The Riot Before have released a new EP, “Fists… Out Of Sockets” on Paper + Plastic Records, and you can download of all seven of the EP’s songs for free right here.

The album is is a bit of a departure for the band as they reworked songs from their last album (“Fists Out of Pockets”) to more of an acoustic setting and included some other interesting instrumentation. Here’s what the band had to say about it:

Fists…Out of Sockets represents a fun departure for us. When Vinnie first suggested we release an acoustic version of Fists, my initial idea was to just sit down in a room alone and knock it all out first take, but then I got to thinking and realized that we have a lot of really talented friends, and decided it would be fun to bring them into the recording process. With that in mind, we recruited our friend Patrick Ball to engineer and produce, and got to work re-recording 7 of the songs from Fists Buried in Pockets in his basement. We convinced some incredible musicians we knew to contribute horns and cello on a few songs and we’re all really excited how it turned out. These recordings are not at all intended to be a hint at things to come for us, rather, they represent a fun time spent recording with friends, seeing what else could be done with songs that we as a band are all still very proud of. Sometimes that led to a major reconstruction, while other times it meant removing a lot of what had been there. What we ended up with came out better than I had imagined, which had a lot less to do with us and more to do with everyone else involved, especially Patrick. We hope you enjoy it.

Brian and B-Roll from Death Before Dishonor get interviewed by Hardtimes in a narrow staircase for over twenty minutes.  They talk about their new album “Better Ways To Die”, their evolving sound and all the usual stuff, but maybe most interesting, B-Roll talks about working as a moderator on the infamous Bridge Nine Board starting with a “No B9 questions cuz I hate all of you!”

Check out the video here.

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Japanese pop-punkers Mugwumps (not to be confused with Austria’s pop-punk band THE Mugwumps) are releasing a new EP titled “Spill The Brill” on November 4th.  I don’t know where or by who.

Mugwumps last album “At Pop Speed” was released on Asian Man Records in June.

You can stream the entire debut full-length, “Television,” from Montreal’s Whiskey Trench over on the band’s MySpace page.  The album is split in half and being played in two “songs” in the MySpace player – “New LP – Side A” and “New LP – Side B”.

“Television” was released September 22nd on Kiss Of Death.

Billy Talent has announced the tour dates of the first leg of his Canadian tour in support of his most recent album “Billy Talent III”.  The stint will include 19 stops across the country. Public ticket sales begin October 17th but pre-sales begin for members of the Billy Talent website on the 13th.

Check out the Full Story page for the dates.

“Billy Talent III” was released September 22nd, 2009 on Roadrunner.

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You can listen to the track “No Bed Of Broken Glass” off This Time Next Year‘s upcoming album “Road Maps And Heart Attacks” over on the band’s MySpace page.

“Road Maps And Heart Attacks” is being released October 20th on Equal Vision Records.

The folks at Suburban Home/Vinyl Collective have devised a raffle system to make it possible for you to win up to up to $500 worth of store credit for as little as $3.  There’s a whole elaborate system behind it, which you can learn all about right here.

FYI, if you win the $500 grand prize feel free to share some of the booty with us because there’s no way you need $500 worth of records.  Is there?

The Reaganomics are releasing their newest album “Get Lost, Stay Lost” October 20th on Red Scare and they’ve just added 2 new tracks from the release to their MySpace page.  They’re titled “Semi Productive” and “Midlan.”

The Reaganomics is comprised of all former members of Ryan’s Hope +1.

Revolver Magazine is running a Strung Out contest to win a Jackson guitar (like Jake Plays), a signed copy of their new album “Agents Of The Underground” and copies of our entire backstock of albums.

Basically, it looks like you sign of for their mailing list and they might randomly select you as a winner.  Enter here.

“Agents Of The Underground” was released last week on Fat Wreck Chords.

Anchor Arms is currently working on their second full-length album, which they plan on finishing up as soon as the Fest is over.  It will be their first album with new member, Nick Sessions, on bass while lead singer, James, takes on the guitar.  Here’s what James had to say about it:

… we are fininish up the writing process of our 2nd LP “The Morning Pistol”. it’s gonna have 14 or 15 songs on it i think and it’s a record that all 4 of us are REALLY happy with. Nick came in about 3/4 the way through the writing process, so we’ve been showing him the songs and he’s really added a LOT of awesome stuff to them. it’s a little more rock n’ roll, a little more pissed off, a little more urgent than our 1st record was.

Anchor Arms released their last full-length, “Cold Blooded” on Fail Safe Records in 2008.