The world isn’t quite sure what to think of Blink-182 these days. Sure, they had a hugely-hyped reunion. Yes, they promised us a new album in 2009. No, that new album isn’t released yet. But at least they’re progressing this time… and I think they mean it. They’ve slapped on a deadline for finishing recording on July 31st! Now let’s hope it just doesn’t take a whole extra year to master, like it did to their Canadian number brothers Sum 41.

Well, if you’re just itching for more Blink-182-related news, and their headlining slot on the Honda Civic Tour just isn’t gonna do it for you, click here to see lyrics for a new song penned by Mark Hoppus, called “Kaleidoscope.”

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Louisiana hardcore-turned-black-metal group Iwrestledabearonce is getting ready to hand out a summer album, and then embark on a summer tour. They have released the artwork (seen to the left) and tracklisting of “Ruining It For Everybody,” which you can check out here. I personally think the title reminds me of Face To Face…

“Ruining It For Everybody” will hit stores July 26 via Century Media, just in time for the continent-spanning All Stars Tour. You can view tour dates here.

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It’s looking to be a good summer for ska. Streetlight Manifesto and Reel Big Fish are on a co-headlining tour, and Boston’s Big D & The Kids Table are releasing a brand new album. Tonight, the band released a medley of tunes that will be on the album, entitled “For The Damned, The Dumb and The Delirious.”  Check it out right here.

The recording features snippets of One Day, Stringers, and Modern American Gypsy, the latter of which was released last week. Listen to that here.

The album will be out on June 18th via SideOneDummy.

Winter chills didn’t stop 12 bands and hundreds of punters converging on Spoonfest to enjoy a mixed line-up of a little punk, a little hardcore and some balls to the wall rock.  Luca Brasi really stepped up to the plate, Local Resident Failure reminded Brisbane of just how awesome they are and shoe bongs were rife.  Without future adieu welcome to the first ever Dying Scene photo gallery provided by the extremely talented Stephen Goodwin  of Spoonfest 2011.  To view the gallery click here.

[DS Note] Mad props go to Anamari Goicoechea from AMG Entertainment, Chris Hunter from Give The Kids What They Want plus Denis Hogan and Ben Trotter from Your Daughters Records for organising and executing a great night.  Double thanks go to Stephen Goodwin for lending his talent and providing amazing photos of the evening.  Finally, a triple thanks goes to everyone who walked through the door, had a beer and made it such an awesome night for punk-mothertrucking-rock.  THANKS!

Photo credit:  Stephen Goodwin

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SideOneDummy Records have just announced that the second installment of their “Complete Control Sessions” is going to be with DC punk/hardcore legends Scream.  The label will be releasing a seven song EP recorded live in Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 this past February (with John Lousteau and Scream behind the board), and according to the press release “it picks up where the band’s 1993 swansong, “Fumble” left off.”

Scream’s Complete Control Session will be the second in a series of studio recordings that air on SideOneDummy Records co-owners nationally syndicated all punk rock “Complete Control Radio” show. The music will be released on 10” vinyl and via digital download on August 16th, 2011 via SideOneDummy Records.

Scream is currently playing shows in North Carolina with Corrosion of Conformity and in Washington, DC with OFF! The band will be announcing more tour date this summer around the release of their Complete Control Sessions.

Head over to the bands website to check out a new song and in the studio video of Scream recording their Complete Control Session.

Anyone who has ever listened to a Tiger Army album should not be surprised that when Nick 13 decided to release a solo album, it turned out to be a country one. The music of Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash and many other country/western legends has always been an obvious influence on the music that Tiger Army has released and each disc contains one song that could only be described as ‘country’ (“Outlaw Heart,” “The Long Road,” etc).

So, as a longtime fan of the band and as a man who usually thinks that the ‘country’ song is the best one on the album, I figured I was in for a treat with this new record. For the most part, I was correct in assuming that I would like this record; I DO like it, but it does have some problems. The first problem is the albums length. At ten songs (really only eight since two are re-recordings of Tiger Army songs, more on those later) and under forty minutes, it’s a bit on the short side. Tiger Army albums are regularly on the short side, but since it has been so long since the last proper album (2007’s “Music From Regions Beyond”) I was hoping for a longer run time for this solo effort.

