Atlanta’s Norma Jean released a promo video for their upcoming album Meridional. In addition to the standard promotional messaging, this video features clips from the upcoming music video Deathbed Atheist, which will premiere later this month. Check out the video here to get a feel for the new album.

Meridional will be released July 12th on Razor And Tie.

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While the world hangs on the edge of their seats for any news on the highly anticipated Blink-182 album, Mark Hoppus comfortably sits down with Us Weekly to discuss the launch of his new weekly music show A Different Spin With Mark Hoppus. The show will air on the Fuse Network and will feature Hoppus hosting in-studio artist interviews, performances and music-related panels. You can read the whole interview here.

To all you Blink fans, don’t worry, Hoppus is confident there will be a good balance between working on the new album and his own personal projects.

A Different Spin With Mark Hoppus will debut this September.

In anticipation for their fifth studio album, Avenged Sevenfold released a 19-second-long teaser of the soon-to-be-released music video Nightmare. This is classic Avenged Sevenfold, treating us with twisted images as the song progresses. The video looks pretty solid, even if it is just a teaser. You can check it out right here.

Nightmare will be released July 27th on Warner Bros. Records.

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Florida’s VersaEmerge has recently released a video (seen here) to pump up fans and gain support on Warped Tour. They are currently touring to support their newest album Fixed At Zero, playing on the Glamour Kills Stage for the entirety of Warped Tour 2010.

VersaEmerge’s debut album Fixed At Zero was released June 22nd on Fueled By Ramen.

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October 6th through the 10th is going to be a loud few days for Chicago, Illinois, as Riot Fest 2010 will be going on, hosting legendary bands like Bad Religion, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Lawrence Arms and Less Than Jake. Yesterday, the official site made known to the public most of this year’s lineup, which you can check out here.

5-day passes to Riot Fest will be made available for purchase tomorrow.

Long Island’s punk outfit Iron Chic will be releasing a new LP titled Not Like This on Dead Broke Rekerds. You can listen to a new song off the album on Iron Chic’s Facebook page or on Dead Broke Rekerds’ MySpace page (scroll down to the bottom). Definitely check out this song. It is quite infectious.

Iron Chic’s last album was Shitty Rambo, released on Dead Broke Rekerds last November.

**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.

Everyone knows Good Riddance. For those who don’t- and you call yourself punk!?- here’s a quick history of the band:

Good Riddance were a 4-piece from Santa Cruz, CA, that played fast, melodic punk, heavily influenced by the late 70s-80s hardcore scene. From 1986 to 2007, they released 6 full length albums (all on Fat Wreck), 3 EPs, 6 Split EPs, a self-released demo, a covers album and a live album (of their last ever gig in ’07).

And now, three years after they called it a day, they’re releasing “Capricorn One”, a 21 track mix of singles, rarities, B-Sides and unreleased tracks.

The opener, ‘Stand’ (originally on Fat Wreck Vol. 3: Physical Fatness Comp), starts off the purely eminent melodic punk perfectly. It’s clear this album is going to be 21 reasons to miss Good Riddance.

Track two ‘Class War 2000’ is heavier, and like many of the songs on this album, the hardcore influences are pretty obvious.

The long, complicated intro to the old school hardcore infused ‘Tragic Kingdom’ displays the bands instrumental talents, something that can be overlooked with them having such an influential frontman. There’s also an intense bass riff in there too, to tantalize all you 4 string aficionados.

There’s a couple of love songs on this record, for all you romantic types; ‘Always’ with it’s hint of Pennywise, proof that love songs don’t have to be cheesey, and ‘Remember When’, a catchy, cute, proper punk song about a girl- different to everything else on the album, but still brilliantly crafted, showing there’s no end to Good Riddance’s talents.

The varying hardcore influences separate the majority of the tracks into two halves; East and West Coast, both executed flawlessly by Russ and his multiple vocal talent.

’21 Guns’ and ‘What We Have’, amongst others, are East Coast style, heavy, fast, hardcore infused anger driven hits.

Very few bands can get pull off a track that’s less than a minute long, and still have an impact- GR’s ‘Overcoming Learned Behavior’ (30 secs) does it just as well as Agnostic Front’s ‘Victim In Pain’, in even less time too.

The West Coast/ California Hardcore comes out in ‘More Time’, ‘Free’, ‘Great Experiment’ and ‘Last Believer’. There’s a taste of Bad Religion with each politically exasperated bite.

Track 13, ‘Little Man’ is simple, fast, heavy punk rock, played exactly how it should be- take note bands of today, you could learn a lot from GR.

‘Patriarch’, is more rock than punk, with a long, soaring intro, it’s a lot darker than anything else on the CD, but they still pull it off beautifully.

Even though there’s 21 tracks, the full album is only 44 minutes long. Jam packed in are the short, sharp shocks of danceable melodic punk. Something everyone can have a good time to, as well as relate to, from the social politics, to the personal alienation. There’s so much diversity, lyrically and instrumentally, without them swaying from their true genre. Flawless, never gets boring, punk rock, exactly how it should be. It’s such a shame they’re gone- but they certainly will never be forgotten. There’ll never be enough good bands like this, that’s why Good Riddance should always have a place in your tartan covered, pyramid studded heart.

If you’re not familiar with Left Alone, you’re missing out on some wicked ska-infused street punk straight off the streets of Wilmington, California. I was able to catch up with Left Alone singer/guitarist Elvis Cortez during the first stop of the Warped Tour in sunny Southern California to talk about the tour, his upcoming solo album**, and what the future holds for the band.

Unfortunately, I missed their performance as the band was the first to perform on the tour going on at 11:15AM, 15 minutes before I was able to settle down and get through the press area.  But fortunately for you all, you can check out my full interview with Señor Cortez right here.

The band’s latest album Left Alone was released in April 2009 on Hellcat Records [Read more…]

After eighteen years of drumming for MxPx, Yuri Ruley has announced that he is retiring in order to focus more on his family life.  His last show will be the band’s last performance in Las Vegas on July 18th.

Ruley had this to say about his retirement: “With MxPx being a touring band and constantly on the road 9 months out of the year, I knew at some point it would have to come to an end, but the reality of it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. MxPx has been my second family for nearly two decades, but I need to step away to focus on raising my family.”

To read the full story on Ruley’s retirement, check out the band’s Facebook page.

Canadian melodic hardcore band This Is A Standoff have premiered the music video for their song Graveyards, which appears on the band’s latest album Be Disappointed, released March 31, 2009 on Funtime Records.  Check out the video here.  You won’t be disappointed!

The band is currently touring Europe. Be sure to visit their Dying Scene Shows Page for dates and location.

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