It’s a bit slow on the news front this afternoon so to help you kill a few minutes while you take a break from working, studying, or whatever the rest of you slackers are doing, we’re going to introduce you to a new pop-punk band from the Carolinas.

They’re called Bracing For Impact and you can give them a listen on their bandcamp page.  If you like what you hear, then you’re in luck cuz them songs are free to download!

Calgary pop-punkers Chixdiggit announced two shows later this spring. They’ll be playing at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis on May 26 and at the Weasel Fest at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago on May 28.

The band will be releasing a new EP titled Safeways Here We Come February 15, 2011 on Fat Wreck Chords. It will be their new material since 2005’s Pink Razors.

No word on whether the announced dates will be part of a larger tour.

Flogging Molly are in the studio right now, working on a follow-up to their 2008 release Float. The Celtic punks are releasing the album May 24 on their own label, Borstal Beat.

They chatted with Alt Press from the converted church that is Echo Mountain Recording Studio in Ashevill, NC. Check it out here.

The album is still untitled. Float was released on SideOneDummy in 2008.

I am personally quite excited about this news: Flogging Molly, the lords of Celtic punk, have released their first new song in a few years. The song is “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down” off of their upcoming, currently untitled album, and you can get a free download of it here.

The new album will be released May 24 on their own label, Borstal Beat.

Flogging Molly released their last album, “Float,” in 2008.

Very shortly after announcing they had signed to Tragic Hero Records, metal act Delusions posted a brand new song, “Family Matters,” featuring Chad Ruhlig of Legend.

The track is available for streaming here. Their debut album, The Language Barrier, will be released in the summer of 2011.

New York pop-punks Bayside are holding a contest for anyone with video-making skills.

The band wants you to create your own trailer by using photos, video clips and mp3s available for download from their upcoming album Killing Time. Send in the YouTube link and post the video to the band’s Facebook page to enter. The winner gets a merch pack and one-of-a-kind Bayside Nike Destroyer jacket.

Read the full details here. Killing Time comes out February 22, 2011 on Wind Up Records.

If you like The Braces, here’s a little treat for you.  Live footage of the pop-punk band in the studio demo’ing a couple songs off the new EP “First World Problems.”

Check out the vids for “Hanging On” and “I Wanna Be A Corellian Smuggler” right here.

“First World Problems”  is a follow-up to 2009’s “I’m Telling Everyone“.

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Looks like Social D is Team Coco. Last night the SoCal punk legends appeared on “Conan” to play “Machine Gun Blues,” which is off their brand new album Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes. Check the performance out here.

The new album was officially released on January 18, but the whole thing has been streaming here since last week. Check out our review of the album here.

Hardcore act Foundation just wrapped up recording a new album, and they’ve announced the title as well as the release date. The 10 track record will be called When the Smoke Clears and is coming out April 19, 2011 on Bridge Nine Records.

The group is about to head out for a European tour with Bracewar and Breaking Point. Check out the dates here.

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Social Distortion are one of the giants of punk rock music but their appeal goes far beyond the typical genre fans. Anyone who has ever been to one of their shows and looked at the people who are there might notice that Social Distortion draws quite a diverse audience. The first time I saw them live, back in ’96, I was down in front moshing it up with the rest of the punks and really didn’t pay attention to the varied crowd so it wasn’t until my second show, in ’04 that I really took notice. I was standing with a group of people my age (late twenties, early thirties), the pit was filled with teens, to my left was a cluster of middle aged men still wearing the suits that they’d worn to work that day and back by the bar were a couple of old guys sporting Hank Williams t-shirts, not what I expected at a punk show. I’ve managed to see Social Distortion live four times since then and I’m still amazed by the varied crowds. I’ve seen middle aged suburban house wives with young kids in tow, drunken rednecks, frat boys and sorority girls mingled in with the punks and they were all singing out the lyrics to “Ball and Chain”.

