This first weekly music news blast is a ‘blast from the past’ catch-up from the past few months:
Renowned and long-running L.A.-based punk band Bad Religion bowed their latest socio-politically relevant album Age Of Unreason via Epitaph on May 31st.
Official info: “The record is the storied band’s 17th studio album and offers a fiery and intensely relevant musical response to the times, with songs that address a myriad of socio-political maladies, including conspiracy theories, racist rallies, Trump’s election, the erosion of the middle class, alternative facts and more.”
Bad Religion has expanded their Fall Tour. Details at: https://badreligion.com/tour
Iconic San Francisco-located punk band Dead Kennedys dropped career-spanning 3-CD set DK40 on May 10th via Manifesto Records.
Official info: “The DKs embodied the spirit of punk from the get-go. Their very name was a shocking reminder of the collapse of the American Dream. Then again, the name would be nothing if the Dead Kennedys didn't have the goods to back it up.”
“DK40… offers the aural evidence that the Dead Kennedys were one of the most potent punk bands -- period. It features the band serving up amped-up live versions of all their classic tracks, free from the constraints of the recording studio.”
Seminal hardcore punk band Bad Brains’ first official studio recording, Black Dots, got a vinyl reissue. It was recorded in 1979 at Inner Ear Studios.
Official info: “This is the first official vinyl pressing in over 20 years, presented by Wax Audio Group and Think Indie via Universal Music Group Special Markets. Cut for vinyl by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Mastering, Print and Packaging from Pirates Press.”
"Surfacing out of nowhere in 1996, Black Dots turned out to be an archival release of the best kind, something truly rare and unheard that also captured a band at its best… Nearly all the legendary early hits are here, including "Pay to Cum," "Don't Need It," "Regulator," "Banned in D.C.," "How Low Can a Punk Get?" and "Attitude,",,, [along with] a number of otherwise unheard or never-recorded elsewhere.”
L.A.-based Latina punk rock band Go Betty Go unleashed their 2005 album Nothing Is More on vinyl in March via Wiretap Records.
Official info: [The LP was] “originally released in 2005 via SideOne Dummy Records, Go Betty Go have established themselves as one of punk rock's most exciting forces to come out of LA…. A gloriously rough and tumble sound with melodic aggression. They bring a rich and engaging energy, loaded with lush atmosphere and, at times, an underlying sense of the foreboding.”
Legendary post-punk pioneers Gang of Four released Happy Now album in early May via Gill Music Ltd. PR
Official info: “Happy Now is the perfect synthesis between a modern take on the classic GO4 sound — a pop touch with those timeless angular guitar lines and fractured rhythms — with a fast forward vision. It’s this combination of electronics and the jagged guitar lines pursuing 21st century grooves that achieves a striking balance between the band’s fundamental sound and its restless embrace of the now and the new.”
Rising London-residing noise-punk band Crows took flight with debut album Silver Tongues on March 22nd via Balley Records.
Official info: “The band were announced as the latest signing to Balley Records (IDLES, Heavy Lungs, Lice) in January and the first single "Chain Of Being" made Lamacq's Livener on 6 Music and saw the band featured as Jack Saunder's Next Wave on his Radio 1 show. The album received almost universally positive reviews on its release…, and is already onto its second pressing of vinyl on Balley Records.”
Polish melodic death metal outfit Vane have unleashed the single “The Rital” and its accompanying video in May.
Official info: “With “The Ritual” the band delivers an undeniably brutal track with musical nods to Decapitated, Lamb of God, and In Flames alongside powerful vocals and thematic content that mixes the best of melodic death metal... with pirates!” The band’s most recent album, Black Vengeance, came out in 2018.
