Tomorrow: An amazing new music day + upcoming releases

[silverboy]

Upcoming Releases:

May 24
Alkaline Trio - Crimson (4.5/5, allmusic)
At The Drive-In - Anthology: This Station Is Non-Operational (4.5/5, allmusic)
Audioslave - Out Of Exile (4/5, allmusic)
Belle & Sebastion - Push Barman To Open Old Wounds (4.5/5, allmusic)
Gorillaz - Demon Days (4.5/5, allmusic)
Seether - Karma And Effect (3/5, allmusic)
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods (4.5/5, allmusic)
Stephen Malkmus - Face The Truth (4.5/5, allmusic)
Wallflowers - Rebel, Sweetheart

May 31
Animal Collective - Prospect Hummer
Oasis - Don't Believe The Truth (4.5/5, allmusic)

June 7
Coldplay - X&Y
Finch - Say Hello To Sunshine
Ringo Starr - Choose Love
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Devil

June 14
Foo Fighers - In Your Honor

June 21
Billy Corgan - Thefutureembrace
Dredg
Offspring - Greatest Hits
Sugar Ray - The Best Of Sugar Ray
Transplants - Haunted Cities

June 28
Fountains Of Wayne - Out-Of-State Plates

July 12
All-American Rejects - Move Along
Tony Iommi - Fused

July 26
Jason Mraz - Mr. A - Z

August 9
Ryan Adams - Jacksonville City Nights

September 6
Santana - All That I Am

November 2
Ryan Adams - 29

Tentative releases:
Taproot - Blue-Sky Research - June
OK Go - July
!!! - Take Ecstasy With Me
Coheed And Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star V - Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness
Our Lady Peace - Vampires
Staind - Chapter V
Stereolab - Oscillons From The Anti-Sun
System Of A Down - Hypnotize
Tears - Here Come The Tears
Ween - Shinola

Currently recording, may have new albums this year:
311
AFI
Alec Empire
Ataris
Boy Sets Fire
Brand New
Built To Spill
Cardigans
Chantal Kreviazuk
Cold
Darkness
Dashboard Confessional
Disturbed
Dredg
Franz Ferdinand
Goo Goo Dolls
Gus Black
Guster
Gwen Stefani
John Mayer
Liz Phair
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Pearl Jam
Peeping Toms?
Pete Yorn
Plus 44
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rooney
Story Of The Year
They Might Be Giants
Trapt
Why?
Yellowcard

Current 2005 Top 10 contenders:
Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
System Of A Down - Mezmerize
Queens Of The Stone Age - Lullabies To Paralyze
Fall Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
Ponys - Celebration Castle

Eels - Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Weezer - Make Believe
Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust
Ryan Adams - Cold Roses
Beck - Guero
Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Origin, Vol. 1
Bravery - The Bravery
Trivium - Ascendancy
Ben Folds - Songs For Silverman
Curtis Stigers - I Think It's Going To Rain Today
Decemberists - Picaresque
Frames - Burn The Maps
Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
Jesu - Jesu
Lou Barlow - Emoh
Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
Martha Wainwright - Martha Wainright
Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic
Mindless Self Indulgence - You'll Rebel To Anything
Robert Plant - Mighty Rearranger
Shivaree - Who's Got Trouble?
Spoon - Gimme Fiction

3 Doors Down - Seventeen Days

As always, please suggest any artist/band/album that you think belongs on any of these lists. This little project of mine thrives on your suggestions!

[TheTravis!]

The new Coheed and Cambria should be out in August.

[alexlannin]

I need to get off my ass and get the Sleater-Kinney album.

[Ben Rosen]

looks like i'll be getting an album a week, with the exception of 6/21 all the way through June. cool. but isn't there supposed to be a shins cd this fall? or has that been pushed back?

[Mark]

If I had money, I'd get Malkmus, Gorillaz, and Sleater-Kinney. Any Belle and Sebastian fans (or music fans) that don't have the EPs should get the collection.

[DanLTaylor]

Sugar Ray - The Best Of Sugar Ray
Isn't this an oxymoron?

[TheTravis!]

Isn't this an oxymoron?

It's just 75 minutes of silence.

