I was skeptical about Bars Of Gold; the band includes former members of Bear Vs. Shark, a group I never listened to because – let’s face it – there is no way a bear and a shark could ever fight. A shark vs. an octopus, okay; a bear vs. a lion, even better. But the basic premise just never seemed realistic to me. However: Of Gold, Bars Of Gold’s debut LP, is a fantastic and engaging listen from start to finish, a vital and organic explosion of rural malaise and urban fury. And it doesn’t ask you to believe anything about animals that you know to be patently untrue.

“The Hustle,” Of Gold‘s six-minute centerpiece, grafts hardcore bellows to ominous banjo licks that recall Modest Mouse’s early weird stuff, and then pushes them off a cliff with a drumbeat that will shatter your fine china if you play it too close to the kitchen. It’s the kind of song that makes me want to invite all of my friends over and then murder them, and it establishes Bars Of Gold as a volatile, lethal force. The rest of the disc is almost as good; whether they’re playing around with videogame-style synthesizer figures on “Boss Level” or slowing things to a graceful swoon for the album-ending “Cannibals,” these guys prove themselves to be the kind of free-thinking, risk-taking band that you simply can’t ignore.

I’ve gone through several different stages with this record; after the first few spins, I pegged it as “interesting and challenging but not totally successful.” Then I started to notice the pop songcraft below the crazy dynamics, and my appreciation deepened. Cut to a week later and I’m sleeping with the album under my pillow and whispering sweet nothings to it. Bars Of Gold are equally capable of breaking your heart (“Heaven’s Got A Heater”) and putting their fist through it (“Doctors & Lawyers”) – I’ve had long-term romantic relationships that weren’t this dramatic and fulfilling. Of Gold ranks among the best records of this year, and it will probably never sleep with your best friend.

Bars Of Gold:

• MySpace
• Blogs Of Gold
• Last.fm

Artist: The Clash
Album: Cut the Crap
Aftermath: The Clash broke up and, worse, made everyone think this is a good thing. Thankfully, I was born later that year, allowing the world this time and place for reflection on the Clash’s last days.

Strictly judging from their music, there was no reason for The Clash to call it quits after Combat Rock. They’d had a couple hits on a critically well-received album. Maybe they weren’t the same band that delivered the classic London Calling to the world anymore, but they were a sturdy punk band willing to dabble in different styles and try new things. Things were different behind the scenes, though, as interpersonal turmoil led to guitarist Mick Jones being ousted by lead singer Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon. It was a major change to the band’s songwriting core, but Joe Strummer was behind many of the band’s best-known output, right?

Right. But the tank was empty by the time of Cut the Crap. It shows. Overall, the production reflects desperate desires to do something new, to stay relevant, to experiment a little and to his the sales charts. Choruses are multi-tracked to sound like massive arenas singing along, but it comes off as a sad production trick. Worse, it muddles the lyrics and emphasizes how hookless many of the album’s songs are. If someone would actually want to sing along to these songs (they wouldn’t), the lyrics would be tough to decipher. Previously, The Clash’s dabbling into music genres was organic, as “Police and Thieves” belonged next to “Garage Band,” or ”The Magnificent Seven” worked on the same album as “Hitsville UK.” On Cut the Crap, though, everything sounds like a cluttered mess. The opening track, “Dictator,” is a perfect example of this. Initially, it sounds like a reggae song vocally, with arena rock drums and 80s synths laid over. As though that wasn’t enough, African percussion is lightly sprinkled haphazardly throughout. It’s a mess.

It doesn’t get better as this lack of focus affects almost every song. “We Are The Clash” thumps along and tries to be an anthem for the band, but by the end, I was less sure of who The Clash are than when the song began. With all the personnel changes, it made sense, in a way, to try to create a statement of purpose for the band. Unfortunately, The Clash already had nearly a decade’s worth of great songs that summarized them, whether “London Calling” or “London’s Burning” or songs that don’t even have “London” in the title. “We Are the Clash” can’t come close to measuring up.

Despite being The Clash’s worst album by far, though, Cut The Crap is not a terrible album. It’s still possible to hear the spark that got them to the top of the punk scene and beyond in some songs. “This Is England” is the best example, a song that tries to be an anthem and succeeds. It laborious stomp is filled with so much gravitas, every other song on this album, even the good ones, feel timid in comparison. The chorus is memorably simple; the whole thing is appropriate for arenas. Less successful but still interested is “Cool Under Heat,” a messily-produced song that nearly, maybe, almost, has something resembling a groove.

Then there are the songs where The Clash appear to try to appeal to their strengths, like “Dirty Punk” and “Movers and Shakers.” The former sounds like an attempt to update the classic Clash sound of their first two albums, but with the 80s arena rock sound. It’s notable for being a sad reminder that this is far from The Clash of their prime when not even this can be effortless. “Movers and Shakers” sounds like a Combat Rock leftover with some saxophone added it because what’s the point in even looking at the recipe, really.

The 80s were a strangely toxic time for a lot of classic bands, as we’ll see throughout this series. The Clash fell victim to this, despite being younger than, say, The Stones, and it killed them as a band. The production dates Cut the Crap badly, but the self-consciousness and lack of direction finish the job. With the exception of “This Is England,” the one truly great song, the best Cut the Crap songs are more or less “salvageable,” rather than necessarily “good.” In a lot of ways, this was the first Joe Strummer solo album, as the melding of punk and world music would become more solid later, specifically on his album Streetcore. Here, though, he is still trying to get out from under the umbrella of The Clash’s legacy, yet uncharacteristically too timid to work on his own just yet.

Other Holding On Too Longs:
The Replacements – All Shook Down
Aerosmith – Just Push Play
Sly & The Family Stone – Small Talk
Black Sabbath – Technical Ecstacy
The Who – It’s Hard

The other day a funny thing happened. I had just parked my car in the Meijer parking lot and I was ready to run in and grab the pints of ice cream that I came for, but then a song started playing and it was so good that I re-settled in my seat, lit another cigarette, and turned it up. I felt like a bit of a douche, listening to Best Coast by myself late at night in a parking lot. But, seriously:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXEyLTz18w4

We talked about Crazy For You, Best Coast’s debut full-length, a little bit on the most recent episode of Audio Assault (gratuitous plug), but I wanted to talk a little more about it here. I was a casual fan of the band’s pre-CFY output but, on the whole, somewhat unimpressed -- didn’t Vivian Girls do this, and a bunch of other bands that sound like Vivian Girls? Isn’t this washed-out style of lo-fi grrrl-pop a little played out by this point? I still think it is, but what Best Coast do is pretty far removed from what the cool kids are doing in Brooklyn. There’s a tangible sadness to these songs, a melancholy so deep that it becomes totally compelling if you let it envelop you.

Part of me feels like I’m cheating by listening to Best Coast -- I stole this record. Should I go pay $12 for it at Best Buy? I had a very difficult moment this week when I found out the new Jenny Lewis record (Jenny and Johnny, actually, but we all know what the people are paying for, right?) was released on Tuesday. I barely miss fishing Pirate Bay and pulling in ten records a week; I never had time to listen to all that, and it was distracting. What I really miss is the actual theft; getting a new record the day it comes out (or, realistically, a few weeks prior) when my bank account is distinctly short in the bones department. Getting music free like that -- consuming it like a normal consumer, sans the one commercially important part of the process, removes all the stress from being a music fan. I have a much easier time accepting an album for what it is when I don’t have anything tangibly invested in it. I know that’s lazy and wrong, but I’m poor. And I love music.

