Archive for the ‘Upcoming Release’ Category
Foo Fighters get ready to record new album
Back in January, fellow writer Dan argued that Dave Grohl is the greatest rock artist of at least the modern era, if not ever. So he should be ecstatic to hear that Grohl’s main band, Foo Fighters, are preparing to record their seventh album.
Grohl announced the news on Friday at the Independent Spirit Awards, saying that Butch Vig would produce the record.
In a change of pace from previous albums, which were recorded in a high-tech studio in California, the new disc will be recorded entirely in analog in Grohl’s garage. No release date has been set, but September has been discussed as a possibility. The album will be accompanied by a documentary on the band’s history and the making of the newest album.
And of course, the news was accompanied by the obligatory, and profusely infuriating insistence that, according to Grohl, “I think this could be our heaviest album yet.” I really need to start keeping track of how often that phrase is used in the run-up to a new album.
-Sam
Whenever bands take a long time between records and then come back with a drastically different sound, they take a serious risk in alienating their audience and jeopardizing their career.
That’s exactly what happened with Taproot, who, after a really good debut album (Gift) and a mediocre follow-up two years later (Welcome), took three years before making their next album, Blue-Sky Research, which scrapped nearly all of the band’s chugging riffs and unique screams and instead saw the band trying to reinvent itself as some kind of radio-friendly alternative outfit. The move was a complete disaster. The music was so watered down that it just came across like a puddly mess, and more importantly it angered a lot of the group’s core audience, myself included.
Look, I’m definitely not saying that bands should never change their sound. I don’t think that’s true at all. But bands should at least be able to gauge their own strengths and weaknesses and not seek to make music that they cannot pull off – like Lil’ Wayne’s “rock” album. I mean, “Prom Queen” is one of the most hideous musical abominations I’ve heard in recent years, but I digress.
With only a week before the release of their self-titled debut, Broken Bells are streaming their entire album on NPR untill its March 9th release date. Broken Bells is the latest collaboration between Brian Burton (or Danger Mouse as he is known) and Shin’s frontman James Mercer. You can either listen to specific tracks or stream the entire album from begining to end. This album seems to be a slight continuation of some of the moodier work that was done on the Demon Days album, which one of us seems to have mentioned.
Speaking of Gorillaz, this isn’t the only Danger Mouse related present NPR has up their sleeve. They are also streaming their upcoming album Plastic Beach. Word of warning, Gorillaz rarely stick to the same sound between major albums and this is no diffrent. I will leave it at that. Enjoy
The Black Keys released one of my favorite albums of 2008, Attack & Release. Produced by Danger Mouse, it featured a noticeable progression of the band’s sound and the songs were catchy as hell – just a bunch of really tasty southern psychedelic riffs and anguished crooning.
But after the record came out, the two band members started dabbling in all sorts of side projects like their rap-rock project Blakroc, Dan Auerbach’s solo album, and Patrick Carney’s band Drummer. It seemed like it would be a long time before we heard them together again in The Black Keys.
Thankfully, that’s not the case. And we will actually get to hear new Black Keys music much sooner than I ever anticipated. How soon? Well the band announced that their sixth album, Brothers, will be released on May 18th.
This time, however, Danger Mouse is only producing one track, “Tighten Up.” Carney and Auerbach will be handling most of the other production work themselves. So it will be interesting to see whether they can carry over the same magic from Attack & Release without a heavy Danger Mouse influence. Personally, I think they can.
Perhaps the coolest bit of news about this new album is that there will be a cover of Jerry Butler’s “Never Give You Up” (as opposed to Rick Astley’s more famous “Never Gonna Give You Up”, although a cover of that would be awesome as well.)
They chose a great album cover too:
Full track list after the jump.
More New She & Him
Whenever I’m about to write the band name “She & Him,” I always have to stop and ask myself whether they use the word “and” or the ampersand symbol (&). It’s the ampersand symbol, but it still gets me every time. Damn you, grammatical symbols!
