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The boys in Company L may be a fairly new band in the UK scene but they have experience in the form of Mike Scott, ex-Phinius Gage front man, who’s been around the block a few times. As you can probably guess, his former band is a top influencer of Company L’s sound and so is classic Fat Wreck fast and heavy hitters, Consumed. Released on the thriving indie British label Disconnect Disconnect Records, this EP brings out a raw’ish and dark recording which suits the style well. It works nicely since I truly believe that bands like Company L should have an element to their recorded music that makes you feel like you’re actually at a show. That is punk rock. On this recording you also hear a few tracks (4 and 6) that sound a little lower quality than the others, but don’t adjust your stereo, this is ’cause they were recorded as demos…case in point, the raw type recording. Smart move lads.

In terms of music, it might sound simple but this band is far more about the energy (which you can feel) on stage. Sometimes recordings cannot capture this but that’s life, right? The English accent is also very apparent as Mike brings it to the extreme when it comes to a foreigner listening to his voice for the first time. It’s genuine, no exaggeration. Lyric wise, Mike Scott, has always had thoughtful based ideas in his tunes and this time it doesn’t change. Politics, history, and daily life are the top of the list in terms of the message being spread to people.

At around 15 minutes, an appropriate time for an EP, this release might take you a few listens to appreciate and if you anticipated an exact Phinius Gage sound/style then you might be a bit disappointed. Been there, done that. Time to move on, so enjoy this EP and for the price online, you really cannot go wrong. There are many highlights such as the bass/the drive of the song “Back when Nick Griffin was gay” that brings me back to the old days of my youth. It’s releases like this one by Company L that tend to go under the radar and it’s a big damn shame.

Lions Lions have released the first single from their upcoming EP entitled “The Path We Take” in stores October 26th, 2010 on Panic Records. The song is titled  “All These Things That I’ve Done” and if the song sounds familiar, it’s because it was originally written and recorded by The Killers. Lions Lions has taken the Killers classic and put their own spin on the jam. Hit up their Bandcamp page to download the song now.

Vancouver Celtic punks The Dreadnoughts appeared on our favorite Russian-Canadian hosted online punk radio show We All Fall Down.  The band discusses their new album “Polka’s Not Dead” between tracks from the coming release and you can stream it all right here.

“Polka’s Not Dead” will be released Sept 28th on Stomp Records.

Thrice frontman Dustin Kensrue recently posted a studio update regarding the band’s upcoming album.  Here’s what he had to say:

“Hey everyone. Writing is going really well. Right now, we are basically getting into the studio 3 days a week and cranking out as many “jams” as we can. We’ll take someone’s idea and start playing it together and see where it goes, and then record the result so we don’t forget. Once we get enough “jams” done we’ll start fine tuning them into songs. There were even a  couple “jams” that happened when I was on vacation, and they were especially rad I thought. One was based on one of my demos, so it was cool to see what the 3 dudes did with a super ghetto recording of me singing and playing something into my phone. Kind of fun and healthy to hand off an idea for a second. You can get too attached and loose sight of the bigger picture sometimes. Anyway, the dudes are shredding. Everyone is playing super well and I’m mostly trying to stay out of the way and focus on melodies at this point.”

Thrice’s latest album Beggars was released  last year on Vagrant Records.

Well, this is a little different.  Fat Mike’s favorite lesbian sister duo Tegan And Sara did a cover of the Bad Religion classic “Suffer.”  It’s kinda cool.  Check it out here.

The track will appear on “Germs Of Perfection,” an exclusive Bad Religion tribute album featuring artists like Tegan And Sara, Ted Leo, Fake Problems and a dozen more.  Over the next three weeks, MySpace will be posting one song a day (barring weekends) to stream. Then, on October 19th, they will offer up the entire album as a free download on both MySpace Music’s homepage and through SPIN.com.

By the way, Bad Religion’s entire new album “The Dissent Of Man” is streaming so go check it out if you haven’t already.

Old school British post-punk act, Killing Joke, have just released “Absolute Dissent,” their first new album since 2006’s “Hosannahs From The Basements of Hell”, and the first since the death of Paul Raven. To get a taste of the new release you can stream the new track “In Excelsis” on the band’s MySpace page.

“Absolute Dissent” is the first release with the original lineup since 1982’s “Revelations”.

Legendary English hardcore punks GBH have posted videos of their performances of Cadillac One, Kids Get Down and Unique. The performances were originally broadcasted on Fuel TV’s “The Daily Habit”. Check them out by clicking on the song names.

The songs appear on the band’s latest album Perfume and Piss which was released April 6th on Hellcat Records.

You can also check out GBH’s Dying Scene interview here.

The Red Threat is a pop-rock/punk band from Edmonton, Canada and they’ve just re-emerged on the scene with new members and a few new songs streaming on their MySpace page.  No official word on what (if any) release the new tracks will appear on but we’ll keep you posted.

The band released their last album, “A Collaboration of Sharps and Flats” in 2009.

Another unreleased music video has been pulled from Rancid archive, this time for the song Who Would’ve Thought off the bands 1998 album, Life Won’t Wait. This time the video actually isn’t in black & white. Who Would’ve thought?

Check it out here.

The band has recently released videos for their tunes Rattlesnake, Poison, Crane Fist, Rwanda, Spirit Of ‘87, Hooligans,  Roots Radicals, and Leicester Square.

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OFF! is a Los Angeles punk band fronted by Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks and they have premiered a music video for their song Darkness which you can check out right here.

The track will appear on the band’s 1st EP, creatively titled “1st EP”.  It will be 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) slated for release on November 23rd.