In the end, there are just too many options to ever be satisfied with any choice -- this is, coincidentally, what I think will actually be the undoing of our civilization. I was researching barbarism last night and one of the key traits of barbarism is increased leisure time. If you log on to Twitter in the middle of the workday, you will discover very quickly that all anybody has these days is leisure time. All of this luxury has made us barbaric again, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing -- not doing much of anything allows us plenty of time to go all deep-focus on our personalities and cultivate the eccentricities that make us individuals. That is the awesome part of the modern age. The drawback is that the things most people are naturally interested in are trivial and stupid.

To wit: I have the free time to write a weekly column about not listening to music. But I feel like this is the only way to truly rebel against a society that prizes infinite options; instead of grabbing handfuls of everything in sight and sorting it out later, I’m forcing myself to ask questions (of, uh, myself) and deciding what is important enough to spend money on. Money is everything; without money, we quite literally die. Capitalism is trying to destroy us by offering so much fare to spend our hard-earned sawbucks on; cherry-picking the best stuff, the stuff that’s actually worth engaging with, is equivalent to brewing a pot of coffee at home instead of spending three dollars on a cup of joe at Starbucks. The most satisfying word in my vocabulary is “no,” and I’m finding a lot of honest joy in using it hundreds of times a day.

But, wrapping up on the Best Coast tip: I don’t like Beth Cosentino’s music despite the references to weed and talking felines. I love Best Coast because of that stuff -- because it’s personal, and feels fragile. And, what the fuck -- who among us here hasn’t gotten high and tried to communicate with our pets? This recent wave of lo-fi stuff reminds me of what I loved about singer-songwriters when I was going through my singer-songwriter phase, and it’s also the stuff I love about watching stand-up comedy or bullshitting with my friends over a case of beer. With all of our major problems so far out of reach (the war, the oil spill, the Tea Party) and so impossible to correct in any way from an individual stance, we’re forced to examine the mundane details of life -- the stuff that frustrates us every day that we know we’ll never be able to change.

For instance, the employee bathroom at my workplace has an exposed sewer drain in the floor, and from that hole the smell of ripe feces rises like a phoenix from the ashes of the last ten dumping crimes to occur there. The bathroom always smells terrible, and my ten-cup-a-day coffee habit forces me to visit this wasteland on an extremely regular basis. The smell will never leave, regardless of how much bleach I pour down the drain or how many air-fresheners the cleaning crew installs; I wake up in the morning and I know I’m going to smell everybody’s excrement multiple times during the day. I have no control over the situation, short of quitting my job and getting evicted from my apartment. If somebody wrote a song about a shitty-smelling bathroom, that would become my favorite song, and I would pay money to own it. I would listen to it everyday. Sometimes I wish that drain could talk.

Records I enjoyed the “old-fashioned” way:

• The Beatles -- Let It Be*
• Led Zeppelin -- II
• The Police -- Synchronicity

Records I wanted to download:

• Jenny And Johnny -- I’m Having Fun Now**

*Let It Be will serve as the primary focus of next week’s WUTW installment -- I have a lot to say about my favorite Beatles record.
** I will purchase this when funds become available next week and probably discuss it.

Eightfourseven – Lossless
If their website is to be believed, Eightfourseven strive to “redefine alternative music.” But the material on Lossless fits snugly within the parameters of post-Radiohead alt-rock, matching twitchy electronic beats with big guitars. I don’t exactly mean that as a compliment: Lossless sounds like mid-period Thrice, brimming with mood and atmosphere but short on compelling songs. Some of the tracks have cool titles like “8 Armed Baby” and “Phantom Limb,” but the actual music is generic and dull. It’s a classic case of straddling two genres and doing neither one well – this would be a good soundtrack for dudes that like to pop their collars while pretending to read Noam Chomsky. If Vheissu rocked your socks but felt slightly too “deep,” Eigthfourseven are right up your alley; if you’re looking to hear something new, unique, and/or fun, look elsewhere. C-
Official Site / MySpace / Last.fm

Ape Machine – This House Has Been Condemned
These guys promise “equal parts rock ‘n’ roll, blues, stoner rock and psychedelia,” so I was pretty excited to pop This House Has Been Condemned into my hi-fi and let it rip. But it’s mostly a letdown: think the Black Keys sucking off Alice In Chains while Jon Spencer watches. Ape Machine aren’t bad, per se, but just kind of unentertaining, for a band promising such substantial firepower. And it’s not really their fault; young dudes with beards are always jerking off on Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records, it’s just part of having a penis (and a beard). You could do a lot worse; some of the riffs are fairly volcanic, and I’d take this over Wolfmother any day of the week. But, ask yourself honestly: are you really tired of ZOSO yet? Didn’t think so. B-
Official Site / MySpace / Facebook

We Were Skeletons – S/T
Maybe it’s just because I don’t listen to much of the stuff, but I find screamo incredibly exciting when it’s done well. And you won’t find many new bands doing it better than We Were Skeletons; their new self-titled LP ranks with Pianos Become The Teeth’s similiarly excellent Old Pride in terms of pure manic energy. The guitars are the main attraction – they’re mathy without being obnoxious, and they never distract from the rhythmic massacre happening all around them. As with virtually any band in this genre, We Were Skeletons could stand to up the melodic ante – none of these songs will necessarily stick to your skull. But by the time the disc is over, you won’t have much skull for them to stick to anyway. Bonus points for the surprisngly gentle mid-album palette cleanser “Her Stomach Is A Lioness;” unexpected touches like that are what separate the wheat from the chaff. We Were Skeletons are all wheat, baby. B+
MySpace / Last.fm / Topshelf Records

The New Loud – Measures Melt
I really wanted to like this record; the New Loud seem like nice kids, and they appear to be having fun. The problem is that Measures Melt isn’t actually fun to listen to. The problems begin with the singers; it’s a guy/girl thing, which I usually enjoy, but the guy doesn’t have the right voice for this kind of material. It’s like listening to Elvis Costello warble over frenetic dance-punk after he swallowed a fistful of Ambiens. The girl fares better, but not much better – nice voice, but no personality. And the music itself, for all its frenetic and punky danceability, doesn’t feature the kind of hooks that require repeat listens. Measures Melt is kind of like a strip club where all the dancers are radioactive mutants; interesting idea, but off-putting after about five minutes.  C
Official Site / MySpace / BandCamp

Campaign – It Likes To Party
When Campaign say they like to party, it’s not the “naked frat boys paddling each other” kind of party. Rather, they like to get massively drunk and then self-destruct in glorious fashion. Their pain is our gain: It Likes To Party builds on the already-quite-strong style they debuted on last year’s H1N1 EP, grafting Gainesville-style hardcore vocals to big pop-punk riffs with none of the edges sanded off. This is highly explosive shit – on highlight “Blue Pills And Whiskey,” the dudes pursue blotto’d oblivion with the fierce passion that other bands of their ilk would expend chasing girls, and the result is music so raw and emotionally honest that you can’t look away. And don’t even get me started on the wonderfully textured breakdown that caps “Bored To Death” – it’s like My Bloody Valentine showed up at your kegger and started handing out ass-beatings. If Campaign are the new face of party, count me in. A
MySpace Downloads

The first song that clicked with me on Jonny Rumble‘s new album JR was the mid-album barnburner “Courtney’s Basement;” it sounds exactly like Kings Of Leon’s early stuff, with a straight-forward arrangement and spazzy riffs. The rest of the disc, I wasn’t so sure of – so I kept listening. And that turned out to be key, because Jonny Rumble do so much stuff here, jumping from style to style and throwing so many melodic curveballs, that JR is just not easily digestible. But: it’s pretty short at thirty minutes, which means you can listen to it 48 times in one day. That should be enough spins to get you acclimated.

