Colorado pirate/doctor themed ska band The Swashbuckling Doctors have released their new album Rescue The Universe, and are streaming the whole thing.

You can check it out below.

Rescue The Universe was released on May 11th, 2017. [Read more…]

Swedish pop-punks Future Idiots have released a cover of the Rise Against track “Give It All,” from their 2004 album Siren Song of the Counterculture.

You can give it a listen below.

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UK based punk rockers Fights and Fires are streaming the new song “Blanquettes” off their upcoming album “Live Like a Tourist”. The album will serve as the band’s fourth full length release and the first new music since the 2016 single “Take a Swing at the World”.

You can give the new song a listen here.

You can pre-order the new album from Lockjaw Records which you can find here. [Read more…]

UK punks The Burnt Tapes are streaming a new song off their upcoming album. For The Burnt Tapes “Alterations” will be the band’s fourth release, and the first since 2016’s “Besides”.

Check out the new track “Oh, Marie” and tour dates here.

The upcoming album is now available for pre-order from Lockjaw Records you can grab it here.

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Ohio punks Saintseneca are streaming the new song “Book of the Dead On Sale”.

The new song coincides with Saintseneca’s upcoming tour with Tigers Jaw which will begin later this week.

You can check out the new song and tour dates here. [Read more…]

New Port Richey’s own TrainQuill have released an awesome new video for the song “Back to the Weedman” featuring the rap stylings of none other than Afroman. The song comes off the bands 2014 release “Welcome to Our Garden”.

You can give this video a look here, and no you don’t have to get high. [Read more…]

On a personal note, the release Face To Face‘s last album was a bit of a big deal. Not only did it mark the seminal SoCal punk band’s triumphant return to their previous label home, Fat Wreck Chords, but as we all know, new albums are typically followed by new tours, and Face To Face have long been one of the premier live bands in the business. It may have taken a little bit longer than was initially hoped, but May 2017 finally brought us the Econolive 2017 tour, which featured the band pulling double duty; an acoustic set for VIP ticket-holders in the early evening, followed by the normal fully plugged-n main set that has been the band’s bread and butter over the decades. We caught the show at the Once Ballroom in Somerville, Massachusetts, last Friday, and we’re pretty sure it’ll rank as one of the best shows we catch in any venue this year.

In many ways, the VIP pre-set is a tip-of-the-cap to the fans who missed out on the acoustic Ignorance Is Bliss shows that Face To Face’s Trever Keith and Scott Shiflett put on five years ago. The duo didn’t play too many dates on those small runs, leaving a large number of long-time fans clamoring for a chance to catch the increasingly respected album played in such a stripped down format. For the Econolive ’17 dates, Keith and Shiflett are joined by their bandmates Danny Thompson (drums) and Dennis Hill (guitar) for a more filled-out performance that included not only songs from Ignorance… but a handful of reworked tracks that might otherwise appear in the band’s main set on a normal night. Longtime crowd favorites “Don’t Turn Away” and “1000x” made appearances in the stripped down set, alongside a varied collection from fairly deep in the catalog, like “Everyone Hates A No It All,” Protection track “Keep Your Chin Up,” and INXS’s “Don’t Change,” a track that Face To Face originally covered on their 1999 album Standards & Practices. This portion of the evening was open to a couple dozen people who dropped extra money for the VIP experience, and it the intimate nature and unique song selection genuinely equated to a special experience.

Doors opened to the main show shortly after the completion of the acoustic set, and not long before Lost In Society took the stage. The Jersey-based band jumped on the Face To Face tour for four northeast dates before heading west on a three-week US tour of their own. The typically three-piece punk band are aggressive, at times even ferocious, playing a raw style that hearkens back to the early 90’s alternative movement; Mudhoney or Nirvana or Screaming Trees are fair comparisons from a sonic perspective. They were joined on stage by The Scandals’ Jared Hart on second guitar for the last half of the set, further filling out the sound and allowing frontman Zack Moyle to perform the last couple songs on vocals only, baring more than a passing resemblance to Strung Out’s Jason Cruz’s level of intensity. (The band have a new, Pete Steinkopf-produced EP available here.)

