News
Livestream BETTER NOISE MUSIC FEST Right here..
The Better Noise Music Festival takes place this Thursday at 6 PM ET / 3PM PT! This event will feature performances from some of the biggest names in Rock, all via the virtual music festival hosted right here on our website.
Mötley Crüe, Five Finger Death Punch, Papa Roach, AWOLNATION, Cory Marks, Dirty Heads, The Hu, Bad Wolves, Escape The Fate, and more are set to play the online festival this Thursday night.
Check the trailer and Bookmark the stream page
plus check out some of the great music releases by these artists...
New Release Round-Up 07-10-20
Margo Price - That's How Rumors Get Started - Loma Vista
That's How Rumors Get Started sees Nashville icon and 2019 Best New Artist Grammy nominee Margo Price commit her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out her emotive twang over sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop. With production from her friend and longtime collaborator Sturgill Simpson, it shows both of them pushing into unexpected directions.
The Jayhawks - XOXO - Sham
Featuring writing and lead vocal contributions from all four members, The Jayhawks’ extraordinary new album, XOXO, is the most diverse and wide-ranging in the group’s storied history. Rather than marking a sonic departure, though, the collection signals a sharpening of focus for the band, an elevation in understanding of who they are and what they do best. In classic Jayhawks fashion, the songs here mix the influence of American roots music with British invasion and jangly power-pop, but there’s a newfound vitality at play, as well, an invigoration of confidence and energy that could only come with the injection of fresh blood. The result is an album that, much like the band’s lush harmonies, brings multiple distinctive voices together into a singular whole, a collection that, ironically enough, finds unity in individuality and identity in reinvention.
DMA's - The Glow - Infectious Music
DMA's are poised to make a major breakthrough with their third album The Glow produced by multiple Grammy winner Stuart Price (The Killers, Everything Everything, New Order) at Westlake Studios in West Hollywood.
Following the success of the 2019 debut release, The Gereg features viral rock hits "Wolf Totem" and "Yuve Yuve Yu", with additional features from Lzzy Hale of Halestorm, Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach and Danny Case of From Ashes To New, whose version of "Yuve Yuve Yu" reached top 10 at rock radio. Hailing from Mongolia, The Hu are unlike any other rock band in the world, introducing their new style of music they call "hunnu rock" - from the Mongolian root word for human being, "hu". Since their release, the band has been #1 on the Billboard World Albums Chart, #1 on the Top New Artist Albums, and Top 5 Globally on Hard Rock Music Album Charts (US, Canada, UK, and more). They have toured the world extensively, with sold out shows in Europe, the UK, and the United States. The deluxe CD includes the full album, as well as 3 acoustic tracks and 3 featured versions.
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UPCOMING RELEASES
S. G. Goodman was raised in Western Kentucky on the Mississippi River Delta in a strict church going family of row crop farmers. Her debut solo album, Old Time Feeling, co-produced with fellow Kentuckian Jim James, showcases S.G.'s otherworldly voice, which soars above a sonic blend of gritty guitars, bottomland grooves and plaintive balladry."
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The fifth album from the British rockers. The follow-up to Full Nelson features 12 new tracks. The members of Massive Wagons say: "Times are hard and scary right now. We want to do all we know how to do - that's bring music to people. Everyone needs to look after each other because we are all In It Together. We hope our music sends positive vibes to everyone affected by the situation, and see you on the road when normality is restored."
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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.
New Release Round-Up 07-03-20
Paul Weller’s 15th solo album, On Sunset, is a soul album. At the same time it’s an electronic album, an orchestral album, an album packed with classic pop songs and heart-tugging ballads, and an album filled with touches of experimentalism. It’s also an album that sees Weller taking a rare glance into the rear-view mirror as he speeds into the 2020s.
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Pure X - Pure X - Fire Talk Records
Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. In 38 minutes, Pure X weave a culmination, all the delays and distortion, the grinding mortar of touring, the low-tide pulling them out from a cult band, to a legacy band, it’s here, understood and forgiven.
Willie Nelson - First Rose Of Spring - Sony Legacy
A new studio album from the time-defying legend who has won Grammys for his last two albums (2019’s Ride Me Back Home just won Best Solo Country Performance and 2018’s My Way won Best Traditional Pop Album). While his last few albums have focused on facing the reality of mortality and crying or laughing in its face, this one is focused much more on celebrating the now and embracing life, love and friends & family. The album includes new songs written by Willie Nelson and long time producer Buddy Cannon combined with new songs written by Chris Stapleton and Toby Keith plus a handful of classic songs that Willie interprets his way, all performed with an amazing band of Nashville gunslingers.
Stu Larsen has no fixed residence...all he owns is a suitcase. You can find him in his native Australia, in Spain, Japan or South America before he picks up and leaves for his next destination. The Queensland, Australia-born singer-songwriter, and narrator packed up his life in a suitcase and has circled the globe on a near twelve-year and five-continent international trip. He has chronicled this journey through his music, including his newest full-length album Marigold.
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Holy Wave - Interloper - Reverberation Appreciation
Holy Wave is a band of multi-instrumentalists from Austin, TX. Originally from El Paso, the band’s sound has evolved into a unique blend of sun baked surf-psychedelia. Holy Wave creates a brand of psych that brings to mind fellow Texans like The 13th Floor Elevators and modern contemporaries like The Black Angels and Night Beats, dyed in carefully constructed noise with an attention to detail echoing the work of influences like My Bloody Valentine and Spectrum.
For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.