The band’s influences range far and wide; the disc can feel a little schizophrenic at first. There are three constants, as I can tell: 1) They like to keep things funky – the vibe is that of a crowded city street at night, with touches of reggae and soul that elevate their blend of alt-country and garage-y punk to “instant party-starter” status. 2) Brian Webb’s passionate vocals, which make every song feel like a shot to the gut. And 3) These guys really dig in and play; the songs don’t merely sit there and request your attention, they reach out and invite you to dance. (Or, in the case of first single “BRZRKR” and the aforementioned “Courtney’s Basement,” they karate chop you in the neck.)

Opener “Cox Road” is deep and wide, with slinky wah-wah’ed guitars and some tinkling piano. I usually like a record to start with the hardest and fastest material first, just to wake me up, but this is more of a head-nodder than a foot-stomper, and that’s okay too. In fact, the band’s softer moment’s are some of JR‘s best – “Stumped” has a spaced-out Flaming Lips vibe that’s a nice contrast to all of the head-bustin’ and booty-shakin’ going on around it (and the “ba-ba-bas” will steal your heart, as “ba-ba-bas” are prone to do), and “Time,” the album’s last song, throws some glorious pedal steel into the mix.

JR is a textbook grower; what all seemed like a little too much at first now makes perfect sense, and I want more. If your tastes run toward the eclectic (and you think it would be awesome for Kings Of Leon to cover an Elvis Costello song from 1983, which is kind of what the best moments sound like), this is the disc for you. It’s available now for free download from Rock Proper, although I recommend you scoop up the $13 vinyl edition. It may take a few listens, but you’ll get hooked. Jonny Rumble is a hell of a drug!

(Jonny Rumble are playing a record release show tonight [6/25] at Beat Kitchen. California Wives and You Can Be A Wesley also throw down. The doors open at 8:3opm, it’s 21+, and tickets are $6. Be there, or miss the Assault Party Death Squad getting buckwild on the dancefloor.)

Do you remember the Fireside Bowl? I use the word “legendary” a lot, but this place was actually LEGENDARY. A decrepit, smelly bowling alley that hosted punk & indie shows all throughout the 90s, the Fireside always looked like it was going to collapse. Seeing a show there was exciting, not just because you were getting a fix of raw, awesome music, but because you could quite literally die. I unfortunately never got to see any of the really legendary shows there (Third World Timmy, to this day, still talks about the time The Fux became his favorite band, based solely on one live performance there; he still has a Fux poster in every room of his apartment), but last week I got an email from our friends in Geronimo! telling me that they’d be performing there this Tuesday. (That’s TODAY, if you’re reading this right now.) How pumped am I for this show? Well, let’s see. Geronimo!’s Fuzzy Dreams is one of the best rock records I’ve heard this year – a unique blend of post-rock, punk, and prog, featuring keyboards that don’t sound like keyboards and guitars that’ll slice your head off. And the drums? Don’t even get me started on the drums, mostly because I don’t know the correct terminology to describe what Matt Schwerin does, and also because I will never stop talking. Sometimes I’m air-drumming along, using every available surface, and it gets so intense that I have to punch myself in the face. That’s the kind of band Geronimo! is. Plus, I haven’t been to the Fireside since 2002, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s goin’ on there. (It was used for the bowling scenes in The Break-Up, so I’m thinking there’s been some serious renovation.)

Also playing: Warren Franklin, Bust, and The Please & Thank Yous. I don’t really know those bands, and I don’t like to try and do a rundown just based on their MySpace pages or whatever. But I’m willing to bet that they’re all cool, since they’re down with Geronimo!, and this show will probably be one of the most bro-tastic things you see all year. When I found out about this show, I immediately googled the Fireside to try and find out if they were going to have shows there on a regular basis; all their website mentions is bowling, so I don’t know exactly what the story is behind this. If you’ve never been there, I suggest you check it out – it’s part of Chicago history, and, besides, what else are you gonna do on a Tuesday night? GO TO THIS!

Here at Assault HQ, we know how difficult it is to plan a weekend in Chicago. With so much good live music to choose from (and so much alcohol to drink to while you listen), who can decide? We can. Just follow this itinerary and you’re guaranteed an awesome time:

FRIDAY:

Dust off your machetes and machine guns: Direct Hit! are coming to town again. This time they’re playing at infamous Logan Square uber-dive Ronny’s. Also on the bill: The Sky We Scrape, Red City Radio, The Please & Thank Yous, and Tension Generation. Can’t vouch for any of those other guys (although I genuinely looking forward to experiencing them this evening), but you NEED to see Direct Hit!. You need to see them NOW. They are tighter than fuck, and they are hilarious. And DH! mastermind Nick Woods is a genius-level pop-punk songwriter. They’re still riding the buzz from #4, their blockbuster EP from earlier this year. The show starts at 6 and it’s all ages, although you probably don’t want to bring your kids here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4l-ePeq8bI

Later on in the night: That Ronny’s show is pretty early, so you should have plenty of time to catch White Mystery at Crown Liquors on Milwaukee -- also in Logan Square, which is kinda serendipitous. On the bill: Kommie Kilpatrick, Tender, The Amoebas, and Blasted Diplomats. If you’ve never experienced the magic of White Mystery live, do yourself two favors. First, pick up a copy of their recent full-length debut. Second, come to this show tonight and get your brain exploded and your sensitive spaces filled with demonic ginger seed. WM are the real deal. Show starts at 9pm, and there’s a $7 cover.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix1YYSB1g80

SATURDAY:

My buddy at NoVo hipped me to a pretty cool show on Saturday, and now I’m gonna recommend it to you. Haven’t caught these acts live, but I perused their MySpace pages and all of them make some pretty unique sounds that should set your ears pleasurably a-tingle. Who are they, you ask? I answer: Pretty Little Empire, Brendan Losch, and David Safran. They all lean towards the quiet and agreeably weird, which is a pretty ringing endorsement coming from me (now that I’m old and can’t handle the spazzy stuff [If I could go off on a tangent here, and I think I can since you're not paying attention, I tried to spin Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam the other day and had to turn it off halfway through because it was irritating the holy shit out of me; I'm not sure if it's because I tried to play it during an intense Scrabble jam, or because my ears simply can't tolerate that level of chaos anymore, but Jesus Christ. I'm pretty sure we'll all look at Animal Collective in twenty years the way most rational people view the Grateful Dead: you had to be there, and you had to be on something {anything!}]). Anyways, this promises to be a solid, low-key show, and the perfect way to settle down after getting aurally gang-raped by the deviant bastards in Direct Hit! and White Mystery. It’s at the Chopin Theater, doors open at 9:30, and there’s a $6 cover charge (plus, as the press release so helpfully informs me, a cash bar). It’s 21+ so the kids are gonna need a sitter, again.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG4Rgtxd_N0

SUNDAY:

Sunday is Mother’s Day, which means you gotta spend some time with the woman that birthed you into this cacophonous and disorienting place we call “the world.” So do that -- take her out to brunch at Golden Corral, take her to see Iron Man 2, maybe even escort her to the church of her choice. But once you’re done with that, get ready to lose your goddamn shit: Converge is playing the Bottom Lounge. These hardcore legends will basically do to you what Jeffrey Dahmer did to really unlucky dudes in Milwaukee, and you’re gonna love it. Also on the bill: Coalesce, Black Breath, and Lewd Acts. If that doesn’t trigger your boner-reflex, you might need to see a doctor. This show is all ages, so bring the whole family, and it starts at the reasonable hour of 5pm. Tickets are $16. Get ready for your acid bath!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jjBinzryFY

Full disclosure: I like Coheed and Cambria so much that I got their logo tattooed on my wrist. I know that that was a retarded thing to do, but I was younger and drunker then, so whatever. I have no regrets. Despite my longstanding fandom of the band, I had pretty low expectations for their new disc, Year Of The Black Rainbow -- they’ve been slickening up their sound pretty much ever since their debut (The Second Stage Turbine Blade), and their previous record (2007′s No World For Tomorrow) bore almost no relation to the adventurous, weird sounds these guys first captivated me with when I saw them open for Thrice at Metro in ’03. It was a corporate steamer, filled with power ballads and big soft hooks for all the mouth-breathers that still listen to Q101.

But damned if Year of The Black Rainbow doesn’t find them recharged -- instead of the typical symphonic intro to begin the album, there’s some weird industrial clatter that suggests something has gone very, very wrong. This is (of course) the beginning of a whole new story for the band -- never content with mere concept albums, these guys have created an entire mythology (supplemented by graphic novels and lots of hilarious amateur analysis on internet message boards). Here’s another disclosure: I have never, even for one second, paid attention to the storyline behind any of this. I just want the riffs, man. And, good news, there are plenty of white-hot licks to go around here, with Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever playing dual leads on most of the songs. There’s so much flashy guitar action here that I briefly contemplated basing this entire review around a claim that C&C are my generation’s Metallica (inasmuch as my generation needs a Metallica -- the old model is still chugging along pretty smoothly), but that would be mostly bullshit.

Year Of The Black Rainbow would, however, be Coheed’s “black” album -- stripped down and heavier than fuck, without any elaborate song suites or fluff. Since the story that drove the band’s back catalog is (I think?) officially closed, we can isolate those records as the band’s White Unicorn period -- i.e., galloping neo-prog mixed with elements of fantasy and sci-fi. This new material is distinctly different -- darker, harder, downright merciless when it really gets cooking. Black Unicorn shit, in other words.

My only complaint is that eventually the disc gets a little bogged down and samey in the middle, but that’s been a complaint I’ve had about everything these guys have ever done. It’s all about the good stuff, and the good stuff is great enough to support the weight of the band’s occasional excesses. Do I recommend this to you? Yes, of course, and I don’t even need to qualify that with a warning about every person’s individual tolerance for goofy shit. There’s nothing silly about Year Of The Black Rainbow -- these guys have been singing about epic battles forever, but now it feels like the fight is really on. Forward, then, into the black-lit abyss!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR_Nxk2BpWM

Coheed and Cambria:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Cobalt & Calcium (Fansite)

Were I scouring the planet for a rough, bruised-up, no-frills punk outfit with strong songwriting skills, punchy dynamics, and the emotional heft of a Jawbreaker kind of thing, Brooklyn is probably not the place I’d begin my quest. But: The Reveling meet all of the aforementioned qualifications while still residing in a hipster zip code. And they count among their members Jay Weinberg -- his dad plays drums for the E Street Band. These guys throw up all kinds of red flags on the surface, but there’s no arguing with the honesty and brutality of the band’s performances. This is genuine, straight-up punk rock without any gimmicks or pretension; it’s refreshing, and also catchy.

Their self-released EP 3D Radio makes all of these traits abundantly clear; it has the raw feeling of a basement recording but the subtle fidelity of technically high-quality work. “Breadline” begins with a prominently rubbery bass line, letting you know right away that these guys aren’t fucking around. Only good bands mess with that kind of bass; it’s dangerous in its potency. The vocals are highly reminiscent of the Gaslight Anthem, with a shouty, less-polished quality that’s pleasing in its unvarnished power. The guitar parts are a little more complicated than what you might expect, with some high-caliber noodling sprucing up the super-traditional song structures. What I really like about this band are the way their melodies trail off into unexpected places, giving the songs a lot of variety within the self-imposed limit of their stylistic scope. Also, all the instruments sound like real instruments getting roughed up in a room with wood paneling.

The rest of the EP follows this basic formula. The set’s third and shortest track, “The Faces We Know,” displays a crazy amount of tension and release for running only two-and-a-half minutes -- I’d mark it as 3D Radio‘s most impressive moment. But it’s totally solid from start-to-finish -- guaranteed to get your entourage punching each other in the face, but also offering some real think-meat in its more contemplative moments. These guys absolutely nail what they’re going for, which is high praise considering their relatively short existence as a band.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IsyUwH6GNc

The Reveling:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• ReverbNation

Third World Timmy sends me a lot of links to music videos. Every day at 5pm, when the working is done, I dump my inbox, clap my hands together, and feel a blissful relief that another day of clicking through to amateur Nu-Metal bands covering Stripped-era Christina Aguilera songs is done. But, once in a great while, there’s a shining nugget of visual/musical perfection that makes all the drudgery finally, undeniably worth it. This is one of those nuggets. I previously knew A Day To Remember only from their excellent cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone;” after watching their new video for “I’m Made Of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?,” I want to be best friends with them. I want to sit on a stoop with them, drinking forties and making “Yo Mama” jokes. I like this video so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant. Kickball? Check. Hot chicks? Check. Impressively bearded hardcore band engaging in behavior so goofy it would embarrass No Strings Attached-era ‘N Sync? Super-check. This video is amazing. You’re gonna love it.

A Day To Remember:

• MySpace
• Official Site
• LastFM

The Dropkick Murphys already have a St. Patrick’s Day-themed album in their discography, 2005′s Live on St. Patrick’s Day, so on first glance this entry might appear redundant. Then again: they’ve been together since 1996, and that other record came out five years ago. Since then, one of their songs was in a Scorsese movie, and four St. Patrick’s Days have happen without live albums to commemorate them. In some ways, it’s more surprising that they haven’t done a St. Patrick’s Day album for every year they’ve been active. So “Hey, why the hell not?” turns out to be a good enough reason to justify double-dipping a bit. The band probably realizes the package might be a little silly on the surface, so they wisely don’t repeat themselves, except for the song “Forever,” and, well, the general aesthetic of their sound.

Almost all of these songs are hard-rocking Irish punk numbers, and in the end the Murphys don’t delve into too many themes. In fact, their approach can be summed up in exactly one word: BOSTONPUNKBEERIRISHBLUECOLLARREDSOXREDSOXBRUINS. So, the mileage of this album might depend on how close you live to Boston (I grew up one town over; I’ve heard this stuff in regular doses since teenhood), how Irish you are, or how much you love wearing green and drinking on a certain day every year. It also may depend on how long you can handle their sound; 20 songs is a lot by any band’s standards, especially one whose closest thing to a switch-up is adding a bagpipe or a guest singer. It’s all delivered with high energy and pummeling riffs. There’s lots of audience participation and probable moshing. The whole package is just so heartfelt it becomes enjoyable for what it is, you know?