Face To Face’s main set was among the best, most energetic I’ve seen them play in the greater Boston area in a solid decade. The Boston market can be a bit of a rapidly-cycling bipolar one at times, resulting in a weird phenomenon in which the same band can receive categorically opposite reactions on consecutive times through the area. Perhaps due to the fact that it had been almost four years since their last appearance in the greater Boston area (no, Providence doesn’t count), perhaps due to the fact that Protection has been the band’s best-received album probably since 2002’s How To Ruin Anything (if not even earlier), the old punks were out in full-force on this rainy, unseasonably cool Friday Boston evening.

The band kicked off their headline, fully plugged-in set with “You Lied,” met by an eager response from a fired-up crowd. From that point forward, band and crowd performed in perfectly symbiotic fashion, each seeming to provide the fuel for the other’s engine. Like the acoustic set before it, the main set was a pretty representative cross-section of the band’s discography, with only the band’s 2013 album Three Chords And A Half Truth serving as the only album not featured on the evening. The sixteen song main set was effectively broken down into four-song quarters, each featuring a track from Protection nestled in amongst tracks from the more classic catalog, particularly those from the “Triple Crown” albums (Don’t Turn Away, Big Choice and the self-titled 1996 full-length). Tracks like “Double Crossed,” “Say What You Want” and “I Won’t Say I’m Sorry” seemed right at home alongside long-time crowd favorites like “Pastel” and “Ordinary” and “Blind.”

The band took the makeshift stage in the ballroom for a two song encore that consisted of their cover of the Descendents’ track “Bikeage” and, of course, their biggest single, “Disconnected.” Like the remainder of the band’s set, the last two songs found the venue’s dance floor (not unlike that found at your local wedding banquet hall) converted into the closest thing you’ll find to a circle pit in the New England region, and it legitimately seemed like both the quartet and the crowd were energized enough to continue well into the early hours of the morning with no signs of slowing down. It can sometimes take a lot for the old timey punks to step away from the couch and the Netflix to head to a show nowadays (more on that in our upcoming sit-down with F2F front man Trever Keith in the next couple of days), but if the Econolive ’17 tour is any indication, it’s well worth the effort.

Check out our full photo gallery below!

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All Break ups can hurt. Band break ups can really hurt. Some breakups can be met with a shrug, some can hit you hard and some can hit you completely out of the blue. On 19th April 2017, progressive punks Coliseum quietly released a statement on their Facebook page announcing their split after a 12 year career which saw the band play over a 1,000 shows and release 5 albums ranging from the bruising hardcore of their debut through to their most realized final 2 albums, the almighty Sister Faith and the post-punk influenced Anxiety’s Kiss. For those who have followed the band over the years it came as a complete shock. Nevertheless, to soften the blow, the aforementioned statement also announced the arrival of frontman Ryan Patterson’s new solo vehicle, Fotocrime. Dying Scene spoke to Ryan about the split, why the time was right to try something new and about the challenges of creating music as a solo artist.

Despite the continued romanticism, making a success of a band relies on a mixture of good will, good fortune and ceaseless endeavor. 3 principles that undoubtedly defined the career of Coliseum, as Patterson explains,“With a band like Coliseum, that was a band that worked really really hard for a really long time and accomplished an unbelievable amount of stuff but a lot of it was through sheer force of will. That and the support of people like record labels who believed in us and invested a lot of money where we weren’t going to be their most popular band.”

With so much effort and resolve required it becomes easier to understand the band’s reasons for calling it quits. In the end it was a sober realization of where they found themselves as a band at the end of the touring cycle for Anxiety’s Kiss, as Patterson explains, “It was pragmatic. It was a pragmatic decision that we made after a lot of thought and I think it was bouncing around in the back of my head for a little bit and once we all started talking about it it just seemed like the best route for all of us and for the band.”

For Patterson, the band had achieved everything that they wanted to do, “We had done more than we could ever hoped to and my only goal in Coliseum was, when I started, was to tour a lot and to craft some legacy and we absolutely did both of those things. We played over 1,000 shows in 4 continents. We put out a lot of music. Most of which I am extremely proud of. Some of which I think is absolutely great for us.” states Patterson emphatically before continuing:

“Certainly we felt with Sister Faith and Anxiety’s Kiss we accomplished what, I think, the band was always leading up to and absolutely what I wanted to do with that band. We just thought ‘where do we go from here?’” We’ve kind of done all of this. We accomplished goals. Sister Faith and Anxiety’s Kiss were really on top of each other in terms of how quickly we wrote and recorded them. I think that’s it, we’re all happy with each other and we’re all happy creatively; let’s not push it to a point where we are not happy creatively and don’t like each other.”

