SOUND BITES

Stream The Company Band's Pros And Cons here courtesy AOL Music. Fans impatiently awaiting a new record by Clutch can have their appetites partially sated by The Company Band's second EP Pros And Cons . Neil Fallon's distinctive voice has the power to make just about anything sound like Clutch; good thing, since most of the EP's five tracks bear little to no musical resemblance to Fallon's day job. We've already heard lead track House of Capricorn , and it's the closest we're coming to a true Clutch vibe.  Black Light Fever has Nuge-sized swagger, Kill Screen picks up the pace and rocks in the same vein as Zombie Barricades, the highlight of their self-titled debut album.  Loc Nar brings some menacing, doom-and-gloomy chug-a-chug, and closer El Dorado is what would have to be considered a Company Band power ballad, complete with the heart-tugging line "I'm so sorry I had to cannibalize you". At a meager five songs, of course ...

Listen to Witchtripper , Down's first studio release in five years here, courtesy your pals at Rolling Stone. We've been hearing endless rumours and speculation about Down's next project, dating back a couple of years now. Well, never ones to blindly rush in, the band has taken their time and let this project come along slowly, like a nice tender roast. Well, it's supper time. The long promised series of EPs (in lieu of a new album) is close to being rolled out, with the first (originally reported under the name EP One , now being promoted as the decidedly more wordy Down IV Part I - The Purple EP ) coming on September 18. For those who haven't been following along, the plan is to release four EPs over the span of the next couple of years or so (I call it The Green Mile Approach in honour of Stephen King, who rolled out his bestseller in six installments back in '96), each one boasting a different flavour, presumably all coming together in the end like a ...

It's nearly impossible to overstate the effect that Guns N' Roses' debut album had on hard rock music. Released on this day in 1987, it was unassuming at first. The video for Welcome To The Jungle would air every once in a while, usually on the Power Hour (MuchMusic's Canuck equivalent to Headbanger's Ball). It was certainly different from everything else we were being subjected to, but it didn't have much of an impact on the population at large. In fact, it wasn't until a year later and the release of second single Sweet Child O' Mine that the album started to pick up steam with record buyers. Before then, you heard about the album from friends of friends, who would talk about it like it was some kind of scrappy, snotty holy grail that your puny mind couldn't comprehend. Before long, it would become an inescapable classic, an album that so perfectly encapsulated the sleazy underbelly of Los Angeles that it effectively sounded the death bell for...

Stream The Gaslight Anthem's fourth album Handwritten here courtesy of my personal heroes at NPR. Making the long overdue jump to a major label after a humble debut and a pair of truly excellent albums, The Gaslight Anthem returns to record stores next week with Handwritten .  Understandably, there's a lot at stake for the New Jersey soul rockers, so they mostly quell the urge to experiment, focusing on what they do best.

When Red Hot Chili Peppers released their most ambitious project in 2006 (the 28-track double album Stadium Arcadium ), I thought it was pretty good, but that it's scope outreached its intrigue.  Without experimentation and deviation from their comfort zones, it was hard to take on those 28 tracks without boredom sinking in.  And it's a shame, because if you cut the weaker half of songs away you've got a hell of an album; instead, the addition of so much padding greatly lessened the album's impact. Now Green Day, partakers in ambitious projects themselves (what with American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown being modern day rock operas, the latter featuring a wide variety of instrumentation stylistic twists), are taking on their most ambitious project, and the first audio evidence is... underwhelming.

Stream Fang Island's sophomore gem Major in its entirety here courtesy of NPR. When I have a day off from my retail job, sometimes I like to plug away at my other job writing content for websites (not this one; this is the hobby aside from my job and my side job, or my side job hobby). Naturally, I need background music to keep the creative juices flowing, and every once in a while I'll throw caution to the wind and give something I've never heard of a spin. Because of this haphazard, careless approach to streaming music, I give you Fang Island, whose second album Major is out in just over a week. There's something distinctly different about Fang Island's wall of noise; it's a truly joyous noise, celebratory without being pompous.  It's like Andrew W.K. with more interesting subject matter and an unhealthy obsession with Slade and Supertramp. I'm going to stop trying to explain this and just say that it's extremely rare to come across mus...

When you think of the much-lauded and scrutinized Big Four of metal, you think of a group of bands who have solidified themselves as the cornerstones on which all heavy metal is built.  You've got Metallica, whose influence on the genre is well documented.  However, most of their output, and especially all of their albums from the last 20 years or so, have been divisive and/or frustrating affairs for metalheads.  Then, there's Megadeth who, though doing well by their devoted fans these days, went through a borderline embarrassing five-year period that started in the late 90's with the epic genre-hopping fail Risk . When you think of Anthrax, you think of the lovable outsiders who never took themselves as seriously as their peers, but could bludgeon you with a nuke of a riff when need be.  But, they've had their share of drama, not the least of which being the six-year ordeal of releasing their last album.  And as for Slayer?  Well, they've arguably held...

Honestly, I'm not trying to slag on Octopus , the lead single from Bloc Party's new album Four ; truth be told, I think it's a solid track that should get them a fair amount of buzz for the album. It's just that, while listening to its heavily processed, pristine soundscape, I can't help but remember their gloriously noisy debut Silent Alarm .  More specifically, I can't help but hypothesize that Octopus would have been an absolute rager on that album. Silent Alarm didn't put Bloc Party on the map simply because they used angular guitars at a time when angular guitars were garnering popularity.  It put them on the map because underneath those guitars was a messy, tense atmosphere, a mangled snarl of paranoia and defiance. Given seven years and three albums to incorporate synth and dance elements to their music and learn studio trickery, it seems it's all on display here.  The guitars don't sound authentic, all chopped up in Pro Tools and pr...

A couple of years ago, Band of Horses released the laid-back, easy-going lead single Laredo ahead of major label debut Infinite Arms .  The song didn't shatter the earth, but it was supremely simplistic and melodic, eventually earning my 2009 Song of the Year honours. So, when their fourth album Mirage Rock was given a release date and a first single earlier today, I stopped what I was doing (read: listening to the Baroness album stream) and checked it out. Knock Knock is a decidedly sunnier single than Laredo, and edgier too (handclaps notwithstanding).   Whether or not it's the hit single that Laredo inexplicably didn't become remains to be seen, but it does have me pretty excited to see if this is the direction they're headed in or just an uptempo, snappy song designed to drive sales. Mirage Rock is out September 18 on Columbia.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: May contain Album Of The Year.

Stream Serj Tankian's new album Harakiri before its July 10th release here (courtesy Exclaim!) After a pair of underachieving solo albums and the memory of System Of A Down starting to fade from public perception, it's somewhat understandable that Serj Tankian would use his third solo affair to reintroduce himself as the same oddball aggressor who tore a strip off of mainstream culture with System Of A Down over the course of four unflinching, daring and brutally heavy rock albums.  And, though it does rock hard by times, Harakiri gets most of its kicks in solid songwriting and soaring choruses rather than eardrum pummeling and guitar shredding.