So that’s the general approach that the Murphys take to their music. When it comes to the specifics of this album, the production is a bit more polished than their previous live effort. It’s a pretty good update to what they’re up to, and it includes “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” (that song from The Departed, here played with help from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones) and “Tessie,” both standouts in their repertoire. They don’t slow down except to shout out Boston sports teams, some New York police officers in the audience (but not the Yankees), and to play “Forever” and “Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced.” Aside from that, it’s exactly the rough, hooky, boozy music you expect. Also, compared to their last live outing, they show some semblance of growth. Instead of totally bashing their instruments with the sheer energy of Irish punk righteousness, their fretwork shows some dexterity. That they have a legitimate hit in “Shipping” also makes it feel like there’s a little bit more of a pop appeal to their work, even if it’s incidental.

This album is highly recommended if you fit the demographic of the band’s audience. Still, I don’t fit in there (because I’m not Irish) and I enjoy it, too. I just can’t say how much it’d cross into my consciousness except around St. Patrick’s Day, on days where I’m speeding down the Mass Pike, or other days where I’m doing something similarly intense. There’s nothing wrong with that, either; this band has perfected their sound to the point where the hardest part is probably maintaining the energy to continually play these working class anthems. They just do something very, very specific, and fuck it if you’re not a part of it, that’s cool too. Anyway, the older Live on St. Patrick’s Day is still the definitive Dropkick Murphys album, with better pacing and more momentum. This one’s good and in no ways embarrassing. They do a great job of justifying its existence, which is more than you can say for many bands with multiple live albums. It’s just that at this point, it feels like a night of drinking long enough to turn into the hangover before you’re done.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-64CaD8GXw

Dropkick Murphys:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• LastFM

Direct Hit! is the best band to come out of Wisconsin since The Beatles. They recently released their fourth EP (#4) and it’s so awesome that we felt compelled to act DH! mastermind Nick Woods some probing questions in an attempt to get to the bottom of this Direct Hit! phenomenon. Read on to discover what gets the band pumped, where their ideas come from, and how the band would (probably) fare in a pull-up contest against the Assault.it crew.

Assault.it: What gets you pumped? Where do you find inspiration in your daily life?

Nick Woods: That’s a pretty heavy question. If you mean “daily life” as in, “what I do at work most days, and what I do after work when I get back to my apartment,” I’m usually pretty “inspired” by my live-in girlfriend and my paycheck. If you mean what inspires me to make music, that pretty much came from listening to too much Metallica in middle school, too much Green Day in high school, and not enough of either now that I’m in my 20s.

As far as our overall sound evolving -- I don’t worry about it too much. I think it all goes back to boredom. I write different-sounding songs when I’m bored of the old ones. But thus far, I’ve written over twenty songs with Direct Hit, and the vast majority are made up of Gb, Ab, Bb, and Db power chords, played in different orders, with different rhythms, and different vocal parts. I think we’ve done a pretty good job making a lot out of a little, and I don’t think we’ve exhausted the possibilities yet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4l-ePeq8bI

What’s the hardest part of being in Direct Hit?

There’s honestly not a lot that can be construed as difficult with Direct Hit. And if something becomes difficult, we usually find a way to either kill it, or avoid it. I wanted this band to be 100% fun from the very beginning. So if something isn’t fun, we usually don’t do it. We won’t play a show unless we think there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll be able to party. We don’t sit and practice 4 bars of a song for hours at a time. That’s the kind of stuff that turns playing in a band into a job, and I’ve already got one of those. I don’t need another. It’s obviously work getting a tight band together, but I think there’s a line between ‘tight’ and ‘perfect’ that I’m not all that psyched about crossing. Not because I think a perfect band doesn’t sound good. It’s just cause sometimes I’d rather go get wasted at my apartment and watch Terminator than practice.

You guys have a super-catchy slogan w/ the “Fuck you! Get pumped!” Where did that come from?

When Direct Hit first started, I used to tell people to get pumped just as an obnoxious slogan to signify what we were all about. We’ve never really written ‘music with a message.’ But you can’t really tell people that, because then they think your group doesn’t have a point. It’s weird that everyone’s band has to be ‘political,’ or ‘emo,’ or ‘DIY,’ or ‘funny,’ or ‘traditional’ or whatever nowadays. And I thought it was weird how novel it had become for a band to just play to entertain other people, instead of making some kind of grandiose statement about how the rest of the world should be leading its collective life. So ‘get pumped’ was just kind of the most obvious message -- that we write music to psych people up, or to excite a crowd. We aren’t trying to inspire thought, but we’re definitely trying to inspire a feeling. Kid Rock tries to do the same thing though, and his music blows, so maybe it’s not the best mission statement. I guess we’ll find out.

We added the ‘fuck you’ just because we think it’s funny. Profanity usually makes anything a lot more hilarious, in my book.

Is there any particular reason you chose to release 5 EPs rather than a full length? Is it easier or harder to write songs when you know you’re writing for an EP?

There are a lot of reasons we’ve approached recording that way. I guess it all stems from the fact that I’m a pretty vain guy, and like having good, well-produced copies of the songs I’ve worked on. Problem is that you have to pay if you want to do that kind of thing, and I’m not good at saving money. So it was a lot easier for me, especially in the beginning, to fund those kind of recordings if I did them in little batches, on a more frequent basis. We’ve gone into every session having more than four songs written, but we’ve usually picked the best four, and just rolled with those so I didn’t have to come up with money for twice the time in a studio.

As time went on, I think we stuck with the 4-song formula just because it’s easier to hold people’s attention if you’re putting new stuff out every few months, instead of once every couple of years. Plus, it gave us a chance to try new things in the studio and hone the sound we wanted without pissing off an audience that had invested two years of time into our band, only to get a piece of shit full-length record. Releasing small batches of songs kind of gives you a built in do-over since you have new stuff coming out so often.

By my calculations, you guys are the second craziest thing to ever emerge from Wisconsin (after the practice of dissolving bodies in industrial tubs of acid once the flesh has been removed and stored safely in a refrigerator). Is there something in the WI water that makes you guys nuts? Or do you come by it “the hard way”?

I dunno man. There’s plenty of crazy fucking people that hang out at Lambeau Field in -2 degree weather multiple times a year. I think we’re pretty low on the totem pole in comparison.

What are your ultimate plans for Direct Hit? How far will you pursue this dream of musical superstardom?

We don’t really make plans, to tell you the truth. The way we figure it, if we keep having a ludicrously good time, the people coming to see us play will too. And when you think about it, that’s really the best dumb business strategy any band can have -- Make sure you bring an awesome time with you wherever you go.

I can’t speak for the other members in my band, but I’m not pursuing musical superstardom. If someone wants to pay me a few million bucks for my tunes, and I don’t have to work again for the rest of my life as a result, I welcome those phone calls. That shit doesn’t happen though -- I know from experience. You make a living like that by spending 10 years acting like a bitch backstage at the Warped Tour, kissing some stage manager’s ass just to get moved from the 1:30PM to the 2:00PM time slot on some side stage, so you can play to 150 uncaring teenagers instead of 100. Fuck that. Like I said before, I’ve got a job -- I don’t need another one. I’d rather keep playing music for fun and work at a slightly less cool day job. It’s way more awesome for me to show up at a house with 40 people I know personally who are ready to party and get nuts than it is playing for a thousand strangers, half of whom are there because they want to get laid.

