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.