Rock & Pop

"I wanted it to be the biggest sounding Foo Fighters record ever. To make a gigantic rock record but with Greg Kurstin's sense of melody and arrangement… Motorhead's version of Sgt. Pepper… or something like that." So speaks Dave Grohl of the mission statement made manifest in Foo Fighters' ninth epic, the aptly-titled Concrete and Gold, due out September 15 worldwide on Roswell Records / RCA Records. Concrete and Gold was written and performed by Foo Fighters, produced by Greg Kurstin and Foo Fighters, and mixed by Darrell Thorp.

The New Abnormal is the long awaited new album from The Strokes, and the band’s first album in seven years. The album was announced with the first track and video, “At The Door.”

The New Abnormal is The Strokes’ sixth studio album and was recorded at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, California, with producer Rick Rubin. The album’s cover artwork is a painting called ‘Bird on Money,’ by famed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Strokes are singer Julian Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fabrizio Moretti.

The Killers are releasing their 5th studio album Wonderful Wonderful on 9/22. Featuring the singles "The Man" and "Run For Cover", the album is produced by Jacknife Lee alongside The Killers with Additional Production by Erol Alkan on "The Man" and Stuart Price on "Out of My Mind". The band will be embarking on a North American tour in early 2018.

'The man singing these songs isn't exactly the same man who wrote them,' says Pokey LaFarge of Rock Bottom Rhapsody, his eighth and latest studio release. 'This album is about the story of who I used to be.' In early 2018, LaFarge ' searching for the sort of artistic freedom and inspiration he wasn't finding in the Midwest ' relocated from his longtime home base of St. Louis, Missouri, to Los Angeles, California. New songs came quickly to LaFarge in his new environment, but new temptations soon found him, as well. Though he declines to get into specifics, LaFarge admits that he experienced a significant 'fall from grace' during the last months of 2018. 'Things sort of started to unravel in my mind,' Shortly before the recording of Rock Bottom Rhapsody began, LaFarge experienced a spiritual awakening ' and the faith he re-embraced in his hour of darkness helped to buoy him through the making of the album. Though he was struggling for spiritual equilibrium at the time, LaFarge at least had some rock-solid musical support to lean on. Recorded primarily at Reliable Recorders on Chicago's Northwest side, Rock Bottom Rhapsody was produced by LaFarge's friend and collaborator Chris Seefried (who also co-wrote several of the album's tracks), and features the considerable talents of guitarist Joel Paterson, keyboardist Scott Ligon, upright/electric bassist Jimmy Sutton, and drummer Alex Hall. Musically, LaFarge continues to mix and match a wide variety of styles and traditions, while never losing track of his own vision This record is kind of like Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan hanging out with chanson singers and French jazz bands in like the forties, but I was never trying to make it sound like a particular person. Despite the trying period that preceded its recording, Rock Bottom Rhapsody is ultimately far more uplifting and life-affirming than its title would suggest. 'That desperation, that struggle,' LaFarge ponders, 'Did it add something to the record? It certainly did. I mean, I don't know if it made it better; it just is what it is. It's not up to me to decide if people are going to feel that'

Ariel Pink will release his new album, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, on September 15. The recording is his first solo album since his highly acclaimed 2014 prog-pop opus pom pom, and first full-length release with the Brooklyn-based independent label Mexican Summer. The new release’s title makes a direct and heartfelt reference to a real-life Los Angeles musician, long presumed dead, who resurfaced online in 2007 after 35 reclusive years to pen his autobiography and tragic life story.

"It was in winter 18/19 - I flew to Montreal to meet with Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, Craig Silvey and Teddy Impakt at Le Studio Du Arcade Fire. It was a fine time with a dream team in a city I love. Winter in beautiful Quebec. Les semaines les plus froides de ma vie. I had a bunch of demos that were inspired by migration stories I had heard from friends or read in newspapers while on tour in Europe and North America. I remember being struck by the similarities of the stories I heard from both continents and how really only the names of the powerful and the powerless had changed - thinking, "Is this the future? Is this our future?"Some time went by, the stories wove together and I remember them now closer to characters in a dream of how people could treat each other than any kind of front-page news realism. I think music subconsciously - whether writing or listening - is a filter for me - helping to process all the bad news into something new to build from - some records to me are like self-fulfilling prophecies - visualizing change to wish something into being - those records inspired this one." - M. Ward

2020 live release. Produced by The Monkees' archivist Andrew Sandoval and mixed by Christian Nesmith, The Monkees - The Mike & Micky Show Live was recorded live in March 2019. The collection includes performances of all three of the band's #1 hits: "Last Train To Clarksville," "I'm A Believer" and "Daydream Believer." In addition to those hits, the live album also spotlights many of Nesmith's finest compositions, including several songs that were never performed live during the Monkees' heyday, like "St. Matthew" and "Auntie's Municipal Court." Other Nesmith-penned tunes on the collection include live versions of "The Girl I Knew Somewhere," "Listen To The Band," "Papa Gene's Blues," "You Just May Be The One" and "You Told Me." Dolenz takes the spotlight singing hits like "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Randy Scouse Git," "Mary, Mary," "Goin' Down," "For Pete's Sake," and "Porpoise Song." The collection also features live versions of "Me & Magdelena" and "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" from The Monkees' most-recent studio album, Good Times (2016).

For much of the three and a half year period since the release of Lost In The Dream, The War On Drugs' frontman, Adam Granduciel, led the charge for his Philadelphia-based sextet as he holed up in studios in New York and Los Angeles to write, record, edit, and tinker-but, above all, to busy himself in work. Teaming up with engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, Weezer), Granduciel challenged the notion of what it means to create a fully realized piece of music in today's modern landscape. Calling on his bandmates - bassist Dave Hartley, keyboarding Robbie Bennett, drummer Charlie Hall and multi-instrumentalists Anthony LaMarca and Jon Natchez -- continuously throughout the process, the result is a "band record" in the noblest sense, featuring collaboration, coordination, and confidence at every turn. Through those years of relocation, the revisiting and reexamining of endless hours of recordings, unbridled exploration and exuberance, Granduciel's gritty love of his craft succeeded in pushing the band to great heights.

“The title Villains isn’t a political statement. It has nothing to do with Trump or any of that shit. It’s simply 1) a word that looks fantastic and 2) a comment on the three versions of every scenario: yours, mine and what actually happened… Everyone needs someone or something to rail against— their villain—same as it ever was. You can’t control that. The only thing you can really control is when you let go.” —Joshua Homme Hundreds of epic shows, memory lapses, unexplained injuries, one yearlong detour with Iggy Pop and multiple Grammy nominations later, Queens Of The Stone Age reemerge from the desert newly scarred and somehow strangely prettier with lucky seventh album, Villains, out August 25 on Matador Records. Produced by Mark Ronson and co-produced by Mark Rankin and mixed by Alan Moulder, