Jeez Louise, I go away for two days and the news just piles up. I have no excuse, however, for all the other stuff over the past two weeks that I neglected and/or forgot.
Anyway, first on the docket is a brand new single from How To Destroy Angels, the musical brainchild of Mr. & Mrs. Trent Reznor. In lieu of new NIN (which, as we've been assured, is in the pipeline), Keep It Together serves an admirable purpose of tiding us longtime fans over.
This track takes the disjointed noisescapes of Year Zero and marries it with the delicacy of The Fragile. Mariqueen's voice is sultry and sweet, and Trent gets a little more mic time than we've been accustomed to with this project. We'll see how it all translates in album form sometime next year; An Omen, their second EP, is set for release on November 13.
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Longstanding purveyors of sublime noise rock ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead release their eighth album Lost Songs in a couple of weeks. Never ones to be straightforward with their motives or meanings, the album is actually not comprised of previously recorded but unreleased songs, but is for reals a new album of new songs. The first taste of Lost Songs surfaced a couple of months back and, like a total dumbass, I didn't utter a word about it here. Shame, too, since Up To Infinity is a raging, fiery masterpiece.
Today, they posted up a video for Catatonic. If you like political satire and your rock n' roll a bit unhinged, check this out:
Lost Songs is out October 23.
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse are releasing their second album of this year, Psychedelic Pill, on October 30. In fact, it's a double album with eight songs on it. I'm serious. Hell, the video for Ramada Inn is 17 minutes long!
I'll be honest: I dug it and all, but there was no way I was sitting through 17 minutes of it without the proper persuasion.
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No 17 minute songs on this one. In fact, the 17 tracks on Converge's eighth album All We Love We Leave Behind clock in at a shade over 45 minutes. I can also guarantee you won't fall asleep on this one. Have a stream of this, bitches:
All We Love We Leave Behind is out today on Epitaph.
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Final tidbit of news this trip: Rage Against The Machine are reissuing their landmark self-titled debut on November 27 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. If you're a fan of this band, you're going to want the deluxe edition. It's pre-selling for about $140, and comes with two CDs, two DVDs and a vinyl record. Of note is the content; the second CD contains Rage's original demo tape, while the DVDs have a ton of live footage from the band's early years plus their 2010 free show from the UK in its entirety. Of course, it's a beauty:
Let's watch a set from Brazil to get you in the mood:
After a slow ascent that saw them self-release their first three albums over the course of six years, Surf Curse found fame in the way that so many young and hungry bands do in this modern age; Freaks , written in 2011 and originally released on their debut Buds in 2013, found itself a sudden smash after soundtracking memes on TikTok in 2020, eventually garnering over 200 million streams and earning the group a major label contract. The first album following their breakthrough, Magic Hour finds plenty of changes in store for fans; now expanded to a four-piece, this album immediately sets itself apart from previous releases based on the fuller sound in the songs alone. Couple that with a step away from the lo-fi aesthetic that played a part in earlier releases and this is obviously going to be a different experience than people may have hyped themselves up for. That said, the crunchy, energized Arrow and the lush, dreamy Cathy combine for a very strong start even as they fly in the
Stream Avenged Sevenfold's Hail To The King here , courtesy iTunes. As uncool and un-hipsterish as it may be for me to admit on a blog, I'm a fan of Avenged Sevenfold. Their breakthrough album City of Evil and its blistering lead single Bat Country sucked me in, and their varied, multiple era sprawling attack kept me around waiting for more. Their 2007 self titled effort was just as strong in its shameless genre hopping, planting their feet firmly in the technical metal that endeared them to so many while reaching out to explore new sounds. With that said, I felt 2010's Nightmare was a step back; while it had some genuinely thrilling moments, it overall lacked some of the adventurousness that made them so interesting. Upon listening to Hail To The King 's title track for the first time, I was admittedly disappointed by its trite lyrics and (mostly) simplistic musicianship. However, repeated exposure has helped the track age well; once you get past the lyrics
Well, well, well. If it isn't Sound Bites temporarily coming back to life, suspiciously close to the end of the year. That must only mean one thing; well, aside from the author being supremely lazy and neglectful to his blog yet again. Yes, dear reader, it's time for Year in Rock. Look, I'm out of excuses as to why I can turn from cranking out content at a record pace to a full year of radio silence; suffice to say, this blog certainly isn't a priority in my life (which I have been rebuilding since my last post, but that's all personal stuff I have no desire to steal bandwidth from more deserving and important things). Sound Bites will continue to exist as a mausoleum for my personal music tastes, but it's not pivoting into self-help territory, nor is it roaring back to full-time status. I'll check in periodically, so as to say when there's something worth sharing. It might be once a year, it might be more frequently, but I definitely won't be gett
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