OFF! is a Los Angeles punk band fronted by Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks and today they’re streaming a new song titled “Piece Of Shit.” Click here to listen.

The band’s 1st EP, creatively titled “1st EP,” was released on October 12th and is the 1st of 4 EP/7-inch releases which will be compiled onto a single release titled “First Four EPs” (obviously a nod to Black Flag.) These are slated for release on November 23rd.

OG screamo act Thursday have planned a 10th anniversary tour to commemorate the release of their album “Full Collapse.” Although dates haven’t been announced, Underoath is set to support the band during this January and February tour.

Thursday are currently in the studio recording for their next Epitaph Records release, a follow-up to 2009’s successful Common Existance.

Budapest punk rockers Bankrupt have posted a new video for their song “Koheed & Kembra” in which they enlighten viewers on the true origins of punk rock.  It’s actually pretty entertaining.

The song appears on the band’s 2006 album “Shorter Than Danny DeVito.”

Fans of the Ramones, Queers and Screeching Weasel take notice!

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Longtime NYHC band Agnostic Front have entered the studio in Tampa, FL, to record a new album. The record is in the capable hands of Erik Rutan and Freddy Cricien of Madball.

The album will be the band’s first since 2007’s Warriors and their third release on Nuclear Blast, and they re-released United Blood and Victim In Pain on Bridge 9 Records last year.

PA pop-punks The Wonder Years have started writing their next album, according to a Tweet from bassist Josh Martin. The band recently wrapped up a tour with Four Year Strong and Comeback Kid.

Their last album was The Upsides, originally released on January 26 of this year through No Sleep Records and later re-released with additional tracks through Hopeless Records. You can check out the video for Melrose Diner from that album right here – it’s pretty rad!

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SoCal metal band Bleeding Through has disclosed that they’re going to be writing, recording, and releasing a new album in 2011, through an interview with bassist Ryan Wombacher, which can be seen here.

The band will be writing after a break from their current tour, with a mid-to-late 2011 release planned. The band’s last album, this year’s self-titled effort, was released through Rise Records in the States and Roadrunner in the UK, but the next album is not obligated to anyone as of yet.

LA hardcore group Terror have announced a month-long tour of Europe in January and February 2011 – scope the dates here. Supporting will be First Blood, 50 Lions, and Backtrack. The band’s last album, Keepers Of The Faith, came out earlier this year on Century Media. The video for Stick Tight off the same album can be see here.

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In an interview with ecollegetimes.com, Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin is talking about why he made his book “Anarchy Evolution.” He says:

“I spent 30 years with my band writing about a society that circled around religion because the band’s name is Bad Religion. We always thought we would write topical material and hopefully provoke people to think a little about some of these challenging issues. Bad Religion was a good forum to do that, but I was also studying evolution for those 30 years and instead of religion, I used science to make sense of the world. It might seem kind of weird to some people that someone would study science and sing punk rock at the same time. But it’s true, those two things developed side by side in my life and finally, after 30 years, I wanted to make some sense of it. For myself, really. To make a coherent world view out of the two streams of consciousness.”

His band, Bad Religion, is currently on tour supporting its latest album “The Dissent of Man.” That’s their first album since 2007’s “New Maps of Hell.” Speaking of this, they are also putting out a vinyl box set featuring all 15 of their studio albums.

**The Album Reviews published on Dying Scene are written and submitted by regular users of the site. These users are not professional music critics nor are they paid for what they write. 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.

For those who don’t know anything about Smoke or Fire, let me give you a quick history. The band was formed back in 1998 and were originally called Jericho. In 2000 a Christian band contacted them claiming they held the rights to the band name. So, in order to avoid any legal action this Jericho became known as Jericho RVA (a reference to the place the band called home, Richmond, Virginia) and held that name until 2003 when it was changed again and they became known as Smoke or Fire. Some Christian fanatics claimed it was blasphemy for a non-religious band to use the name Jericho (I wonder if they had a problem with CBS and it’s long ago cancelled television series of the same name). They signed to Fat Wreck Chords and released their first Cd as Smoke or Fire in 2005 titled “Above the City”.

It was about that time when I first came to know of this band’s existence. A friend of mine had picked up the “Above the City” Cd and suggested that I check it out. I never got around to it and it wasn’t until two years later, after hearing “The Patty Hearst Syndrome” on the radio that I actually heard the band at all. I hopped on iTunes and downloaded most of their songs and have enjoyed them ever since.

That leads us to the new release “The Speakeasy”.

I’ve had a little over a week to get into this album before turning in the review and to be honest; I’ve gone back and forth about how I would rate it (3 or 4 stars). After my fifth straight through listen (and hearing the disc as part of a mix) I chose to give it a 4. It’s a good album but just how good? At first I wasn’t sure.

I’m gonna start with the positives. From the start, this album grabs the listener; “Integrity”, the opener, is a great song, it’s upbeat, urgent and in your face. The next track, “Monster among us”, a song about greed, changes up the music a little bit adding acoustic guitars to the chorus and the third song “1968” (one of my favorites) is just as good. It’s one of several political songs on the album and asks if you think that America has improved since 1968 (the year that Martin Luther King Jr. died). The fast tempo continues (other than the acoustic chorus on “Neon Light”) and we finally get a chance to catch our breath on track seven, a folk punk song titled “Honey, I Was Right About The War”. Folk punk is really nothing new these days, Mark Lind, of the Ducky Boys, Frank Turner of Million Dead and Tim Barry, of Avail (among others) have made solo careers out of it but Smoke or Fire do a great job with the genre on this track. From there the Cd returns to the fast, mostly political music that was all over the first half of the disc. The exception being song number ten, “Expatriate” which, to me, almost sounds like a song that the Refused left off of their “Shape of Punk to Come” Cd.

It’s a very good disc, so why was I not sure about how many stars to give it? The simple answer is… the vocals. There is nothing wrong with Joe McMahon’s singing voice, but I feel he needs to change it up a bit more. His vocal is unique and once you hear him a few times you will always recognize him, which is both a blessing and a curse. The music on “The Speakeasy” is great, the additions of Gwomper (from Avail) on bass and Ryan Parrish (from Darkest Hour, a band that sounds NOTHING like this one) on drums were perfect, but to me the vocals drag the disc down a little bit. Every song on this Cd is damn near perfect, on its own. The problem comes when you listen to the whole disc in one sitting; many of the songs then start to sound the same. I’ve found I enjoy these tracks the most if I listen to 3 or 4 at a time or put it in a mix with a few other Cd’s.

So, to anyone that has liked Smoke or Fire in the past I definitely recommend that you pick up “The Speakeasy” it is by far my favorite release by them. And to the rest of you, if you are into straight up, no frills punk rock with a touch of southern influence I also suggest you also check out this album, but you might not want to listen to it straight through very often.

It’s a little bit staying power, a little bit commercial acceptance and a lot of hard work that has made the Dropkick Murphys a household name around the world. Or at least they are in my house. Ken Casey talked to me from Boston, about what fans can expect from the new, upcoming Dropkick Murphys album, the love punch and the empty box test.

Read the full interview here.

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