It’s been nearly two decades since Linkin Park gained mainstream attention with 2000’s Hybrid Theory. ‘One Step Closer,’ ‘Papercut’, ‘Crawling’ and the unforgettable ‘In The End’ became worldwide anthems thanks to that unique, soulful voice that came from Chester Bennington. When the news broke out just three months ago that Bennington had taken his own life it was surreal. Continue reading
Linkin Park‘s tribute concert to Chester Bennington will be happening tonight at at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. The show will include several guest musicians(see below), as well as Linkin Park‘s return to the stage for the first time since Bennington’s death. Since Chester’s words affected so many all over the world, the band has decided to stream the entire show on their YouTube Channel. Continue reading
Cult Of Luna, Neurosis, and Trap Them have joined the eclectic lineup of one of the world’s most important music festivals, Roskilde. Taking place June 24th – July first, in Roskilde, Denmark, and boasts over 175 bands on 9 stages. Typically most of the lineup consists of more pop and rock bands, but over the years more heavy and experimental acts have been added. Continue reading
A Day To Remember is currently prepping to release their new album Bad Vibrations on September 2nd via the bands own ADTR Records. They streamed a new single today, ‘Naivety’ on BBC1 Radio which you can hear at this link or below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IhjlFWLJCA
‘Naivety’ is the 4th single ADTR has released in advance of Bad Vibrations with the previous three seeing video releases for ‘Paranoia’, the title track, and most recently ‘Bullfight’. The band is on tour all summer with Blink 182. Pre-orders for the new album are live and include grat tracks with every purchase at the bands’ web-store and on iTunes.
A Day To Remember on Instagram
Back for an 11th year in a row, Amnesia Rockfest near Quebec, in Montebello Canada will host mega bands such as Blink-182, Rise Against, Jane’s Addiction, Limp Bizkit and Ice Cube among the 125 bands who are slated to perform. Other bands scheduled to appear include Korn, Ontario punks Billy Talent and Sum 41, Bring Me The Horizon, Florida’s A Day To Remember, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Twisted Sister (farewell tour and last show in Canada), Puscifer, NOFX (performing their album Punk In Drublic), The Used (performing their album In Love and Death), At The Drive-In (reunion show), Underoath (reunion show), Blink-182’s Travis Barker (solo show), NOFX’s Fat Mike performing as Cokie The Clown (world-exclusive solo show), Lagwagon (performing their album Hoss), Millencolin, Streetlight Manifesto, Against Me!, Strung Out, Guttermouth, No Use For A Name (special tribute), Leftover Crack, Wizo, Flag, The Adicts, Misfits, Dead Kennedys, Steve Ignorant of Crass, D.O.A., Turbonegro and GG Allin (special tribute), Sepultura, Sodom (first show in Canada in 10 years), D.R.I. (first show in Canada in 20 years), Cannibal Corpse, Korpiklaani, Max & Igor Cavalera Back To ‘Roots’ (performing Sepultura’s Roots album), Corrosion Of Conformity, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless and Poison The Well (reunion show) and many more. Some defunct Quebec bands will temporarily reunite exclusively for Amnesia Rockfest, including Vulgaires Machins, Kermess, Raid, Démence and Yelo Molo. Festival regulars Grimskunk, Despised Icon, The Sainte Catherines (performing Dancing for Decadence), Voivod, Anonymus and BARF will be back this year. In addition, Québec Redneck Bluegrass Project, Bob Bissonnette, Gorguts and WD-40, alt rock legends Ludwig Von 88 (reunion show and only Canadian date) and Les Ramoneurs de Menhirs, Bérurier Noir’s Loran’s group.
Tickets are now on sale at www.amnesiarockfest.com and at Amnesia stores. Once again this year, festival weekend passes will be sold at very reasonable rates: $120 (plus fees and taxes), which comes out to less than a dollar per band! New this year: festival-goers can pay for their order in five instalments. VIP packages are also available.
For the 2016 edition of the festival, the VIP campground will be totally revamped to offer a unique experience to festival-goers. Again this year, several public transit options will be available, as well as an area for RV camping.
The Echo and Echoplex in Los Angeles, CA will be celebrating their one year anniversary for their Emo Night: Taking Back Tuesday on December 1, 2015.
Scheduled to perform are performances and DJ sets from Dashboard Confessional, Seahaven, Fakers, and Have Mercy, and DJ sets from Mark Hoppus (Blink 182), Jack Barakat (All Time Low), Mikey Way (My Chemical Romance), FIDLAR, Sugarcult, We Are The In Crowd, and more.
Other nights scheduled are posted below:
Dec 01: The Echo + Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA
Dec 08: The Marquis Theater – Denver, CO
Dec 15: Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA
Former Blink 182 frontman Tom DeLonge is streaming the music video for “New World,”off of his forthcoming album odds and ends, out April 20, 2015. Watch it below.
I’ve never really taken to Prong, strange though it seems. Energetic and bruising, they nevertheless come across a tad light-heartedly for me, and that’s sometimes the case with latest album Songs from the Black Hole (SPV GmbH).