Complaining about the album’s length may seem like petty bitching to many of you, and normally I’d agree, but my second issue with the disc, (the re-recordings) ties directly in with the run time and just compounds the problem. For this solo endeavor, Nick 13 decided to ‘cover’ two Tiger Army songs and I have to say that I’m not thrilled with the way either of them turned out. The first is the song “Cupid’s Victim.” I love the original version of this song but the countrified version just doesn’t work for me at all. This is not a song that needed to be slowed down, and in doing so, Nick pulled the balls (for lack of a better word) right off of it.  The second ‘cover’ is the song “In The Orchard.” This was a ‘country’ styled song when it made its first appearance (both of the covers on “Nick 13″ appeared on the Tiger Army album ‘II: The Power Of Moonlight” in 2001), so why redo it on the ‘country’ album? The original was heavy on the slide guitar (which was incredible) and it’s lacking in the new version. To me, these songs are a bit of a waste of space. Both are inferior to their original versions and I plan to delete both of them from my iPod after I finish writing this review, making this an eight song album that checks in at about a half-hour long.

Now that I’ve gotten the negative aspects of this disc out of the way, I’d like to talk about the positives. As you’ll recall from a few paragraphs ago, I said that I like this album. Allow me to tell you why. The first thing is Nick’s vocals. I personally think Nick 13 has one of the best voices in music, let alone in the Psycho/Horror-billy genres. This guy can actually sing and I love to hear him sing. The eight original songs that are on this album range from really good to awesome, and those songs make this album worth the purchase price.

My favorite is probably the song “Carry My Body Down.” This one could have easily fit on a Tiger Army album (as that one country song towards the end of the disc). It’s a song about wondering how and when you’ll die, and the music gives me a feeling like I’m on a horse that is slowly walking towards death. It plays like a song that you’d hear in an old black and white western in the scene right before the hero marches off to face some unsurvivable shoot out.

Another great one is the track “All Alone.” This one features nice use of the standup bass (a Tiger Army standard) and is about…being alone. The fiddle adds a nice touch to this song. This song reminds me of driving across some vast desert and seeing no signs of life; the feeling you’d get thirty minutes after passing the billboard that read ‘Last gas for 200 miles’.

“101” is also a really good track, a little more on the rockin’ side of the western sound. I can picture a bunch of people in cowboy hats line dancin’ to this number. It has a simple chorus (“on the 101”) but Nick’s voice gives it more depth than you’d expect from three little words.

If you are a fan of Tiger Army’s slower moments, you should enjoy this disc but I wouldn’t say that it’s for every fan. Nick 13 made an album that showcased some of the music that influenced him (Mike Ness did the same in the late 90’s with his two ‘country’ albums) and it’s not going to appeal to every Tiger Army fan. Personally, I really enjoyed the new music, I wish it was longer but… it is what it is, and what it is , is a pretty damn good album. One that I look forward to listening to on those hot summer evenings that are quickly heading our way.

When one spends any amount of time vacationing in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, one does not come away with the sense that they are in the middle of a punk/metal hotbed. As such, it came as a bit of a surprise to learn that Flippin’ Heck hail from the mean streets of Toulouse, France, which is affectionately known as the Pink City. They play the same brand of gritty, fast-paced punk rock that was popularized in the budding post-1977, pre-1983 era of gritty, DIY punk music. Fuzzed out guitars, understated bassline, rudimentary percussion; the same sound that has been inspiring sweaty, basement mosh pits for decades.

“As Punk As Possible” marks the band’s debut album. While there is nothing too ground-breaking going on in their sound, “As Punk As Possible” does consist of thirteen mostly-solid old-school punk rock songs, in the same vein as Cheifs, the Germs or the Dead Boys. Highlights include “1977,” an ode to, you guessed it, the music and ethos of an earlier punk rock time with it’s chorus of “D.I.Y. is my way to live, in no future I believe.” More on that interesting word-grouping later. “Preachers of the Apocalypse” is probably the best song on the album, and “Shattered” is another solid, early punk sounding tune. “Cowboy” sounds similar to “1977,” but with a few “yee-haws” thrown in for good measure; the song is called “Cowboy” after all. It actually could pass for a song from the punkier end of the Rancid spectrum, a la “Maxwell Murder.”

