New Singles Abound! The Dog Days Are Over, And Florence Has Nothing To Do With It

Well, that was nice, wasn't it? Late July to early August usually signify the "dog days" of summer, and the music industry suffers from them with the rest of us. Now, though, it's time to start hyping up the fall release schedule, which is filling up fast. Buckle in, kids; business, as they say, is about to pick up.

One of the most anticipated hard rock releases of the fall must be the fourth album by Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor's original band Stone Sour. Never one to shy away from ambition, House Of Gold & Bones is a two-part album (is there a theme developing here?), with Part 1 coming in October and Part 2 coming next spring. After weeks of cryptic clues and frustratingly short song snippets, not one but two full songs were unveiled today, and neither Gone Sovereign nor Absolute Zero sound like they're going for another Say You'll Haunt Me. You're going to need lots of volume for this:

House of Gold & Bones Part 1 is out October 23 on Roadrunner.

Having already released their self-proclaimed stab at power pop in the form of Oh Love as lead single, Green Day seem to be on some kind of mad mission to oversaturate the market; a second single has arrived in the form of the head scratching, Franz Ferdinand with Tourette's dance-rock tantrum Kill The DJ. When you consider that ¡Uno! is still six weeks away, and that ¡Uno! is only seven weeks away from ¡Dos! (the second of their planned three albums over the span of just eighteen weeks), we're looking at an estimated 936 new singles between now and the end of the week.

I will give a small measure of restrained credit for this, though; Kill The DJ is an embarrassment, but at least they're not afraid to try something new, even if it's a failure of massive proportions. Hell, they've got the balls to take a failure of massive proportions and release it as a fucking single.

¡Uno! is out September 25 via Warner Bros., and you can bet by then I'll have memorized the Windows alt code for the upside-down exclamation mark.

Up next is the first taste of Bad Books' second album, appropriately titled Bad Books II. A side project of Manchester Orchestra mainman Andy Hull and singer/songwriter extraordinaire Kevin Devine, Bad Books is a sunnier, far less melancholy affair than we're used to with Manchester Orchestra, as evidenced by Forest Whitaker. Aside from being awesomely titled, the track sees the pair in playful form, throwing a dirty break beat underneath a bright and non-threatening melody.

Bad Books II comes out October 9 on Triple Crown Records.

Finally we have a little Canadian content courtesy of Three Days Grace, who have a new album coming soon as well. Fans of the band are talking about the bold new direction the band is taking with lead single Chalk Outline, so I gave this one a chance. Suffice it to say, if rehashing formulaic hard rock and throwing electronics on it constitutes a bold new direction, Three Days Grace is a brand new band!

Just take it for what it is; a generic radio rock song dressed up with a splash of industrial as a subtle admission of fear, a plea to the increasingly electro-leaning alternative rock programmers not to leave them behind. Is it an awful song? I wouldn't say that. Is it a risky endeavor to be commended? Nope; what Green Day just released takes balls. What Three Days Grace just released takes a laptop.

Transit Of Venus (the cover for which seems to be intent on tricking Cage The Elephant fans into buying a Three Days Grace record) sees release October 2 courtesy RCA.

Year in Rock 2025

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

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