A set of lesser-known Punk covers, the opening draft of Discharge‘s ‘Doomsday’ rips up trees with its pace and ferocity; Tommy Victor‘s acidic growl and rapid bursts of leadplay enlivening a great start. It’s on the ensuing ‘Vision Thing’, however, a gothic classic given a Blink182-meets-Desert feel, that the irritation begins: the largely laconic vocal blunting a subtle yet driving riff, turning the track into that awful ‘Nu-Punk’ stuff that blighted metal in the 90s. No doubt the band are trying to retain the feel of the originals while slapping on their own slant, but that cheapens the sound in some areas; the chopping bullet riff of the Butthole Surfers‘ ‘Goofy’s Concern’ diluted by that throwaway, almost disinterested vocal. The Adolescents‘ ‘Kids of the Black Hole’, though, is given a crucial kick by a more urgent, sputtered delivery, some pinpoint pace changes and a real snarling attitude with riffs and lead pulsing viciously together culminating in a brooding atmosphere enhanced by a rumbling bass.
As well as questioning the need for a band of Prong’s stature to produce such an album, it’s the lack of substance, immediacy, a paucity of real feeling and belief which ultimately disappoints despite the occasionally feisty rampage such as the version of Black Flag‘s ‘Bars’. If only the emotive, baiting ‘Seeing Red’ with its staccato riff, pounding drums and true Killing Joke evocations was the norm rather than the exception, this would be a joyous reworking of understated favourites. Even the catchy, driving riff of Fugazi‘s ‘Give Me the Cure’ seems to miss an edge, a vitality that only appears in the angered chorus.
There’s no doubting the “fun” aspect, nor the quality of the musicianship, but overall this could be a really decent pub band working through a hard-edged set. If Prong want to prove their relevance, this isn’t the trick to do it. Go and stream the originals, kids.
6.0/10
PAUL QUINN
Matt Skiba and the Sekrets is releasing their second album entitled KUTS on June 2, 2015 (North America) and June 1, 2015 (Europe) via Superball Music. The album was produced by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, the Vines) and the album cover was photographed by Jonathan Weiner and posted above.
Skiba’s first album with the Sekrets, 2012’s Babylon, received adulation from both fans and press. Now, Matt Skiba and his Sekrets (Hunter Burgan on bass, Jarrod Alexander drums) ready the release of KUTS. Skiba’s ongoing work in Alkaline Trio has been a well-documented punk rock success story, and the vocalist/guitarist has recently performed several gigs as a temporary member of punk/alt icons Blink-182.
Says Skiba of KUTS:
“The writing style and entire approach to this new one was a stronger desire to do something fairly different from my other band. We used sounds hugely influenced by early David Bowie stuff and took more chances. I knew that the playing of Hunter and Jarrod would bring entirely new elements to the songs that would help shape them in a huge way and influence ideas that I would never have thought of on my own. They did great stuff for the last record but had even more freedom on this one. It really shaped the way this record sounds.”
KUTS Track Listing:
01: Lonely and Kold
02: She Wolf
03: Krazy
04: She Said
05: I Just Killed to Say I love You
06: Way Bakk When
07: Krashing
08: Hemophiliak
09: Never Believe
10. Vienna
“Na na na na, I’m aware I am an asshole” chirps Ronnie Radke seconds into the perky title track of the third Falling In Reverse album, Just Like You (Epitaph); a relevant self-aware line for the people who find the former Escape The Fate frontman a hurdle to get over in and of himself. While some won’t listen to Megadeth because of Dave Mustaine’s crazy-ass bollock spouting (rather than the valid reason they haven’t done anything worthwhile for 25 years), liking Falling in Reverse shouldn’t mean forgiving or condoning his actions, as there has to be a separation between the man and the band.
Because, while Just Like You is not the album where Radke and his compadres grow up, it is the one where they produce a convincing, enjoyable slice of modern pop-rock fun and catchy metalcore.
‘Chemical Prisoner’, an energetic tune that recalls A at their best, kicks things off as the opening quartet of tunes of the album bring the sun and the fun, with staccato rock bouncing shoulder to shoulder with pop sensibilities. There are dashes of My Chemical Romance as spirited verses drop to half-time anthemic choruses, while English lead guitarist Jackie Vincent shines with a series of Yngwie-esque classical tinged solos. Some of the lyrics are dreadful, and the “OMG! You make me cum!” on ‘Sexy Drug’ will make parents the world over cringe, but the sugary swagger, the hook-filled rapid-vocal delivery in the verses and the festival-friendly chorus more than make up for it.
There’s plenty of looking to the big hitters for influence as ‘Just Like You’ could be Blink 182 jamming with Fall Out Boy while choruses throughout point to Def Leppard and Warrant albums in the collection. Elsewhere, ‘Guillotine IV’ and ‘The Bitter End’ showcase the other side of Falling… as they head back to beatdown town and out Asking Alexandria Asking Alexandria as they churn through the metalcore, but never at the expense of the chorus or the song. ‘My Heart’s To Blame’ is a slower, more considered number, not a million miles away from some of the more thoughtful moments of Sempiternal (RCA/Epitaph), and ‘Wait and See’ flits from Eminem to King 810 to Panic! At The Disco, further showing the diversity on offer.
What is interesting is that, while the grind of a track like ‘Die For You’ spices up proceedings and adds an impetus, where Falling In Reverse truly shine is when they cast off the trappings of trying to hang with the heavy, and let the pop rock bravado shine through. These guys can write hits, and while they could be a great rock band, they’re not much better than average when they do their metalcore thang – it makes you wonder if they’re trying to prove something that doesn’t need proving.
However, when all is said and done, Just Like You is a swag-bag full of new toys for their hordes of teenage fans to sing along and lose their shit to, and I have a feeling Ronnie and the boys are going to do pretty damn well out of it, thank you very much.
OMG.
7.5/10
Falling In Reverse on Facebook
STEVE TOVEY