The vocals are also pretty cool. Lead singer Mika has a peculiar voice that is certainly an acquired taste but that I actually find rather endearing. He has a gravelly, gutteral voice that is not unlike Iron Lung from Scissorfight meets early James Hetfield, but sings in heavily-accented which lends his voice a unique brand of virtual unintelligibility. This sets up a fairly high degree of unintentional comedy that is as prevalent in the album as snare drum hits are. Allow me to explain…

I apologize in advance if the next couple of paragraph comes across as the rantings of a radical Anglophile, but I really don’t quite understand the rationale behind non-native English speaking bands deciding to release their material in their second language. “As Punk As Possible” would, in my humble opinion, be a much better album if the lyrics were completely in French. I have a soft spot for late 70s-early 80s punk music, and Flippin’ Heck do a very respectable job with the sound. But the lyrics are a different story. Take “J.E.F.F.” for example. The chorus of the song finds the band revealing that the song title’s backronym stands for “Joy, Erotic and double Fuck.” “In Between”  has a sloppy metal-style intro and breakdown, but the body of the song is solid. Though it has lyrics that (I think), claim that the band “passed the nineteenth test,” and a chorus that instructs the listener to “Stand up for your queers/ delivered through your tears / In bet-ween.”

Then there’s “Time’s On Your Side,” which I’m fairly certain starts out intending to be an anti-gay anthem. The opening line of the song, to the best that I can decipher, goes: “Don’t be gay / life’s not as it should be, remember your flashy outfits…” while the chorus instructs the listener that “Time’s on your side and not behind / revise your flame before All Saints’ Day.”  I can’t condone the anti-gay sentiments, though truth be told, your guess is as good as mine when it comes to deciphering what they were actually going for.

It seems to me that some non-English-speaking bands make the decision to sing in their second language as a way to attract a broader audience. In doing so, especially when their grasp of the second language in question is rudimentary at best, this can have exactly the opposite effect. Flippin’ Heck strike me as one of those bands who would have been better served to stick to their native language. In all reality, “As Punk As Possible” is worthy of probably 2.5 stars, but with the solid, lo-fi early ‘80s sound and the unintentional comedy factor, I’ll round up.

***REVIEW UPDATE*** The band were kind enough to send along a lyric sheet for the album after I reviewed it. It seems the line that I heard as “Don’t be gay” is, in fact, “Don’t be giddy.” As such, they are not, in fact, an anti-gay band, and they were not making anti-gay sentiments. My apologies to the band.

-Other misheard lyrics that I quoted above…

“Revise your flame before All Saints’ Day” is actually “Revive the flame before all seems tame”

“Stand up for your queers / delivered through your tears” is actually “Stand up for your creeds / deliver through your deeds”

“J.E.F.F.” is still “Joy, Erotic and Double Fuck.”

Apologies again to Flippin’ Heck.

Every Friday the punk rock geniuses here at Dying Scene unleash some punk rock trivia. Today’s “fun factoid” is about one of the all time best songs by Florida ska-Punk legends Less Than Jake, “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads.”

If you’ve heard the song off the band’s 1998 album, “Hello Rockview” then you know there is a comical soundbite as the intro, but did you know there are actually 2 versions?  One has a stoned sounding kid rambling about how “Punk belongs on f’ing Mars, man!” which came from a short documentary called “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” that chronicles the parking lot antics of Judas Priest fans.  The other intro for the song contains a clip about teenagers sniffling glue from a Victor Lundberg speech called “An Open Letter to My Teenage Son.”

You can check out the various intros and their origins right  here.

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In the unlikely event that you needed another reason to want to attend D-Tox Rock Fest in Montebello, Quebec, you have all just been invited by Joey Cape, frontman for Lagwagon, Bad Astronaut, and now his solo project, Joey Cape’s Bad Loud. You can check out the invitation here.

D-Tox Rock Fest will be taking place in Montebello on June 17th and 18th, and will include performances by NOFX, Descendents, Hot Water Music, The Sainte Catherines, The Bouncing Souls, Joey Cape’s Bad Loud, and many, many more. You can check out the awesome lineup here.

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Japanese fans of Connecticut punk outfit Hostage Calm will be getting a real treat this August. Japanese record label Ice Grills Records is set to release the band’s entire discography, creatively titled “All Of Hostage Calm,” on August 10th. The compilation will include all 29 of the band’s recorded materials, and will be available exclusively in Japan.

For the rest of the world, Hostage Calm released their self-titled album on Run For Cover Records last year.