Coupled with the collective acknowledgement of their accomplishments was the recognition that the band weren’t overly eager to work on new music, “For one thing, we didn’t all have a burning desire to work on new material at the time and that kind of seemed to become evident.” Rather than take a break Patterson realized that the most natural thing to do was to call a halt to the band that had become the dominant force in his life for such a long time, as he explains, “We probably could have taken a few years off but with Coliseum I was never really able to slow down. I was always wanting to move forward and I needed time away to clear my head and manage some things in my perception of music and in life. In 12 years I had never had a time in my life when something was not scheduled in terms of a tour or travel or writing or recording and it was kind of time to have a break from that and it was always a kind of uphill struggle.We never kind of broke through so there was a lot of work.”

Naturally, the question asked by fans of the band is whether there is any chance of the band getting back together. While it isn’t something that is going to happen anytime soon, Patterson is keen not to rule it out completely, “The door is shut but it’s not locked. We’re all still close. We’re all still in touch and proud of what we did and I kind of see Coliseum as a living breathing thing that was a part of my life and it still is. It’s still there and there are things that will still happen with it. There’s music that we haven’t released that I’m sure will come out one day. There’s just nothing new happening although there might be one day.”

All told it was not an easy decision to reach but ultimately Patterson is confident that it is the right one for him in the long run, “I never thought I’d say this but it is nice to put an end to something. To close a book. I thought it would be what I would do forever. That Coliseum was always me and my mind. It was difficult to let that go but it’s nice to have it be a thing that ended in a good way.”

While one door closes, another opens and Patterson has announced his intentions with the release of the phenomenal Fotocrime EP featuring the darkly warped, post-punk epic “Always Hell”. A song that acts as the perfect bridge between the sound of Anxiety’s Kiss and Patterson’s new material under the Fotocrime moniker, “The more post-punk vibe kind of continued because that is what I am most into and feels right. When we were done with everything I felt that that song (“Always Hell”) in particular was a good transition from Coliseum to Fotocrime. I don’t think it is wholly indicative of every sound Fotocrime has made. I don’t think it is exactly what the album material I have finished sounds like but it does kind of set the tone and it’s more of a guitar rock song so ties in with Coliseum so it works well in that way. I think it was a good step.”

While that song might sound like a natural progression, it took a long time for Patterson to achieve what he wanted with the new material, “This is not exactly the sound I started off trying to make. When I started, I was trying to make this music that would become Fotocrime and it just wasn’t working. It was pleasing to the ear and the songs were cool but my voice wasn’t where I wanted it to be,” Patterson reveals, “I threw out a bunch of material I wrote immediately after Coliseum did our last tour. Even before we made the decision to stop I started writing things with the idea that it would be my own thing. It just didn’t work.” Naturally, his approach to writing differed tremendously from working with a band mainly due to the absence of one particular instrument, “The nature of having a drum machine and programmed drums is so different from playing with a real drummer and that alone creates a completely different vibe and sound.”

Understandably, the process of creating music alone rather than as part of a band wasn’t an easy transition, “It was a challenge, for sure to make it feel like something that sounded right and fit the bill while still having the vibe that I wanted.” Notably, synthesizers feature more prominently in the Fotocrime material, and despite becoming more a part of Coliseum’s sound on Anxiety’s Kiss, as Patterson points out, understanding how to get the best from them proved to be the biggest test, “The synthesizer stuff was slowly entering Coliseum songs here and there but to do it a lot more was a challenge and certainly synthesizers are entirely their own thing and you’re kind of learning how they work. You have to learn how to work mechanically before you can make them work musically and that’s a challenge” explains Patterson, “Sometimes you get something and I’m so overwhelmed by it that I don’t know how to make music out of it and you have to learn the basics of getting that machine to make musical sounds. So it’s really exciting and it’s challenging and it’s fun in a way that is unique in a different way to the guitar.”