Will you ever re-release the older EPs in the series, or are those forever lost to the sands of time?

We don’t have plans to re-release any of them ourselves, but if someone wants to pay to put ‘em out, I don’t think any of us will raise a stink about it. The full length we eventually release will probably be compiled from all of the best songs on our EPs, so people will have a chance to listen to what we think is the best stuff we’ve written. But if you wanna hear the old material, you’ll probably have to get it either from me, or from people who have copies.

Do you have any advice for young bands just getting started? What do you consider the working musician’s best tools in this day & age, besides good songwriting and hallucinogens?

The best advice? Work on your skills first, and your MySpace page later. People care about the latter a lot less than you might think when the first half is good.

The best tools? Good equipment, Bandcamp.com, Gmail, a cell phone, and a reliable van. You don’t need much more than that.

Do you have any musical recommendations for our readers? Real boner-popping crazy shit that will make us go nuts, please.

Career Suicide‘s album Attempted Suicide hasn’t left the CD player in my car for the last month. Them, and their guitarist’s other band, Fucked Up, are my two favorite punk rock bands at the moment. Fucked Up has a split coming out with NOFX soon, I think, if it hasn’t come out already, that I’m pretty psyched out of my mind about.

If we had done this interview in person, after your show at Slam Castle, Tim planned to challenge the entire band to a pull-up contest. (He installed a pull-up bar in his apartment.) Do you think you would have won? If so, why?

Nope. I’m a fatass. So’s Danny. So’s Mike. Alex has problems with fainting, so she’s out too. Robbie would’ve owned all of you though -- He builds houses in Winter in Wisconsin. You don’t fuck with people like that. At least I don’t.

Direct Hit!:

• Band Camp
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Last FM
• Death To False Hope Records

The Blacks, in a way, represent a kind of enviable place when it comes to making a return. They’d formed in 1994 and got signed to Bloodshot Records. They cut two albums: 1998′s Dolly Horrorshow and 2000′s Just Like Home. Then, they took the aughts off. Their new EP, In Sickness and Health (available as a download on bloodshotrecords.com and places that sell digital music) is a reunion record. “Apparently,” I said, when I first read that. They’re new to me. Their place is enviable because that time off is, yes, enough time to be forgotten (Two albums but not a Wikipedia page? Unheard of!), but at least come back to some fan base without the huge expectations of your Led Zeppelins or Pink Floyds. The time they had to grow and be a band gives them the space and musical ability to uppercut a first-time listener with just how right this music feels.

My closest approximation: think of the band Spoon, especially Britt Daniel’s voice. Lead singer/guitarist Dan Black’s voice sounds a bit like it. Now add some twang and make them much looser without sacrificing tight songwriting. Add some female vocals (Nora O’Connor). That’d be a good first impression word painting of this band. There’s a looseness that’s old school in an age where every band seems to be run through a computer. In Sickness and Health‘s core four songs all rise up from a certain swagger. They’re rhythm driven with hooks to keep you there. They make up an assured “fuck yeah we’re back!” that’s hard to disagree with.

But wait! There are two more songs on this thing. The first and last song are soft songs, titled “Ten Years” and “If It All Falls Through,” respectively. It’s a bit obvious, and I wonder how big an audience would get it without reading their biography on the label’s website. They’re good songs, but they also pale in comparison what’s in between: a band doing what it’s meant to do. “If It All Falls Through” is the more notable of the two, since it’s a vocal showcase for O’Connor, but I’d take the preceding “Bottled and Flat” and “Young and Beautiful” over it.

It’s hard to complain about anything here, though. At less than 20 minutes, In Sickness and Health is a quick and easy digest. “Ten Years” barely registers before “I’m in Love” begins. But it’s definitely a worthy comeback album that acknowledges that it is a comeback album. None of that “Don’t call it a comeback!” or “We never left!” or “I was busy doing other shit! Here! Look at the other shit I’ve been doing! Please believe me!” stuff. This EP is the sound of a band that knows there’s work to be done, and maybe that work might not pay off in terms of tickets or downloads. But they’ve got the skills to do that work well, and hopefully people will listen.

[The Blacks will be playing Schubas this Saturday (3/06) in Chicago. Tickets are $12 and it's a 21+ show. Doors open at 10pm, and Assault strongly recommends you show up - the Blacks are legendary for tearing serious shit up, and Schubas is so small that you'll probably get hit in the face with a huge chunk of rock 'n' roll glory. You can buy tickets here.]

The Blacks:

• MySpace
• Bloodshot Records
• Reverb Nation

From 1998 to 2004, Alkaline Trio was the best pop-punk band in the world. This is a fact. They did only one thing – springy, melodic songs with rubbery bass-lines, lots of chunky palm-muted riffs, and dark, soul-searching lyrics – but they did it awesomely. And then they started to do other things (play around with keyboards and synthesizers, let the drummer write songs, get married and become happy with their personal lives) and, suddenly, everything changed. They were still a good band, but Crimson (2005) and Agony & Irony (2008) are nobody’s favorite Alkaline Trio albums. They’re melodic and musically accomplished in ways that displayed “growth” and “maturity,” but they also felt somewhat forced lyrically, with singer/guitarist Matt Skiba relying increasingly on cliched and clumsy metaphors as his songwriting got less personal. The dudes (bassist/singer Dan Andriano and drummer Derek Grant, plus Skiba) scattered across the country and started doing aging rocker stuff like “surfing” and “having kids.” But about a year ago, everything started to change again: the guys started hanging out in Chicago more, they talked about “returning to their roots,” Skiba got divorced. All of this could mean only thing: COMEBACK! So, the first question: Is This Addiction a return to their glory days? Does it accomplish very much with, musically, very little? Is it superficially evil for fun with genuinely heavy emotional content for serious? Can it explode a unicorn’s boner in a great blast of pink stars and fairy dust?

Short answer: No, yes, sort of, and maybe.

Long answer: This Addiction doesn’t sound like Goddamnit, Alkaline Trio’s much-ballyhooed, now classic first full-length. And that’s going to disappoint some people, because some people are always disappointed that the band evolved from being a bunch of drunk-ass nineteen year-olds. And some people, like me, will never be entirely happy without Glenn Porter in the line-up; Derek Grant has always struck me as a weird fit for the Trio, and a lot of folks, myself included, hold him almost entirely responsible for trying to push the band in artistic directions they weren’t quite skilled enough to master. The Trio that most of us first fell in love with is never coming back, but that’s been true for years – we should all be used to it by now. Matt Skiba is never going to describe our emotions with profane, pin-point accuracy the way he did on “Radio,” and Dan Andriano will never be sad again, apparently. But This Addiction is a sharp, punchy addition to the band’s catalog. They don’t try anything they haven’t already mastered, but it’s an absolute joy to hear them doing these things that they are very, very good at.

The album kicks off with three fast, hard-charging tracks that all sound like they should have been b-sides. I say this is as a compliment; over the last couple years, all the best Trio songs have been ones that didn’t actually make it on to their records. “This Addiction” begins the record on an extremely high note – racing tempos, a bright melody, uncomplicated lyrics that equate love with, um, addiction in a way that’s not necessarily novel but still brutally effective. And then Dan Andriano gives the best vocal performance of the entire disc on “Dine, Dine My Darling,” daring to make a Misfits joke on a song that celebrates (once again) domestic bliss. “Lead Poisoning” features Skiba’s trademark “dun…dun-nun-nuh” riffing, but it sounds good, like hanging out with an old friend. Plus, a simple, cool saxophone solo sets the track apart from the roughly twenty-five others almost exactly like it in the band’s catalog. Things take a bad turn after that, though – “Dead On The Floor” cannibalizes both “Trouble Breathing” and “San Francisco” (from Goddamnit) and stops the album’s momentum in a tired and unforgivable fashion.

