The lineup for 2025’s Furnace Fest has been announced.
Read More “Furnace Fest 2025 Lineup”Interview: Pierce the Veil (Video)
Pierce the Veil have been going strong for ten years now. The band is comprised of singer Vic Fuentes, guitarist Tony Perry, bassist Jaime Preciado, and drummer Mike Fuentes. The band has endured exactly zero line-up changes. This is a testament to the bond this fun-loving four piece has. While some old bands are back doing ten year album anniversary tours, Pierce the Veil are playing songs from their first album A Flair for the Dramatic on its We Will Detonate Tour.
This new interview is a retrospective of sorts. In under twenty minutes the band discusses their inception, their side projects, sources of inspiration, their song writing process, and what’s next.
Interview: Joe Principe of Rise Against
Bassist Joe Principe talks about the Rise Against’s sixth record Endgame, the challenge of keeping things fresh, being inspired by the military, and how punk rock originally gave him the courage to speak out.
Review: Modern Baseball – You’re Gonna Miss It All
I really, really don’t like the term guilty pleasure. I think it’s a dirty phrase that’s used too often by people who don’t feel guilty at all about liking whatever they’re talking about. I used to describe the Snakes On A Plane theme song as a guilty pleasure (while we’re here: that song is a undoubtedly a high in Crush Management’s dominance over the world), but then I thought about it and decided that “guilty pleasures” do not exist.
There is a point here, hidden underneath the layers of awesome, guiltless pleasure currently filling your ears, since I’m assuming that you clicked on that link and by now William Beckett is getting into the first chorus of the Snakes On A Plane jam. For many people, Modern Baseball’s sophomore LP, You’re Gonna Miss It All, will seem like it belongs under the umbrella of things you like but deep down you’re not really supposed to like. This makes sense to me because I felt that way about the band’s debut, Sports, for a very long time. Brendan Lukens and Jake Ewald are not “technically good” at singing. Modern Baseball does not write gloriously composed instrumentals that will one day serve as a reference point upon which even more glorious songs will be written. The lyrics Lukens and Ewald belt out – sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, and sometimes mumble-y – have an expiration date on them. Case in point: The opening track, “Fine, Great,” mentions Instagram. Someday, Instagram will not exist. Probably.
Read More “Modern Baseball – You’re Gonna Miss It All”Review: Bon Iver – 22, A Million
The first time I heard 22, A Million, the long-awaited third album from Bon Iver, I hated it. To my ears, it sounded like a formless mess, devoid of any clear highlights (at least on the level of the best songs from Justin Vernon’s previous albums) and frequently undone by head-scratching production choices. Granted, I was listening to a shitty rip of a shitty stream that had leaked to the internet months in advance. I’d also had my expectations sent through the roof by live recordings of the band’s full playthrough of the record at this year’s Eaux Claires music festival. Even an amateur audience recording of the performance captured the magic of the new songs and made it sound like 22, A Million—despite arriving on five years’ worth of built up anticipation—was going to live up to my every expectation. Hearing the same songs in studio form didn’t hit me the same way, and I spent months considering 22, A Million my biggest disappointment of the year as a result. Even after the album officially released in September and I finally got to hear a full-quality version, I heard it as a distinct step down from its two predecessors.
Sarah Rose Project – “Send Flowers”
Sarah Rose Project, the new solo journey from the lead singer of Sarah and the Safe Word, has released her latest single called “Send Flowers.” Pre-orders for the self-titled record by Sarah Rose Project vinyl are now live here.
Read More “Sarah Rose Project – “Send Flowers””Spotify Recommending A.I. Generated Music
Spotify has been recommending “A.I. generated music” to some users:
My favorite example of this is AI music spreading across on Spotify right now. A user on X this week spotted an Artist page called Obscurest Vinyl that was promoted by Spotify’s Discovery Weekly.
The story behind the page is interesting. Obscurest Vinyl started as a Facebook page that would photoshop fake album covers for classic records that didn’t exist. The page recently shifted into posting AI songs to go with the fake album covers. As one commenter noted, you can tell the songs are AI because most of them feature bass and drum parts that don’t repeat in any discernible pattern. The account also regularly fights with users on Instagram who gripe about it using AI.
Look, I think songs titled things like, “I Glued My Balls To My Butthole Again” are, honestly, pretty funny, AI or not. But they’re being uploaded to Apple Music and Spotify, which is where the snake starts to eat its own tail. Popular AI music generators like Suno clearly have datasets that include at least some copyrighted material (likely a lot). Which means, in this instance, Spotify is promoting and monetizing an account using an AI likely trained on the music that’s been uploaded to their platform that they don’t actually pay enough to support the creation of. And this is happening across every corner of the web right now.
New Age Thief Share New EP
New Age Thief have released the new EP, Stars [re]align.
Read More “New Age Thief Share New EP”Avenged Sevenfold Release Acoustic Album
Avenged Sevenfold have released a new acoustic album on Spotify and Apple Music.
Cartel Share Acoustic “Faster Ride”
Cartel have shared a new acoustic version of “Faster Ride” on Instagram.
Read More “Cartel Share Acoustic “Faster Ride””