With the EP acting as the perfect appetizer for more material, when exactly listeners can enjoy the main dish is a little more uncertain, “We are trying to take things as it comes. After the release of the EP we are going to start approaching labels. It could be later this year, it could be next year.  We might release it ourselves. It’s kind of entirely unknown at this moment. Getting the EP out first was the goal.” That said, Patterson reveals that the album is in the can and good to go, “It’s done. It’s completely finished and I’m very proud of it and excited about it. I think that inherently it’s the strongest stuff that I’ve done. It is exciting to have new sounds and to share Fotocrime with the world.” With that in mind, it’s clear that some break ups can be for the best after all.

Since the birth of punk, numerous fledgling bands have learnt their craft through the release of limited edition 7” and EPs. In this, the internet age, platforms such as bandcamp have made it fundamentally easier and more economically viable for bands and smaller labels to release these offerings and gradually build a following before launching into the critical and commercial minefield that is releasing your debut album. This is exactly the path followed by Canadian rockers, The Dirty Nil. Their phenomenal debut album Higher Power was the culmination of everything they had learnt from five years of recording and, for many, it was their first introduction to a band who are quickly forging a reputation as one of the most exciting rock bands around. Thankfully, Dine Alone and Fat Wreck Chords have joined together to offer a fascinating insight into the creative growth of the band by releasing this compilation of all of their 7”s and EPs to date. Now those who have had their appetite whetted by Higher Power  can take a trip through their history to find a band who, from the very beginning, have been making nose-bleed inducing, scuffed up, perfect slacker anthems.

Debut single “Fucking Up Young” saw the band come out swinging with a thrillingly raw and infectious single that has to rank as one of the best debut singles of the modern era. The bare bones production and the rough and ready scuzzy guitars are refreshingly gritty and authentic, coming across like an old, dusty artifact of the band’s origins. It perfectly captures that moment in time where the band threw themselves into what (for all they knew) could have been their only shot at cutting a single. The band hadn’t had to time to overthink things, just plug in and play. It helps that their sound had already been honed through years of touring as the take sounds live with stop-start, wigged out guitars and short sharp bursts of percussion. The B-side from the single “Verona Lung” is a similarly spiky, unpolished gem of an alt-rock song which combines the deceptive simplicity of Pixies and the vulnerable howl of Rivers Cuomo.

Next up comes “Little Metal Baby Fist” and “Hate is a Stone” from their “Little Baby Fist” EP – “Little Baby Fist” blends together equal parts Husker Du, The Replacements and Fugazi to leave an uncompromising, explosive punk song with a hook you could hang a T-Rex from. Their 2014 7”, “Cinnamon” b/w “Guided By Vices”, their first for Fat Wreck Chords, has a grungier feel but is anything but derivative, coming across like a lost Nirvana cover of the Vaselines from their Incesticide album. “Guided by Vices” in particular has a riff that could instantly oxygenate your blood as the band coil a classic rock n roll riff into an incendiary ball of noise.

“Nicotine”, “Beat”, “New Flesh” and “Pale Blue” all come from 2014’s “Smite” EP. “Nicotine” distorts a standard blues shuffle  while“Beat” kicks in the door, taking the classic punk sound of The Damned and views it through the prism of 80’s DC Hardcore. “New Flesh” shows a more hardcore side to the band with the band kneeling at the altar of hardcore legends Minor Threat. Original bass player Dave Nardi takes over vocal duties to scream himself inside out as the band pummel through a full throttle slab of abrasive, caustic hardcore. Closer “Caroline” is a mid-tempo waltz which sees the band combine their sound with classic 60s melodies. It builds to a swirling whirl of biting guitars with singer Luke Bentham howling and lamenting through the din.
This compilation acts as the perfect introduction for those taken in by their hook-laden, riff-heavy, fiery debut and are thirsty for more. It’s an exhilarating flick through their discography to date and after repeated listening it doesn’t feel so much a compilation as an early greatest hits record.

4.5/5 Stars

Pismo Beach easycore punks Hightides are currently streaming their new song “More Like a Nightmare.” You can listen to it below.

“More Like a Nightmare” is the first single released from the band’s upcoming debut release “The Things I Can’t Explain.”

[Read more…]