[Blake Sims]

These sound very interesting;
Animal Collective - Prospect Hummer
System Of A Down - Hypnotize (is this new stuff?)
Franz Ferdinand
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rooney

MY Favorites So Far This Year:
Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
Beck - Guero
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
System Of A Down - Mezmerize
Weezer - Make Believe
Decemberists - Picaresque
Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept

[Mark]

MY Favorites So Far This Year:
Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
Beck - Guero
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
System Of A Down - Mezmerize
Weezer - Make Believe
Decemberists - Picaresque
Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
1. The Decemberists – Picaresque
2. Why? – Sanddollars
3. Spoon – Gimme Fiction
4. Beck – Guero
5. Stephen Malkmus – Face the Truth
6. Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
7. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
8. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Horses in the Sky
9. 13 & God – 13 & God

[Blake Sims]

1. The Decemberists – Picaresque
2. Why? – Sanddollars
3. Spoon – Gimme Fiction
4. Beck – Guero
5. Stephen Malkmus – Face the Truth
6. Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
7. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
8. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Horses in the Sky
9. 13 & God – 13 & God
i've only heard of 3 of those bands
Id like to hear LCD Soundsystem though

[TheKraken]

Oddly, there's not a single record coming out tomorrow I'd buy. But there is Chappelle's Show, so Best Buy, here I come. :)

[who cares?]

Coldplay - X&Y

and i'm waiting for a new Franz Ferdinand CD....

[Jonny Z]

im gonna try and track down the gorillaz cd DVD combo pack... its got some music vids on it, etc.

[Blake Sims]

im gonna try and track down the gorillaz cd DVD combo pack... its got some music vids on it, etc.
that does sound good

[The Saint]

i've only heard of 3 of those bands
Id like to hear LCD Soundsystem though

you should definetly get the double disc album. Daft Punk is Playing at my House and Disco Infiltrator are great songs.

[Blake Sims]

you should definetly get the double disc album. Daft Punk is Playing at my House and Disco Infiltrator are great songs.
i just got it and i like it so far
i will be buying it

[silverboy]

Here's a review of Rebel, Sweetheart by the Wallflowers, which is probably going to be the most ignored new release tomorrow...


The Wallflowers, particularly their leader, Jakob Dylan, can't catch a break. They're not only bound to be compared — not entirely fairly but certainly understandably — to Jakob's father, Bob, but an equally large burden is that they're a straight-ahead rock band in a time that doesn't value straight-ahead rock bands. They were able to ride the post-alternative wave to the top of the charts in the mid-'90s, when all guitar bands were lumped into a nebulous alt-rock scene, but just a few years later, in the aftermath of trip-hop, MTV Amp, and OK Computer, all big rock bands were expected to tackle the serious challenge of electronica, since that was the wave of the future and all. Didn't matter if they were groups as singularly unequipped to fuse loops and guitars as R.E.M. or Oasis — they all made tentative attempts to reconcile classicist rock with futurist electronica. Not the Wallflowers. They stuck to their guns and made driving, songwriter-oriented rock & roll in the vein of Springsteen, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp. This stubbornness served their music well, but it won them no new fans, either among critics or the general public, who criticized them for being what they are: a working rock band, pure and simple. On each record, they have variations on their signature sound, given a slightly different spin depending on what producers they work with, but that's what most rock bands, good or bad, do — they make records and go on tour. This happened more in the '70s and '80s than in the '90s and 2000s, when dwindling audiences and corporatization kept bands off the road and out of the studio for long stretches of time, but the Wallflowers remain a rock band in the traditional sense, mining a similar vein on Rebel, Sweetheart, their fifth album, as they did on their first. While there are no musical surprises here, this is a better album than its predecessor, Red Letter Days, not just because it's a stronger, more varied set of songs, but because they finally have a perfectly matched producer in Brendan O'Brien. Like his recent productions for Bruce Springsteen, O'Brien helps focus and revitalize the Wallflowers, opening up the music through subtly textured overdubs but also giving the band a harder attack than they've ever had. Simply put, they've never sounded better as a band than they do here, and they've never had a record as robust and interesting on a pure sonic level as they do here. Not that Rebel, Sweetheart offers anything all that different from previous Wallflowers albums — they just do what they do better than they have before. Ultimately, there's a certain comfort in knowing that the Wallflowers can deliver sturdy, engaging classicist rock like this, since it makes them different from other rock bands of their time in yet another way: they're reliable.

[Criden]

I'm looking forward to the Lords Of Dogtown soundtrack. Right up my alley.

[silverboy]

And a review of next week's big "they're still around?" release, Oasis' Don't Believe The Truth...


Since Oasis has an instantly identifiable, seemingly simple signature sound — gigantic, lumbering, melodic, and inevitable, as if their songs have always existed and always will — it can be hard to pinpoint what separates a great Oasis song from a merely mediocre tune. It could be anything from overblown production to a diminished swagger, or it could be a self-satisfied laziness in the songwriting, or a panicky attempt to update their defiantly classicist pop with an electronic shine. All of these problems plagued the group's records since their blockbuster 1995 blockbuster second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, and while none of the three albums that followed were outright bad, by 2002's Heathen Chemistry it seemed that even Noel and Liam Gallagher had lost sight of what made Oasis great. While that record had its moments, it often seemed generic, suggesting that the group had painted itself into a corner, not knowing where to go next. Surely, all the reports from the recording of their long-gestating sixth album suggested a faint air of desperation. First, the electronica duo Death in Vegas was brought in as producers, bringing to mind the band's awkward attempts at electronica fusion on Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but those recordings were scrapped, and then their second drummer, Alan White, left only to be replaced by Zak Starkey, the son of Ringo Starr, suggesting that the Gallaghers were coming perilously close to being swallowed by their perennial Beatles fixation.

All of which makes the resulting album, Don't Believe the Truth, a real shock. It's confident, muscular, uncluttered, tight, and tuneful in a way Oasis haven't been since Morning Glory. It doesn't feel labored nor does it sound as if they're deliberately trying to recreate past glories. Instead, it sounds like they've remembered what they love about rock & roll and why they make music. They sound reinvigorated, which is perhaps appropriate, because Don't Believe the Truth finds Oasis to be quite a different band than it was a decade ago. Surely, Noel is still the first among equals, writing the majority of the songs here and providing the musical direction that the rest follow, but his brother Liam, bassist Andy Bell, and guitarist Gem Archer are now full and equal partners, and the band is the better for it. Where Noel struggled to fill the post-Morning Glory albums with passable album tracks (having squandered his backlog of great songs on B-sides), he's now happy to have Bell and Archer write Noel soundalikes that are sturdier than the filler he's created over the last five years. These likeable tunes are given soul and fire by Liam, who not only reclaims his crown as the best singer in rock on this album, but comes into his own as a songwriter. He had written good songs before, but here he holds his own with his brother, writing lively, hooky, memorable songs with "Love Like a Bomb," "The Meaning of Soul," and "Guess God Thinks I'm Abel," which are as good as anything Noel has written for the album. Which is not an aspersion on Noel, who has a set of five songs that cut for cut are his strongest and liveliest in years. Whether it's the insistent stomp of "Mucky Fingers" or the Kinks-styled romp of "The Importance of Being Idle," these songs are so good it makes sense that Noel has kept them for himself, singing four of the five tunes himself (including the soaring closing duet "Let There Be Love," the brothers' best joint vocal since "Acquiesce"). But the key to this new incarnation of Oasis is that this move by Noel doesn't seem like he's hoarding his best numbers, or a way to instigate sibling rivalry with Liam. Instead, it emphasizes that Oasis is now a genuine band, a group of personalities that form together to form one gang of charming rogues. Apart from the tremendous, rambling "Lyla" that channels the spirit of the Faces and the occasional ramshackle echo of Beggars Banquet, there's not much musically different here than other Oasis albums — it's still a blend of British Invasion, the Jam, and the Smiths, all turned to 11 — but their stubborn fondness of classic British guitar pop is one of the things that makes Oasis great and lovable. And, of course, it's also what makes it hard to discern exactly what separates good from great Oasis, but all the little details here, from the consistent songwriting to the loose, comfortable arrangements and the return of their trademark bravado makes Don't Believe the Truth the closest Oasis has been to great since the summer of Britpop, when they were the biggest and best band in the world.

[silverboy]

And, finally, one of the most anticipated albums of the year, Coldplays X&Y...


