Punk Rock
Bad Religion Share New Song “What Are We Standing For”: Stream
Venerable L.A. punks Bad Religion have returned with a new single, “What Are We Standing For”. It’s a sincere political anthem just in time for the impending November election. The song’s titular question is on the minds of many this election season, with the future course of US politics seemingly at stake. Per the press release, the song is in solidarity with athletes who decline to stand during the national anthem and for those who have “taken a knee to protest police brutality and racism.” “In this time of tribal nationalism, dissent, as a form of political speech, is vital to democracy,” co-songwriter and guitarist Brett Gurewitz remarked. The track is an outtake from Bad Religion’s 2019 album, The Age of Unreason, and would have fit nicely on that record. It’s a rollicking uptempo roc...
Chubby and the Gang Pay Their “Union Dues” on New Song: Stream
London punk five-piece Chubby and the Gang dropped their debut album, Speed Kills, earlier this year to some excited praise, and it seems like labels were tuning in. Today, Partisan Records revealed they signed the band, and Chubby and the Gang are celebrating by releasing a new single called “Union Dues”. Considering their garage-rock spin on punk is as politically concerned as it is musically reckless, Chubby and the Gang should be a logical fit on Partisan alongside bands like Fontaines DC and IDLES. Led by “local electrician” Charlie Manning, Chubby and the Gang are billed as “coming out of a new wave of British hardcore,” the reality of which is blisteringly fun, rapidly quick, and excitingly unpredictable. If “Union Dues” is any indication of Chubby’s next moves, then we’re in for a ...
Mannequin Pussy Cover Rilo Kiley’s “The Execution of All Things”: Stream
Mannequin Pussy (photo by Marcus Maddox) and Rilo Kiley (photo courtesy of the band) A handful of indie and punk artists have come together to cover Rilo Kiley’s 2002 album, The Execution of All Things, in its entirety. The new project — officially dubbed No Bad Words for the Coast Today: The Execution of All Things — is due out next month, but is being previewed now with Mannequin Pussy’s take on the title track. Like Rilo Kiley, Mannequin Pussy are a band with a diverse stylistic palette. Just as The Execution of All Things shifts between peppy, fuzzy indie rock and twee, piano-driven indie pop, Mannequin Pussy’s 2019 album Patience swung between shoegaze, power-pop, hardcore punk, and more. For their cover today, Mannequin Pussy continue to channel that ve...
Palberta Announce New Album Palberta5000, Share “Before I Got Here”: Stream
Indie trio Palberta will kick off the new year with a new full-length album. Titled Palberta5000, it marks the group’s fifth overall and follow-up to Roach Going Down from 2018. Over the course of their last few records, the New York natives have earned a reputation for idiosyncratic, hard-to-categorize rock — the kind that mashes together experimental, surf rock, post-punk, punk, and more. For their forthcoming effort, however, Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser are pumping in more pop melodies. Palberta elaborated in a statement, “While punk music was our first love, pop music has become our fixation. Throughout the making of Palberta5000, we were focused on making music that people could not only sing along to but get stuck in their heads… that and attempting to make s...
IDLES’ Ultra Mono Offers Rallying Cries for a Burning World: Review
The Lowdown: In a year that’s seen the world burn physically, politically, and epidemiologically, getting into a debate about whether or not a rock band is phony feels as nostalgic as it does futile. However, this is an IDLES review, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do (at least for a minute). After the twin triumphs of 2017’s Brutalism and 2018’s Joy as an Act of Resistance vaulted the Bristol five-piece into the upper echelon of the British music world, the backlash arrived with bite that seemed to go beyond the music. Pick any IDLES profile from this album cycle, and you’ll inevitably see references to the recent charges and epithets leveled by fellow artists like Sleaford Mods (“their take on [political music] is cliched, patronising, insulting and mediocre”) and Fat White Family ...
Jeff Rosenstock Releases New Demos EP 2020 DUMP: Stream
Jeff Rosenstock made the first leg of quarantine a lot more bearable by surprise releasing NO DREAM, his fifth solo full-length and one of the best albums of 2020 so far. Now, he’s back to lift our spirits once more with a new EP of demos called 2020 DUMP. Stream it below via Bandcamp. 2020 DUMP follows the aforementioned NO DREAM, the 2019 collaborative Neil Young covers EPStill Young, and his stellar 2018 record POST-. In total, this new demos collection includes four songs: “DEPT OF FINANCE”, “COLLAPSE!”, “ACAB”, and “DONE DONE DONE”. Rosenstock recorded the whole thing at home during the pandemic, but that didn’t stop him from tapping a few longtime friends to contribute as well; Jeremy Hunter plays on “COLLAPSE!” and “ACAB”, and Laura Stevenson sings on every track except “ACAB”. The ...