Anyways, the important news about the band is that they’ve just released another new song from their upcoming album, Volume Two (or is it “II”? Frick!) which is set to be released on March 23.
The song, “Thieves,” is the album’s opening track. It’s got kind of a The Kinks-Roy Orbison mix vibe going on, but it’s not radically different from what you’ve heard on Volume One. Just another solid slab of heartsick folk rock. You gotta love the way Zooey Deschanel emotes on the line: “Two broken hearts don’t beat / any less”
-Sam
Time to strap on your “Rocket Skates”
Deftones are giving away their new song “Rocket Skates” as a free download. (Note: I was experiencing some difficulty trying to download the track from their site earlier, but I’m sure they’ll get it fixed.) The song is off their upcoming album, Diamond Eyes, which will be released on May 18.
And I must say, they sound good. Real good. This song is better than anything on Saturday Night Wrist. Is the song repetitive? Sure. But when you’re just locking into a dynamite sludgy Stephen Carpenter guitar riff, it’s fine to repeat yourself.
Go download it or listen to it on YouTube.
“Guns, Razors, Knivesss. . . WOO!”
-Sam
Some people have begun to declare that rhythm-based video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are on the way out.
And while it’s no doubt true that they aren’t nearly as popular as they were just a few short years ago (market supersaturation surely hasn’t helped; LEGO Rock Band, seriously?) I can attest that they still offer that same fun experience most people remember about them. Getting two or three buddies together for a night of rocking out with plastic instruments is still a pretty enjoyable evening in my book.
The latest trend in this genre has been the artist-specific titles, like Guitar Hero: Metallica and The Beatles: Rock Band. Well, now Jimi Hendrix, the iconic “guitar hero” himself, will be getting his own pixelated avatar and game this year.
This news comes from Hendrix’s stepsister, Janie Hendrix, who controls Jimi’s estate. She said the Hendrix game will be a Rock Band title and it will be released by the end of this year (my guess would be around Christmas).
Hendrix has music that was made for games like this – classic grooves, killer solos.
It’s also a bit funny that Rock Band managed to land Hendrix, since Guitar Hero has always included the character Xavier Stone (pictured), who in his later incarnations was definitely a Hendrix doppelganger.
-Sam
Jimmy 'The Rev' Sullivan
Avenged Sevenfold recently posted on their website that Mike Portnoy, the drumming legend of the severely technical metal band Dream Theater, shall be recording with A7X on their upcoming album.
This is the post that Avenged Sevenfold put up on their website on February 17th:
I want our fans to know that with Jimmy in our hearts, our journey to record has officially began. Jimmy helped leave this world an amazing gift and now it’s our job to make sure to deliver that gift to our fans. We asked Jimmy’s all time favorite drummer Mike Portnoy to record on behalf of him. Mike said it would be an honor and without question that’s what Jim would have wanted. Its comforting to us that someone like Mike, who is undoubtedly revered as one of the best drummers in the world, held such respect and adoration for the Rev’s abilities. Even though it will never be the same without our brother by our side, his essence lives in our hearts and through the music he helped create. He was a legend before any of the success or any of that bullshit and we are fucking excited to lay this down for our fans, and especially for Jimmy.
- Avenged Sevenfold
You can also view a tribute video for Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan on www.AvengedSevenfold.com
Mike Portnoy
Everyone who heard MGMT’s debut album, Oracular Spectacular, knew these guys were trippy. I mean, even if you didn’t hear the music, you could have just looked at the cover art.
Well, the boys have outdone themselves in the visual weirdness category with their sophomore album, Congratulations, which is due out on April 13. Here’s the cover art:
Wow. That looks to me like someone dropped acid and then watched a 24 hour combined marathon of The Itchy and Scratchy Show and Nick Jr. cartoons bathed in the DayGlo and neon colors of the 80s.
I’m sure for some people, this art works really well. I’m not really digging it, but that’s not going to put a damper on my excitement for the music.
The full track list for Congratulations is after the jump: