• AGAINST ME! – White Crosses
• THE CURE – Disintegration
• CASIOKIDS – Topp stemning på lokal bar
• MOUSE FIRE – Big Emotion
• MYCHILDREN MYBRIDE – Lost Boy

- I think I’m in the minority of AGAINST ME! fans that actually really enjoys White Crosses. “I Was A Teenage Anarchist” wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if there wasn’t such a huge grain of truth in it…

Canadian metal/hardcore band NORRIS have inked a deal with Year of the Sun Records (affiliated with Relapse in the US). The band has a new full-length planned for later this year and still supporting their 2009 EP Bone Crusher. Several songs from the band’s earlier releases are streaming on their MySpace page. RIYL: COALESCE, EARLY GRAVES, BLOOD HAS BEEN SHED.

90s straight-edge vegan hardcore revivalists ABANDON have their brand new full-length, The Death of Urgency, hitting stores  soon via Death of a Modernist Records (LP) and Catalyst Records (CD). Revhq.com will be carrying the LP this week. The band draws heavy influence from such 90s stalwarts as ENDEAVOR, GROUNDWORK, and UNBROKEN, among others. Several songs from the new release are streaming on their MySpace page.

- Not vegan, not straight-edge anymore, but dammmmmmn these songs rage.  For a killer song intro, listen to the demo track of “Untitled” on their MySpace page.

We’re in a weird place right now with seemingly every new band out of the NJ/Philly area playing some form of pop-punk/melodic hardcore. What started off about five years ago as a LIFETIME revival has mutated back into blur of gooier, sappier music from bands that view THE STARTING LINE as icons. I CALL FIVES [...]

Washington DC area hardcore band GIVE will be putting out their new EP, Heaven Is Waiting, on React! this summer. The band features a revolution-summer type of sound, and has previously released a self-titled 12″ on Moonflower Records. You can check out an unmastered version of the title track of the new EP on their MySpace page.

California hardcore punk band TRASH TALK have their latest full-length, Eyes and Nines streaming on AOL’s Spinner site. The band recently came back from a lengthy trek across the US and has posted a variety of photos from the tour that colorfully captures the ordeal.

1. Broken English Records has signed Iowa pop-punkers HISTORY ON REPEAT. The band recorded a brand new EP titled So Long, Future Boy, with label honcho John Naclerio (which means it sounds phenomenal), and two of the four songs from that release are currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page.

2. I took two books with me on vacation last week: Brian Peterson’s incomparable 90s hardcore book “Burning Fight” and “Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do,” by Tom Vanderbilt. I highly recommend both, especially the former given the audience of this website. The best part about books like “Burning Fight” that go into great detail on bands of a certain era is that the book is a gap filler for music collections. I came into hardcore in the mid-to-late 90s and mostly missed out on the heydays of labels like Ebullition and Bloodlink. I’ve done much work in the years since to build my music collection, but a book like this is always helpful in getting to the next level of completeness. “Burning Fight” is out now via Revelation Records Publishing. I plan to do a feature about the book and Peterson in the near future, so stay tuned.

3. I kind of hinted at this with a tweet, but I spent a lot of time selecting particular pieces of ‘headphone music’ on my cruise last week. By far, the most incredible musical moment was listening to HOWL’s amazing new full-length Full of Hell while sitting out on my cabin’s balcony, at sea in near total-darkness. You’ve got the ship moving at a certain speed, with the ocean having a unique rhythm of its own, and then layered on top of that is HOWL’s insane riffing and technical lumbering. I need more of that unconnected, uninterrupted downtime in my life…

4. This Is Hardcore fest sold out in 36 hours… not bad, not bad. I just like looking at this digital flyer. I know the planned KID DYNAMITE and INK & DAGGER appearances got a lot of the attention, but no love for HANDS TIED? We’ve got like 9 weeks to the fest – what bands break up before then?

Do kids pogo anymore? In 2006, one could not pogo to CEREMONY. In 2010, CEREMONY’s Rohnert Park is largely one giant, bouncy ball festival of up and down pogo goodness. We’re a long, long away in musical distance from the band’s breakthrough Violence, Violence record, and similarly, their 2008 Bridge Nine throttle-fest, Still, Nothing Moves [...]