War on Women Announce New Album Wonderful Hell, Share Title Track: Stream
Baltimore outfit War on Women have announced their third full-length album, Wonderful Hell, will arrive on October 30th. The politically charged hardcore band have also shared the LP’s ferocious title track. War on Women make no mistake about their views on modern society or the state of politics in the United States. Their songs read like a manifesto, and “Wonderful Hell” is no different. Singer Shawna Potter wrote the song during a period when she felt especially “exhausted and overwhelmed by the Trump era.” “I can’t ignore what’s in front of me/ That fear is real, but not the enemy,” shouts Potter. In the lyric video, there is a notebook emblazoned with the hashtag “#VOTE”. It’s at the core message of the song. “I think it expresses something that a lot of people are feeling,” Potter sa...
R.I.P. Sid McCray, Original Bad Brains Singer Dies
Sid McCray, the original singer of legendary punk band Bad Brains, has died. Affectionately known as SidMac, he passed away on September 9th. No cause of death has yet been revealed. McCray led the band from 1977 to 1978, when they were still a jazz fusion outfit known as Mind Power. He’s credited with introducing his bandmates to punk rock, specifically through albums by Sex Pistols and Ramones. Eventually, the band took on the name Bad Brains in reference to the Ramones song of the same name. McCray wrote early Bad Brains songs like “The Regulator”, but ultimately stepped aside as frontman to let his friend and guitarist H.R. take over. “I sung with the band for a little while, but I fizzled out because I saw H.R. was a much better singer,” McCray said in the H.R. documentary F...
Beastie Boys’ ’90s Hardcore EP Aglio E Olio Comes to Streaming Services: Stream
On the heels of announcing their greatest hits album, Beastie Boys have quietly uploaded their ’90s hardcore release Aglio E Olio EP to streaming services today. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. Aglio E Olio EP originally came out in 1995 via Grand Royal. Beastie Boys had just come off a string of excellent hip-hop albums, the most recent of which at the time was 1994’s varied Ill Communication, and realized they had written too many punk and hardcore songs for their next full-length. Instead of dumping the material onto Hello Nasty, which wouldn’t be released until 1998, they decided to release all of the tracks together as an EP. Spanning eight songs in total, the original Aglio E Olio EP 7-inch was hastily recorded in New York City in September 1995. Joining Ad-Roc...
New Movie Sound of Metal, Starring Riz Ahmed, Set to Hit Theaters and Prime Video
A new movie titled Sound of Metal is set to hit select theaters and Amazon Prime Video in the coming months. The fictional film stars Riz Ahmed as a punk-metal drummer who fears the end of his career. Ahmed, the Emmy-winning star of the acclaimed HBO series The Night Of, plays drummer Ruben, a recovering heroin addict who is losing his hearing. His girlfriend Lou (played by Olivia Cooke), who is also his bandmate, checks him into a sober living house for the deaf. From there, the drummer has to decide whether to adapt to his new situation or pursue his beloved music career. Sound of Metal was directed by Darius Marder, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Abraham Marder. Darius previously co-wrote the 2012 movie The Place Behind the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling. A press release off...
Anarchist Punk Outfit Crass Reissuing Entire Catalog with Bonus Material
Christmas has come early for fans of anarchist punk group Crass. On October 2nd, One Little Independent Records will reissue all of the English band’s albums as part of a campaign called The Crassical Collection. These reissues will come packaged with previously unreleased bonus tracks, as well as new artwork from longtime associate Gee Vaucher. Each of the band’s first six albums — that’s Stations of the Crass (1979), Feeding of the Five Thousand (The Second Sitting) (1981), Penis Envy (1981), Christ – The Album (1982), Yes Sir, I Will (1983), and Ten Notes on a Summer’s Day (1986) — will be reissued across two CDs. The first disc will contain the original album remastered by Alex Gordon and Crass founder Penny Rimbaud at Abbey Road Studios, while the second will feature “a mixture of rar...
Rancid’s Tim Armstrong Unveils 10th Anniversary Fender Hellcat Acoustic Guitar
Rancid’s Tim Armstrong has announced a new anniversary edition of his Fender Hellcat electric-acoustic guitar. Originally released 10 years ago, the Hellcat is based on a ’60s concert acoustic that Armstrong has used to write many of Rancid’s songs. The 10th anniversary model is worthy of a veteran musician like Armstrong, as well as a beginner looking for carry the instrument with them for years to come. The original Hellcat came from a collaboration between Armstrong and Fender to create his own signature model, featuring striking double-skull inlays and gold pickguard. The anniversary model retains those visual elements and touts a solid spruce top, gilded hardware, and a stage-ready Fishman Presys III pickup/preamp system with a built-in tuner. The guitar’s “C”-shape neck is made of ma...