It gets somewhat hit-or-miss after that. “The American Scream,” the token political track, isn’t bad, but its central metaphor is a little corny. “Draculina,” “Eating Me Alive,” and “Piss & Vinegar” are a little too mid-tempo and interchangeable to run in a row, and they bog down the middle of the record. But This Addiction finishes stronger than any Trio record in recent memory: “Dorothy” blasts out of the speakers in an explosion of double-time drumming and eerie David Lynch references, by far the most exciting song Skiba’s written in six years. And “Fine,” Andriano’s gentle closer, is a tearjerker that builds to epic status without over-reaching. Maybe the songs in the middle only feel like filler because they’re book-ended by such powerful material; in any event, I ain’t complaining. This is definitely the best Trio record since Good Mourning, and it might end up ranking along with Maybe I’ll Catch Fire and From Here To Infirmary when all is said and done.

Let’s face it – these guys are getting older, and they can’t do this forever. But This Addiction is an excellent, full-bodied reminder of why we started loving them in the first place, and if they never made another record, their legacy would be secure. This is the way you grow up – not with intricate piano parts or relentless overdubs, but by knowing who you are and what you do, and then doing it the best you know how. I’m glad Alkaline Trio are doing their one thing again, and doing it perfectly.  

Alkaline Trio:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter

I’ll be honest – I gave up on Thrice after they started aping Radiohead and singing way too many songs about Jesus. But the fire of glorious love still burns bright within the otherwise-empty chest cavity of our own Mr. 51%, and he likes Manchester Orchestra even better. (I gotta back him up on Man Orc – their last record, 2009′s Mean Everything To Nothing, is a solid collection of wheaty, old-fashioned alt-rock.) Anyway, the two bands have joined together, not for the first time, to spearhead a roaming road show of highly-enlightened pomp-rock. They’re most likely coming to a city near you, and the pre-order starts tomorrow (2/19) at 1pm. I suggest you purchase a couple tickets and pray that Thrice dig very, very deep into their catalog to spray your face with their old metallic jism.

Dates: 

Apr 14 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse (w/ O’Brother)

Thrice!

Manchester Orchestra:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last FM

Thrice:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last FM

I have a confession, and it may not exactly startle you: AFI, those long-runnings lords of the semi-dark arts, make exactly the kind of decadent, foofy cheese that I absolutely love to spread on my brain-crackers. I find them much more interesting as a bunch of trussed-up party boys melting teenage hearts than as Misfits-indebted hardcore punkers, so their latest album (last year’s amazing Crash Love) has been on pretty much constant rotation in my absinthe room ever since its release. You probably already know where you stand with these guys, but their flashy new video for “Beautiful Thieves” is definitely worth a look: it’s well-directed, features lots of attractive people in fancy clothes, and, well – Davey Havok is the kind of dude that, if he asked me to leave my girlfriend and run away with him to be fabulous and eat tofu, I probably would. If you doubt, go ahead and check yourself right here:

AFI across the web:

• Official Site
• LastFM
• MySpace
• Despair Faction (Fan Club)

The Invincible Gods is a band that needs no introduction. But, for the people that really enjoy introductions, here’s one anyway: They’re from New Jersey, it’s two dudes and a lady, and they play a truly rad amalgam of punk, garage, and shoegaze, draping everything in the kind of psychedelic goodness that triggers violent acid flashbacks. They recently took some time out of their busy schedule to answer a few of our questions about their creative process, the excellent genes they’ve been blessed with, and Jared Leto’s stint in the Hitler Youth.

Assault.it: You guys are all ridiculously good-looking, yet you don’t include any photos of yourselves with your CD. Isn’t that kind of a missed opportunity?

Sean: Well, we’re also pretty humble – epically humble, in fact. We’re so humble that we didn’t want to go rubbing our extreme gorgeousness in anyone’s face, but thank you. We’re flattered. Next time, we’ll send out pictures and locks of hair.

How did you guys all hook up? I know Nick and Sean have some history together, but what was the genesis of Invincible Gods?

Sean: Well, we’re billions of years old, so it’s actually weird how long it took for us to all meet.

Candace: I’m kinda foggy on the details. I do remember going to one awesome raging house party in LA and waking up 2 weeks later in a van in New Hope, though. At first I thought I was being kidnapped again, but, no, it turns out I just joined a new band.

Sean: Nick and I played together in The Atomic Missiles [as a side note: you can download every A-Missiles song for free @ http://www.reverbnation.com/theatomicmissiles ] for years. We got together in NJ, moved to Brooklyn, and then again to Hollywood, where we eventually split up. That’s also where we met Candace and started jamming together. It was supposed to be just for fun, but it came together so naturally.

Nick: Then we moved back to NJ and fell under the influence of a few cool bands like Screaming Females, Thomas Francis Takes His Chances, The Imperialists, The Sex Zombies, and later, Ben Franklin, A few of those bands have been sort of starting a resurgence of the old streetwave scene.

Candace, according to the press release in my hands, you’re Alaskan. What’s that like?

Candace: I can see Russia from my backyard. I left because I was sick of being chased by giant moose and catching wild lynx, I’m still not quite used to the weather outside of my igloo.

Nick: Alaska has to be the most gnarly place I’ve ever come from. Those are some mean hills up there. Everywhere you turn there is flannel, guns, saloons…. It’s kind of like the Canadian wild west with people riding snow mobiles instead of horses. And there’s bears! Up there those motherfuckers got horns! Everything is extreme.

Sean: Ummm, Nick?

Nick: Yeah?

Sean: You’re from NJ. We grew up together.

Nick: Oh.

What’s your songwriting process? Who brings what to the table?

Sean: Usually, we meditate for thirty to forty minutes in the dungeon before lighting the ceremonial candles and drinking mugs of absinthe. By the time that is over, the song has revealed itself to us and we begin the process of etching it into stone. A lot of times when we tell people that we take a long time writing songs, they think we take a long time coming up with the ideas for songs or for the way that we are going to play them. That simply isn’t true. We are literally carving the songs into granite. It’s not easy. Nick holds the granite over his head, while Candace and I take turns carving words into it. It’s honestly a group effort.

What was the recording process like for Slightly More Ballsy Than Pretentious? It’s pretty short but stylistically elaborate – does that take a lot of time, or is it pretty natural?

Sean: I’d say both. It comes extrememly naturally, but in a band with one guitarist and no bass, it takes a certain amount of time to lay down all of those tracks, no matter what.

Candace: Yeah. But if you subtract all the time we spent playing shows, going to shows, eating, sleeping, watching tv, having parties, cleaning up parties, instructing yoga, posing nude for art classes, watching iMax porno, baking cookies, making up complicated handshakes, talking about streetwave, voodoo zombies, robbing banks, and being hung-over it was actually really short. Like 2 days.

Sean: Not to mention, the temple we rented to record in was filled with snakes and spiders. That took forever to sort out.

