Ryan Adams has unveiled his new track “Doomsday.”
Japandroids Stream New Album
Japandroids’ great new album Near to the Wild Heart of Life can be streamed below. The album hits stores on January 27th.
Review: Silence
Where to even begin with Silence.
Martin Scorsese is my favorite filmmaker. The Departed is a masterwork that served as mine and countless other’s introduction into the world of cinema. To survey the diverse array of films Scorsese has made is to attend film school: to learn how to read a visual story, to realize that every frame has meaning and is communicating something and that, when done expertly, the experience of a film can be profound. It’s to learn the ID of Scorsese: the themes he’s preoccupied with, the ideals he’s interested in exploring. Faith is one of those ideas. The Last Temptation of Christ is likely his masterpiece, a film about Jesus Christ, a legend treated as more than man, and it tests his faith and what his martyrdom means on a human level. Silence is about an ordinary human, not the son of God, facing a similar test of faith. When Scorsese tells this story about a real man in the real world, the grim realities of slavish devotion to faith and dogmatic thinking are exposed for the true devastation they wreak. Faith and morality are not so easily reconciled together.
Third Eye Blind to Play Self-Titled Album on Tour
Third Eye Blind will be playing their self-titled album in full during their 2017 tour. Dates can be found below.
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Conor Oberst Announces New Album ‘Salutations’
Conor Oberst will release his new album Salutations on March 17th. The album will contain seven new songs and full-band renditions of the songs on his last album, Ruminations. He’s also unveiled the new song “Napalm.”
The Bombpops – “Jerk”
The Bombpops have debuted their new song “Jerk.”
Review: Dryjacket – For Posterity
I’m sure there’s a joke to be made about Dryjacket’s debut album being titled For Posterity, given their throwback sound, but I’m neither clever nor unoriginal enough to make it. There would be truth to it though — from the pun song titles (“Spelling Era,” “Abe LinkedIn”), to the horns, to the dual vocals — everything about For Posterity feels familiar.
You can pull out hints of The Promise Ring and Piebald at every corner of the band’s pop-sensible emo, and the trumpet calls to mind American Football, of course. The band even pays tribute to their more eclectic, more technical forefathers on “Epi Pen Pals” and “Milo with an ‘H.’” This is all to say that, much like my sort of attempted joke, For Posterity isn’t all that original. It plays, generally, like a recap of the genre for anyone who might’ve missed it the first time around.
Spoon – “Hot Thoughts”
Spoon have debuted their new song “Hot Thoughts.”
Radiohead Announce 2017 Tour
Radiohead have announced some U.S. tour dates for 2017. You can find those below.
Review: Natalie Hemby – Puxico
In the summer of 2015, when I put Chris Stapleton on the last-ever incarnation of AbsolutePunk.net’s Absolute 100—a feature dedicated to celebrating up-and-coming, under the radar artists—I asked a pair of questions that have since proved to be prophetic. The first was “If given the opportunity, how many of country music’s gun-for-hire songwriters could make better records than any of the artists they write for?” The second was “How many of them could make masterpieces?” More than I thought, apparently.
Since Stapleton’s breakout success, the songwriters seem to be taking back Nashville. 2016 brought major critical and/or commercial successes for Maren Morris (who had previously written for Kelly Clarkson and the TV show Nashville), Brandy Clark (who had previously written for Sheryl Crow, Miranda Lambert, and Toby Keith, not to mention a slew of co-writes with Kacey Musgraves), and Lori McKenna (who penned two of the biggest hits in modern country with Tim McGraw’s “Humble & Kind” and Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”). Hopefully, these big successes will push Nashville labels to take chances on more of their top songsmiths. Who knows how many stars are waiting to be born in the liner notes of your favorite country records.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day. It feels like his words are needed now more than ever.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
Blink-182’s “She’s Out of Her Mind” Reaches #1
Blink-182’s “She’s Out of Her Mind” has hit number one at alternative radio. You’ll find the current top thirty below.
Skrillex and From First to Last Release “Make War”
Skrillex and From First to Last have teamed back up to release the new song “Make War.” You can check out the song on Apple Music and Spotify.
All that time apart and all I’ve learned is that I still don’t like this band.
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Eisley – “Louder Than a Lion” (feat. Anthony Green)
Eisley’s new song “Louder Than a Lion” (feat. Anthony Green) can be streamed below.
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Review: Code Orange – Forever
“Technology is something that I really appreciate, but being someone who comes from hardcore, metal and punk, you’re fighting it at the same time,” says Code Orange’s Jami Morgan about his band’s unforgiving new record, Forever. “It’s almost like the bridge between those two ideas.” That portion from a late 2016 Rolling Stone interview comes to mind every time I listen to Forever (Code Orange’s third full length and major label debut for Roadrunner Records) – a record that embraces technology as much as it wants to destroy it, resulting in a near perfect modern hardcore classic.