to help the band release more music.

Consisting of Joey Cape, Asher Simon on drums, and Carl Raether on bass, Joey Cape’s Bad Loud sounds to me somewhere between the faster side of Bad Astronaut and the slower end of Lagwagon with some guest appearances by Jon Snodgrass, Chad Price, and Angus Cooke.  Decide for yourself here.

As for prior releases, Joey Cape recently released the full album version of “Doesn’t Play Well With Others”, twelve songs released one at a time through 2010.

Looking for a new punk band that doesn’t sound watered down or compromised by the growing trend of commercialized pop-punk that is being churned out lately?  If so, we present to you to you Riverside’s Slow Children.  They have been cranking out their distinct style of old school punk rock for the past seven years and today we are happy to bring you a stream of their brand new unreleased EP entitled “Crutch.”

Full of aggression, rapid beats, blazing guitars and a sense of urgency, “Crutch” will be sure to please any fans of the Choking Victim/Adolescents/Black Flag style.  Be sure to give them a listen right here and catch them on the road.

[Read more…]

For those who find their knowledge of the current European punk rock scene sufficiently lacking, Tommy Gun are a five-piece outfit from the Austrian countryside. Their latest release is the full-length “Always True,” and consists of twelve songs sung entirely in English. I’ve made my personal feelings about foreign bands singing their songs in English fairly apparent lately, though “Always True” is a solid release that gives hope to the scene.

Tommy Gun’s formula is simple: straight forward, honest-to-goodness punk rock featuring two distorted guitars and snarly vocals combining over a solid rhythm section (rock steady drums and fairly melodic bass lines), a la Strung Out, older Bouncing Souls, more recent Social Distortion or The Darlings. Real solid, enjoyable stuff.

The music definitely carries that majority of the weight on “Always True.” Album opener “Carry Me Through” has a slow buildup that leads into a modern Social D style punk tune. It is so reminiscent of Social D, in fact, that on the handful of occasions that this song has come on while I had my music on repeat, it took until the vocals kicked in for me to realize what I was listening to.  “Purpose & Decay” is about representing the punk rock ethos and hanging out with the fellas. The call-and-response portion of the pre-chorus (“I know / I know / I know / I know / We know”) comes across corny, but not enough to detract from the rest of the song. “Brutal, Rough and Dirty” sticks to the same formula, with a style similar to the punkier end of the Rancid catalog.

Halfway through the album resides “Letter I’ve Never Sent,” which is an acoustic track about (you guessed it) a series of apologetic love letters that were never sent. It’s sort of a clumsy, throwaway song that registers fairly high on the unintentional comedy scale during the chorus (“Best regards from fucking me/signed with pride and dignity”).  “All I Know” makes its home somewhere between early Blink 182 and early Social Distortion (complete with ‘ball and chain’ references in the lyrics).

Lyrically speaking, much of “Always True” is standard, younger street-punk band fare. The lion’s share of the material deals with common themes: unity, brotherhood, drinking, more drinking. As mentioned above, though, there is a fair amount of unintentional comedy involved. “My Soul For,” the album’s eleventh track, soars to higher unintentional comedy heights than most other releases are capable of. While it’s a strong, lead-guitar driven punk song, the chorus contains lines about selling one’s soul “for a six pack.” I know Austria produces some high quality beer, but this still seems as though it is setting the bar pretty low. After that, however, things take a weird turn. Consider this line: “We’re bigger than Jesus Christ and don’t give a fuck / I know he can suck my cock.” While it sounds offensive when written in black-and-white, when combined with the singer’s thick, gravelly accent, it merely comes across as silly. Eye-rollingly silly. I’ve taken some flack for bringing up the unintentional comedy thing before in relation to foreign bands trying to sing in English, but read that last line again. And again. Consider my case rested.

All things considered, “Always True” is a fairly enjoyable listen. It’s not going to be the missing link to complete your CD collection (you still have a CD collection, right?!?) and it isn’t a trailblazing, genre-shaping album by any stretch. But if you like your punk music straight-forward and with as few frills as possible, Tommy Gun are right up your alley.