I know bands hate to explicitly discuss their influences, but who influences the Invincible Gods?

Sean: A lot of what we do is shaped by people who have influenced us outside of the music world. If it weren’t for Kurt Vonnegut, George Carlin, Aleister Crowley, and other great 20th century minds, we wouldn’t be making the music we are in this new millenium. Musically I think my biggest sources of inspiration are probably The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, psychedelic Beatles stuff, and, of course, The Ramones, but I try to listen to other people’s favorite music as much as possible, just to keep my mind open. At this point, I’m just as comfortable listening to Drake, The Grateful Dead, and Taylor Swift as I am with Iggy and The Stooges or The Misfits.

Nick: I think that what we are influenced by plays a little bit bigger role in our music than who. I mean we grew up listening to a lot of punk rock in high school and then later broadened our horizons and really started listening to almost everything. We really just wanted to make awesome punk rock that you can dance too. But most of our songs are really influenced by the experiences of life, the ups and downs, love, parties, religion etc.

Candace: For me, Karen O from the YeahYeahYeahs and Blondie.

30 Seconds to Mars stole your album cover. What the fuck is up with that?

Sean: I keep reading on the internet that Jared Leto is a big fan of ours, but I’ve never met him or anything. It’s weird, we were just sort of minding our own business and then some corporate rock band from Hollywood comes along and vomits at our party.

Nick: That’s not even the worst of it. He entitled it This Is War, declaring war on us. I’d like to put his nuts in a Slap Chop.

Candace: Jared Leto is almost my favorite actor, only after Freddie Prinze Jr. I loved watching him get hacked to pieces in American Psycho.

Sean: I wouldn’t be so offended if they weren’t so godawful. Their music is like easy listening for teenage girls who cut themselves. It makes me feel hopeless. If Andrew W.K. or Jack White stole our album art, we could live with it. But, 30 Seconds to Mars? Just horrible. A lot of people think we hate them because of the Nazi rumors about Jared Leto, or the kiddie porn that people have alleged that 30STM makes, but really, it’s just because of how terrible their music is. We’re not the type of people who go around spreading rumors, you know? I mean, who cares if people say he was in the Hitler Youth? We’re not just going to believe everything people tell us. But even if they are good people, it doesn’t make up for their sonic awfulness.

—

Invincible Gods on the Interweb:

• MySpace
• ReverbNation
• Official Site
• CDBaby

It’s not too often I hang on to the flyers that get handed to me when I walk out of a show here in Chicago. I’ve even written about a better way to stand out from the rest of the unsigned bands. (One thing was to not hand out flyers.) It just so happens that in this particular instance, my hands were full, and so I stuffed all the flyers in my pocket before heading down the street to the Black Rock after a solid showing at The Metro by The Fold and Lucky Boys Confusion.

When I got home, I found a flyer in my pocket from The Delivery Boys, and to say they had the odds stacked against them from the get-go was an understatement. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at the production quality and overall sound of The Delivery Boys’ EP after my initial listen on their MySpace page. When you’re listening to 20+ albums a week it’s easy to forget the names of all the songs and especially the bands, but every once in awhile you find yourself humming the words, or remembering parts of the hook in your head while you’re in the car, when you first wake up, or maybe even in the shower. (If you’re Oswald Hobbes that’s where you do your best performing too.)

This is exactly what happened to me this past weekend, and after some considerable searching I realized that the song was, “Special Delivery,” by the guys of TDB. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of any upcoming shows in the Chicago area for the band either. It’s not the only song that’s catchy coming from TDB, they also recorded a holiday song, “You’re All I Want For Christmas,” which is just as delicious. According to their latest MySpace info they’ll have some more music out soon, and I’m personally hoping to get a chance to see the guys live out here in the big city sometime soon. Let that be a notice to you local Chicago rock venues. (I’m looking at you Reggies, Metro, Lincoln Hall, and Shuba’s.)

The Delivery Boys

• Paul Holloway – vocals/guitar
• Eric Olsen – bass/vocals
• Ryan Bennett – guitar/vocals
• Matt Dailly – drums

More from TDB

• The Delivery Boys on PureVolume
• The Delivery Boys on MySpace
• The Delivery Boys on ReverbNation

You’d be forgiven for assuming that the dudes in Motion City Soundtrack are a bunch of pussies. Justin Pierre, the frontman, has a sweet, high-pitched voice, and his wacky over-moussed hair suggests an alternate universe Nikki Sixx, post-overdose. The rest of the dudes in the band sort of look like they really enjoy Magic: The Gathering. Two of their records (including this one) have been produced by Blink-182′s Mark Hoppus, who is actually a cool dude but loses cred by palling around with king-of-the-douches Tom DeLonge. So, if you possesed only these facts, and maybe had heard a few snippets of the band’s music here and there, you probably wouldn’t be overly impressed or consider them the kind of “serious” music that you pretend to like when you’re talking to girls at hipster bars. But, damnit, Motion City Soundtrack are amazing, and My Dinosaur Life is their best record yet – a fast and thick collection of scathingly honest rock songs executed perfectly by guys that are total experts. It announces, in no uncertain terms, that these planeswalkers are done taking shit.

The most explicit example of this (literally) is the track “@!#?@!,” in which Pierre warns, “You all need to go away, you motherfuckers / You all need to leave me and my homeboys alone.” Shit is real, dawg. But in case you’re not convinced, listen to the other 11 songs, none of which gets nearly as mushy as every song on their last record (Even If It Kills Me), and at least half of which feature heavier riffs and faster tempos than anything in the MCS catalog. “Disappear” and “The Weakends” are both stand-out rockers that get deep (although the latter loses points for its Fall Out Boy-seque), and “Pulp Fiction” and “Skin & Bones” showcase Pierre’s oddball humor and instinctive melodic gifts. Dude is really killing it on this record, BTW – he’s developed a new, super-croony delivery style that elevates an otherwise boilerplate (for these guys) track like first single “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” from MCS-by-numbers to total-boner-extravaganza.

My Dinosaur Life is a coming-out party for a band that has refined its formula, charted out strengths and weaknesses, and made a really great record that plays by its own rules and includes a good number of surprises even for longtime fans. Lyrically, Pierre is in fine form; he sounds nowhere near as defeated as he did on Even If It Kills Me – this dude is ready to rumble, packing hundred of words into dense narratives and then letting them cascade out in that beautiful voice, never losing control for a second. He’d actually make an excellent rapper, probably. The band kicks up dust behind him, relying less on big keyboard hooks than on hard-charging guitar riffs, and this makes a big difference – Motion City Soundtrack finally sound like He-Men. This is the kind of record that Alkaline Trio made with Good Mourning, that Fall Out Boy made with Infinity On High: these boys have grown up, and My Dinosaur Life is as thematically deep as the hooks are wide. I hope it’s a hit (and that MCS’s new tenure on a major label goes better than most of their emo peers’) – Motion City Soundtrack deserve to be huge, and this is the record that should do it.

Fireworks have released a new video for “Detroit,” which appears their 2009 full-length debut, All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion. If I were in a punk rock band, and I was going to make a music video. I would want it to be like this. Guerrilla style–except I think I’d break into my old high school and do it on the football field.

Checkout Fireworks on iTunes if you haven’t heard of them. They’re one of my favorite punk bands to rock to right now.

Want to hear more Fireworks?

• Fireworks on iTunes
• Fireworks MySpace
• Fireworks on Wikipedia