SOUND BITES

As it turns out, something I said on this blog earlier this year had a little more resonance than I anticipated. From my January 15th article " What Are The Chances? ", where I gave a percentage chance for certain artists releasing a new album in 2013: 1% NINE INCH NAILS We know that Trent Reznor is gearing up to release How To Destroy Angels' debut. We also know that there's an Interscope-released Nine Inch Nails greatest hits collection being targeted for 2014, for which Reznor promises two new Nine Inch Nails songs. But, we also know Reznor likes to fuck with his fans and absolutely loved fucking with Interscope. What better way to do that than to bring out a brand new Nine Inch Nails record? What better way indeed? Surprise: A new #NIN album is finished, coming later this year on @ columbiarecords : tmblr.co/ZW-7vsm2kw_u #NIN2013 — Nine Inch Nails (@nineinchnails) May 28, 2013 Bravo, Mr. Reznor. I love it when a plan comes together. More on...

With so many bands (and their many labels) vying for whatever pittance you may call your music budget, the art of promotion has become a tricky thing in recent years. Leaks aren't going away, so advance streaming has become commonplace. They serve their purpose admirably; the hope is that giving the world a legal means to listen will curb illegal downloading. It works to an extent, though only with regards to guilt-prone would-be pirates and/or casual listeners who couldn't be bothered with a torrent. Regardless, by their very nature, these streams are now a viable and widely used means of album promotion. Of course, some old traditions still hold true. Labels still pay for their artists' music videos, a longstanding promotional double whammy that gives eager fans a song and a neat commercial for an upcoming release. It's a practise that dates back over three decades and is arguably still one of the most effective means of promoting yourself as an artist. ...

Click here to go to iTunes and stream City And Colour's The Hurry And The Harm . I've never been that big a fan of Dallas Green's solo work. It's not that I was that big a fan of Alexisonfire's work, but more a case of finding City And Colour's albums to be overly dull thanks to the predominance of acoustic guitars and slow tempos. Over the course of three albums, though, Green has been slowly introducing more (pun intended) colour to his musical palette. Whether it's the weeping slide backdropping the title track, the stabbing organ-punctuated groove of Thirst or the light strings on Two Coins , it's clear that C&C has added some new machinery in his music factory. On The Hurry And The Harm , the listener still gets a good dose of the acoustic ballads that enamored longtime fans to City And Colour in the first place. However, there's a surprising level of variety spread across the disc's dozen tracks. Most tracks on this album benefit ...

I remember spotting Anthrax's sixth album in a department store bargain bin, circa 1994 or 1995. On cassette, no less. Their record label had pressed far more copies than it sold, it seemed, and so Sound Of White Noise found its way to that dreaded bin, next to a plethora for far more deserving rejects, wearing its fifty cent price tag like a shamed dog wearing its own shit on its nose. Today, Sound Of White Noise is regarded as a decent to good album by casual observers, but it was released into a far more hostile environment. In fact, as okay as people seem to be with the album today, Sound Of White Noise effectively ended Anthrax's career. Of course, it's not the album's fault; it was doomed well before release, thanks to what amounted to three pretty significant strikes for a metal band: 1) They had a new singer in John Bush, formerly of Armored Saint. Hindsight has accepted him as a formidable replacement for Joey Belladonna, but fans of the band weren...

Stream Kylesa's Ultraviolet here , courtesy Pitchfork Advance. The release of the sixth album from Georgian rock monsters Kylesa draws near and, as many bands are wont to do, they're giving listeners an early chance to sample the goods. Ultraviolet is the follow-up to 2010's Spiral Shadow , an excellent album that saw the band ease up on the sludge and infuse more melody, with fantastic results. After a quick run through Ultraviolet , the thing that sticks out to me more than anything is the album's grooves . This thing is chock full of them, thanks in no small part to their dual-drummer attack. The stringed instruments only add to Ultraviolet 's grooves, which all add up to an album that's not as dark as Spiral Shadow , but sure as hell sounds meaner. And that, to me, is a very good thing. At this point, I'll save something for the review (which you can expect soon), and highly recommend you take this beast for a spin. Ultraviolet is released May ...

Stream Vampire Weekend's third album here , courtesy the fine, upstanding, not at all annoyingly insistent on making you jump through hoops to stream an album folks at iTunes. Okay, so "summer blockbuster season" is a bit of an oxymoron when it comes to the music biz, what with the releases drying up pretty good from mid-June to mid-September or so as labels hoard their money makers for the Christmas shopping season and year end lists. But, this year does have a fair amount of enticing releases leading into the summer months; Alice In Chains, Queens Of The Stone Age, City And Colour and an up-and-coming fresh faced crew by the name of Black Sabbath are among rock bands prepping releases over the next six weeks. So, in a way, Vampire Weekend do indeed get to usher in an exciting month and a half in rock n' roll; Modern Vampires Of The City is the marquee album being released next week among a handful of anticipated (yet more underground) releases from the likes ...