New Release Round-Up 05-01-20
Lamentations is a 10-song rumination on the current state of the world around me. I was raised in the faith and the book of Lamentations was always one that caught my attention. A broken man crying out to the heavens, asking why God sat back and let his country fall apart. Questioning the sheer existence of a higher power in the lowest of times. How could an all loving God sit back and let an entire nation’s cry for help go unanswered? I saw many parallels in that story and the current climate of this country in 2020. There are a large group of people who were promised something in 2016. They are still waiting for those promises to be fulfilled. This is a record about the things that break people. Religion, politics, addiction, love, money, family, history. I believe it is an empathetic look at the other side. A group of stories about losing everything and still finding the will to stand back up and fight for the things that matter the most. - BJ Barham, American Aquarium
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Car Seat Headrest - Making A Door Less Open - Matador Records
Making A Door Less Open, the new album from Car Seat Headrest and the first set of brand-new songs since 2016's Teens Of Denial, is available this week on vinyl and CD featuring distinct tracklists and mixes for each format. Created over the course of four years, Making a Door Less Open is the result of a fruitful 'collaboration' between Car Seat Headrest, led by Will Toledo, and 1 Trait Danger, a CSH electronic side project consisting of drummer Andrew Katz and Toledo's alternative persona, 'Trait.' To realize this, the band recorded the album twice: once live with guitars, drums and bass, and once in a MIDI environment using purely synthesized sounds. During the mixing process, the two approaches were gradually combined using elements of each, with additional overdubs.
With a sound that recalls Country music's acid washed golden era, the '90s influenced band Hot Country Knights has finally revealed more details about their debut album The K Is Silent, from Capitol Nashville, available this week. Produced by Dierks Bentley, the multi-Platinum entertainer also serves as a co-writer on over half of the 10 brawny tracks, serving up one of the most musically satisfying debut albums since 1999. Standout track "You Make It Hard" best represents their High-T philosophy.
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Damien Jurado - What's New, Tomboy? - Mama Bird
2020 release from the Seattle-based indie-folk veteran Damien Jurado. What's New, Tomboy? is his third album in three years, following 2018's Secretly Canadian swan song The Horizon Just Laughed and 2019's Mama Bird debut In The Shape Of A Storm.
Chicano Batman - Invisible People - ATO Records
Chicano Batman release their new album, Invisible People, via ATO. The LA-based quartet made up of Eduardo Arenas, Carlos Arévalo, Bardo Martinez and Gabriel Villa, follow-up the critically acclaimed breakthrough Freedom Is Free with their most sonically varied and cohesive album to date. Mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Shawn Everett (Beck, Alabama Shakes) the 12-song set accentuates the group's high-spirited synthesis of Tropicália, west coast psychedelia and late-'60s/early-'70s soul.
UPCOMING RELEASES
"As a thank you for all the support over the years, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit will be opening sales for their new album, Reunions, a week early exclusively for independent record stores. These are strange times we live in and the hope is that getting a jump start on sales of the album will be of some help to you in a time of need. Jason and the band look forward to seeing you again in person when they get back on the road. Hang in there!" His last album - 2017's The Nashville Sound - a #1 album on the Billboard Folk, Independent, Country and Rock albums charts, also received Best Americana Album at the Grammys, Album Of The Year At The Americana Honors & Awards and was nominated at the CMA Awards for Album Of The Year. Since then, he has collaborated on the soundtrack for A Star Is Born, the debut album by the Highwomen, and Sheryl Crow's latest album Threads. He also released a live album, Live From the Ryman.
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In early 2016, D.C. punk legends Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion) and Michael Hampton (S.O.A., Embrace, One Last Wish) met up at Hampton's Brooklyn home to play music together. Friends since first grade, the two guitarists ended up writing a handful of songs that day, then closed out the session with a spur-of-the-moment decision to start a band. When it came to finding a bassist, Baker and Hampton looked to Johnny Temple of Girls Against Boys and Soulside (another fellow student at their elementary school), who equally shared their passion for what Temple refers to as "loud, angry, visceral music." By the end of the year, the band had enlisted Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzén as their singer, thus cementing the lineup to punk-rock supergroup Fake Names. Soon after dubbing themselves Fake Names-a moniker that's part Raising Arizona reference, part recognition of the "ubiquitous and demonic use of the term 'fake news,'" according to Baker-the band headed to Renegade Studios with the goal of creating a demo to present to record labels. But after playing those recordings for Baker's Bad Religion bandmate Brett Gurewitz, the Epitaph founder made an unexpected proposal. "Brett said to us, 'This isn't a demo, this is the album,'" Baker recalls. "He was pretty adamant about putting it out exactly as it was, so that's what we wound up doing."
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When considering any great work of art, be it a painting, a novel, or a piece of music, it's natural to wonder what might have inspired it. Mark Lanegan's 2020 album, Straight Songs Of Sorrow, features guest appearances from Greg Dulli, Warren Ellis, John Paul Jones, Ed Harcourt and more, These 15 songs are inspired his life story, as documented in his new memoir, Sing Backwards And Weep. The book is a brutal, nerve-shredding read, thanks to Lanegan's unsparing candor in recounting a journey from troubled youth in eastern Washington, through his drug-stained existence amid the '90s Seattle rock scene, to an unlikely salvation at the dawn of the 21st century. There's death and tragedy, yet also humor and hope, thanks to the tenacity which impels it's host, even at his lowest moments. Today, Lanegan is a renowned songwriter and a much-coveted collaborator, as adept at electronica as with rock, constantly honing his indomitable voice: an asphalt-laced linctus for the soul. While the memoir documents a struggle to find peace with himself, his album emphasizes the extent to which he came to realize that music is his life.
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For more information on these and other releases out this week, check out our New Releases charts by week section.