April 20 marked the release of Blue Sky Noise, the third full-length album from Philly-born Circa Survive. The pre-release of the track “Get Out” and the You-Tube bootleg of “Frozen Creek” gave fans a good preview of what was to come as the band took a more aggressive and, arguably, more conservative approach in their writing for this album.  This is not to say that Circa Survive has become anything remotely close to “mainstream”, but, in comparison to earlier recordings, they have adapted some new sounds. Read more

After already hearing “Bloodbuzz Ohio” and “Terrible Love”, The National aren’t being shy about tracks from the upcoming High Violet album.  These videos, taken from the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN are a bit shaky but give us more insight into what will be an amazing album.  High Violet is due out May 11.

Continue reading after the break for videos Read more

Despite the fact that big MP3 distributors have gone DRM-free, there is a hidden element of conspiracy lurking within your downloaded songs.  Deemed “Dirty MP3s”, sellers like iTunes, LaLa, and Walmart have begun selling MP3s with watermarks; coding that directly identifies and connects the buyer with the purchased material.  As the crumbling record industry flails about to protect its own material as “physical inventory”, big name labels are now stepping back into the realm of rights management and secretly labeling the music that you own.

Platforms like LaLa already depend on this method to ensure that you already own the music that is being streamed.  By identifying users, the service (owned by Apple), can block anyone that hasn’t already registered and/or has those songs tagged in their library.  Apple and Walmart, however,  have fallen wayside to the pressures as BitTorrent and other P2P methods have actually gained steam following the very public lawsuit against PirateBay.  Unbeknownst to their customers, the two have begin working towards a new era of Digital Rights Management. Read more

Against Me!’s last album was a major label crossover that almost left the band in shambles.  With half of their cult fan-base alienated as Tom Gabel walked his tour bus on MTV, original drummer Warren left the band permanently to pursue personal interests.  The interesting part was that New Wave wasn’t even a departure for Florida’s finest anarchists.  It had every bit of muscle, grit, and literate spit that its predecessors had. Read more

We’ve already raved about Two Door Cinema Club, the Irish trio with the drum machine backing.  Besides rocking Gravis and being some music/skate junkies, these guys make some white-boy club-stomping music that’s akin to labelmates Phoenix.  The video and singles from Tourist History are great and the band will undoubtedly be this year’s darkhorse, just as Phoenix was last year.