Continuing the exhaustive coverage of studio updates from Sum 41 while recording their new album:  This latest video might actually be featuring a new song towards the end.  I don’t recognize it anyway – call me out if I’m wrong.  Check it out here.

Sum 41 is currently recording their follow album up to 2007’s Underclass Hero.

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Sunday’s are good for random news stories that sometimes have nothing to do with music.  Like this one…

While in St. Pertersburg, Russia Billy Talent lighting guy Dan get’s “Ring Of Hair” backstage after a show.  Check it out here.

Valentines Day has got to be the worst holiday ever created.  To make this day even more nauseating or “special”, depending on your proclivity (read: gender) The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus have posted a new song creatively titled Valentines Day to their MySpace page.  Males, prepare to throw-up in your mouth a little.

Virgin Records released the band’s latest album Lonely Road on February 3, 2009.

**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.

Following their longest span between albums, Rancid returns for their 7th full-length endeavor Let the Dominoes Fall. During their time off, both Lars & Tim spent time with solo projects, and Bret Reed decided to split. Rancid then picked up an unlikely replacement, Branden Steineckert, former drummer of The Used.

The critical reception of this album I’ve encountered has been noticeably polarizing—listeners tend to hate it or love it. This hard fault line seems to be merely an amplification of a long-standing divide of Rancid fans, the fault line between those who love their self-titled albums, the more straightforward street hardcore albums, and those fans who love the fusion albums loaded with more pop-punk & ska-reggae. Let the Dominoes Fall groups into the latter category so the allegiance with the streetcore will likely be turned off by their newest album. Ignoring the divide, one of the disappointing factors of LTDF is overall lack of novelty, especially after a six year duration. Punk rock enthusiasts often do not have a problem with a band that releases an album that is “more of the same” as long as it remains in the spirit of the scene, but with Rancid, the expectations usually differ considering their production history. In the past, each Rancid album felt like a project, a focused idea that was congruent & salient from start to finish. The first self-titled was a streetcore assault, fast & unrelenting. Let’s Go took a step back into a more Ramone mode of melodic & catchy punk. Out Come the Wolves brought ska & reggae back into the mix. Then there was the sweeping, global Life Won’t Wait that was reminiscent of The Clash’s Sandinista. Following that was a hardcore regrouping for the 2nd self-titled, and then came Indestructible which many argue is a project that refined both Life Won’t Wait & Out Come the Wolves.

So after all that comes LTDF, and instead of a new flavor, we seem to get a little of everything in the past. The major rub that I find is that there just seems to be better versions of most everything on LTDF already on record. For starters, the album leads off with “East Bay Night” which lyrically begins with “Another East Bay night…” with an exalting Tim Armstrong tone. In other words, it sounds tired with a self-admitted repetition. Rancid usually comes out the corner swinging on their albums – Adina, Nihilism, Maxwell Murder, Indestructible, etc—but LTDF takes a diluted approach – an approach that sort of speaks to the album as a whole. “This Place,” the second song, may have been a better opener choice. “Up to No Good,” the first ska-orientated track that includes an organ, comes across as a more polished version of something from Life Won’t Wait, but doesn’t have the edge and dynamic range of what Tim righteously put together on his solo album. “I Ain’t Worried” sounds like a Transplants song but Lars & Matt get some raps in this time around, which for what it is worth, is something different. Lars later pays tribute to New Orleans. While the song sounds good, the chorus is sentimentally soaked with abstraction as it personifies NO as a woman giving the whole song an over-romanticized feel. It’s as if you could just take out the word New Orleans & drop the name of any place that has ever experienced heartache & tragedy into it and the song would work. To pull a cynical punch here, “New Orleans” sounds like something a country musician would do, an opportunistic ride bent on sentiment for an instant pop-culture hit. There are a number of other topical songs like “New Orleans” on the album, but they all seem handled more strongly such as “Civilian Ways,” “Locomotive” & “Lulu.” One of the few times we get some Rancid innovation comes on “L.A. River,” a rockabilly style song with some unusual vocals done by Matt Freeman.

Overall, the album is solid but is ultimately shadowed by what Rancid has done prior. Perhaps that’s the greatest challenge a band faces when they hit so many early homeruns in the career. But for me, the most bothersome side of the record is the rampart self-aggrandizing on the album. “Last One to Die,” the song they released first as an introduction, is a total turn-off. With so many other seminal bands hitting milestones with great strength—Bad Religion, Bouncing Souls, Strung Out, Propaghandi, to name a few – it seems odd to hear so much chest-thumping and self-appointed crownings such as “Last One to Die.” Then there is the lyric on the song, “We got it right, you got it wrong / We still around, Last one to die / We’re going up, you’re going down.” Who is the “you” aimed at here? It’s quite unclear because I doubt any of the mainstay bands in their scene are that concerned about what Rancid is up to. For a band that constantly loves to remind its listeners about how “punk” they are, gloating and aggrandizing in such a matter flies in the face of “punk” ethics, at least how punk is usually theorized. At least in its conception, punk was a reaction against arena, egomaniacal rock bands. Punk bands took the democratic approach to music, to not be above the crowd but with them, and with the other bands of the community. Cutting their 7th album in the continuum of a prolific career is a strong enough statement in of itself about the dedication and accomplishments of the band. Especially with the self-made approach Rancid has done over the years. In the end, it comes across as unnecessary, and as a petty argument the band should be over with by now. If they really don’t care, as songs like “I Ain’t Worried” strongly emphasize, then why waste so much time in defense?

Tucson, AZ’s The Fade have parted ways with vocalist Phillip Holman. While no official statement has been made, rumors are circulating that Shane Sheffer formerly of The Funeral March and Starving Arms (side project featuring Jeremy Talley, Robbie Burbidge and Brady Murray of The Bled), has been working with the band as of late.

The band is currently in the studio recording new material. A few photos can be seen on the band’s MySpace page.

The Fade’s debut release, The Bright Lights EP can be obtained at http://thefade.bandcamp.com for whatever price the buyer chooses.

Pole Position have added a new track to their MySpace page.  The song is titled Heaven On Fire and it will appear on the band’s upcoming album State Of The Country, which is slated for release on April 20th.

Imadethismistake have posted two new songs (Stateside and Billboards) to their MySpace page.  Both tracks will appear on the band’s upcoming album Bow & Quiver, which is slated for a May Release on Bermuda Mohawk Productions.

Imadethismistake are currently on tour.  For dates and locations check out their Dying Scene Shows page.

Blessthefall are touring through Canada and the East Coast US this spring in what they’ve dubbed “The Bangover Tour”.  Supporting acts will be Miss May I, Greeley Estates, and Before Their Eyes.

Check out the dates here.

Witness, Blessthefall’s latest album, was released October 6th, 2009 on Fearless Records .

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East coast post-hardcore/punkers The Great Explainer are recording a new 7-inch with Pete from the Bouncing Souls and will be releasing it on Chunksaah Records sometime in spring/summer.

Here’s the statement from the band:

so we got some INCREDIBLE news. in march we will be recording with pete from the bouncing souls, and the 7 inch that comes out of that glorious occasion will be released on CHUNKSAAH records! we are like kids in a candy store. look for it sometime in spring/summer, with some definitely awesome shows soon too. love you all.

Metal/screamo act Look To The East have posted a new song to their MySpace page.  The song is titled Screaming For Release and I’m guessing it will be featured on the band’s next release.

Super informative, I know.