After Radiohead stubbornly refused to accept the mantle of world's biggest and most important rock band by releasing the willfully strange rocktronica fusion Kid A in 2000, Coldplay stepped up to the plate with their debut, Parachutes. Tasteful, earnest, introspective, anthemic, and grounded in guitars, the British quartet was everything Radiohead weren't but what the public wanted them to be, and benefited from the Oxford quintet's decision to abandon rock stardom for arcane art rock. Parachutes became was a transatlantic hit and 2002's sequel, A Rush of Blood to the Head, consolidated their success by being bigger and better than Parachutes, positioning Coldplay to not be just the new Radiohead, but the new U2: a band that belongs to the world but whose fans believe that the music is for them alone. To that end, Coldplay's third album, X&Y — slightly delayed so it follows Rush of Blood by nearly three years, but that's no longer than the time separating OK Computer and Kid A, or The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree — is designed to be the record that elevates Coldplay to the major leagues, where they are at once the biggest and most important band in the world. It's deliberate and sleek, cinematic and pristine, hip enough to sample Kraftwerk and blend in fashionable retro-'80s post-punk allusions without altering the band's core. Indeed, X&Y is hardly a bold step forward but rather a consolidation of Coldplay's strengths, particularly their skill at crafting surging, widescreen epics. But if X&Y highlights their attributes it also brings Coldplay's weaknesses into sharp relief. Forget the fact that they, by any stretch of the imagination, do not rock — rocking is simply against their nature. They are a meditative band, reflecting on their emotions instead of letting them go in a cathartic blast of noise and rhythm. This isn't a problem — after all, there have been plenty of great bands that do not rock & roll — but their terminal politeness does cripple their music, preventing it from being as majestic as its aspirations. Coldplay is well scrubbed and well behaved, possessing a textbook education in classic rock and the good sense to never stretch any farther than needed. They are the perfect middlebrow rock band — clean, pristine, and rational, seemingly smart since they never succumb to pounding, primal riffs, but also not weird enough to be genuine art rock. It's ambitious, yet its ambitions are modest, not risky, so their ambitions can be fulfilled without breaking a sweat. And since their sweeping yet subdued theatricality does recall the more majestic moments of Radiohead and U2, they have won millions of fans, but another crucial reason that Coldplay have a broad appeal is that lead singer/songwriter Chris Martin never tackles any large issues, preferring to endlessly examine his feelings. Like on Parachutes and Rush of Blood, all the songs on X&Y are ruminations on Martin's doubts, fears, hopes, and loves. His words are earnest and vague, so listeners can identify with the underlying themes in the songs, and his plain, everyman voice, sighing as sweet as a schoolboy, is unthreatening and unassuming, so it's all the easier for listeners to project their own emotions into the song. But for as impeccable as X&Y is — and, make no mistake, it's a good record, crisp, professional, and assured, a sonically satisfying sequel to A Rush of Blood to the Head — it does reveal that Martin's solipsism is a dead-end, diminishing the stature of the band. Where U2 is big in sound, scope, ambition, and intent, Coldplay is ultimately big music about small things, and even if X&Y is a strong, accomplished album, its limited, narcissistic point of view is what prevents the quartet from inheriting the title of the biggest and most important band in the world.

[silverboy]

System Of A Down - Hypnotize (is this new stuff?)


It's the second half of the double album that started with Mezmerize, so far one of the best albums of the year.

[Blake Sims]

It's the second half of the double album that started with Mezmerize, so far one of the best albums of the year.
awesome
i liked Mezmerize pretty well

[artimoff]

Goody! A new Steriolab.

[Humphrey_Lee]

Forgot about new Alkaline tomorrow, but whatever, I can wait until I have more cash.

The new Finch CD has me chomping at the bit... I've wanted that for so long...
The new Motion City Soundtrack CD comes out June 7th as well...

Thrice should have a new CD by August or September. They'll be wrapping it up before they go on the Warped Tour this summer.

Tons of great new stuff this year... can't bloody wait...

[hyde]

Upcoming Releases:

Tentative releases:
Stereolab - Oscillons From The Anti-Sun

this came out last month.

[alan]

Bloc Party should be on there. They kick all kinds of ass.

--Alan

[Freeway]

Our Lady Peace's new album (Healthy in Paranoid Times) is set to hit in July or August.

[silverboy]

this came out last month.

Can't find any info on it.

[SolidGoldBomb]

You forgot these for best albums of the year so far....

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
Dave Matthews Band - Stand Up

Also Kanye West has a new release - "Freshman Adjustment" I don't know if its out or when it comes out, but its good.

[Jonny Z]

Yay i got the gorllaz limited edition dvd/cd combo... but it was 20 bucks... uch

[RebootedCorpse]

It's just 75 minutes of silence.
It's audio of him getting pissed when people call him Sugar-Gay.

[Cyrus Cheever]

doesn't Limp Bizkit have a new CD coming out soon? and is there a release date set for Cold's new CD yet?

[Wagon]

isn't that Stereolab album a collection of eps and b sides? or am I thinking of something else.


and, I've said it before, but Demon Days is awesome.

[NickBurgess]

Mmm ween

[Artie Pink]

Good work, dude!

[Meteornotes]

Add Dream Theater and Shadow Gallery to the June 7th release day.

My favorites of the year so far are Porcupine Tree - Deadwing, Kino - Picture and the new Mars Volta...

dt

[who cares?]

And, finally, one of the most anticipated albums of the year, Coldplays X&Y...

:D

[hyde]

Can't find any info on it.
allmusic (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE47B16DA4DA87420C0973E50C1A07CFF06D954 FB873E394B5DD3BA7F4B82006AF25DFB8D90E0A439B166ADFB 31A65A0FD686E75CFDDC6C3D3A9D8EDB&sql=10:vt1ibkg9dakb) review.
pitchfork (http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/stereolab/oscillons-from-the-anti-sun.shtml) review.
tower records (http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=3223909) .
amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007YMRWS//ref=nosim/jinxworld-20) .

[Randy Hassan]

...and don't forget the DVD of Smile.