Potpourri: This Might Take A Couple Of Hours

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:

Is that enough? We caught up? Excellent.

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...

SOUND BITES

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