I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised by the wide ranging crowd when you think of the music that Social Distortion has released throughout their thirty two years of existence. They are a band with many influences and Mike Ness has never shied away from having those influences heard. Throughout their career they have released albums as varied as the people who gather to see them play. “Mommy’s Little Monster” is So-Cal punk, “Prison Bound” could be considered country, or more accurately Cowpunk, “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” and their self titled album had a rockabilly feel to them and “White Light, White Heat, White Trash” and ” Sex, Love and Rock-n-Roll” had more of a rock-n-roll vibe to them. But through all the changes in genre, they have maintained a core sound that is Social Distortion and keeps us all listening no matter what category the newest release falls under.

Now you may be asking “What category does their new cd fit into?” or maybe you’re not but I’m going to try to explain it anyway. “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes”, Social Distortion’s first album since ’04, is a new beast all together. It has things in common with “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” and “Prison Bound” but this release is more bluesy. The bass heavy sound from their last two cd’s has been toned down in favor of a softer, more melodic approach and the vocals have been brought to the forefront. Mike Ness’s singing has never sounded better than it does on this album. In addition to cleaning up the mix a bit (Mike Ness produced the disc) Social Distortion have added piano and female backup singers to this release, making it stand out from their previous forays into this style. Lyrically they keep to their normal topics, hard living, love and loss, which is good because when Mike Ness starts singing about rainbows and smiling happy children he will have finally lost me.

To me, this new(ish) sound suits the band but that doesn’t mean that “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes” doesn’t have a few missteps. Rather than break down each song I’m just going to describe a few for you.

“Far side of Nowhere” is one of two tracks on here that I’m not thrilled with. This song starts out with a guitar part that sounds like it was written by Sheryl Crowe, it’s not a bad song it just sounds too happy and doesn’t fit with the rest of the album.

“Can’t Take It With You” is the other one, and this one I don’t like much at all. Musically it has a “Bad Luck” sound to it but what kills the track are the lyrics, the chorus consists of the back-up singers repeating the song title over and over for twenty seconds and the rest of the lyrics are cliché ridden. It feels like this song was just thrown together at the last minute to fill up space on the cd.

The rest of the songs on this disc are all very good. My favorites are “Bakersfield”, a long (six and a half minute) bluesy track that showcases Mike Ness’s singing, doesn’t overuse the back-up singers and paints a great picture of a man trying to get home to his love. “Writing On The Wall”, another story of lost love, with an awesome melody and some sparse piano and “Still Alive”. This is one of the harder songs on the disc, again it uses the back-up singers perfectly and has an interesting piano outro at the end.

Normally, if I were to buy an eleven song cd and liked 10 of them, I’d be pretty stoked about the disc but that is not entirely the case with “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes”. First off, Mike Ness and company have had roughly six years to make this disc and it still has some filler on it. Besides putting the sub-par “Can’t Take It With You” on the release, the first song “Road Zombie” is an instrumental and if you’re anything like me, a Social Distortion song without Mike Ness’s vocals doesn’t really count. They also added “Alone and Forsaken”, a cover of a Hank Williams Sr. song that was released as a bonus track on “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” back in ’92. I know it was on the Japanese version of the album only but if you want to make your import and b-sides available, you gather them up and release a cd full of them, like Rancid did a few years back, not stick one in the middle of your new release. The iTunes version of this album has three more tracks, two very good new songs (“Take Care Of Yourself” and “I Won’t Run No More”) and a honky tonk version of “Down Here With The Rest Of Us” (similar to the version of “Ball and Chain” that Mike Ness rerecorded for his “Under The Influences” album). To me it would have made better sense to use “Alone and Forsaken” as one of the iTunes exclusive songs and add another original to “Hard Times…” but perhaps that’s just my opinion.

Even with the couple of problems that I have with this release I’m still very happy with it and will be listening to it over and over (with the exception of “Can’t Take it With You) for many years to come. I’m guessing their next disc (if they stick with the same recording schedule, the next cd won’t be out sometime around 2017) will be perfect.

**The Album Reviews published on Dying Scene are written and submitted by fans of punk music, just like you. If you disagree with an album’s rating, feel free to voice your opinion and give it your own rating in the comments. If you’d like to submit your own review do it here.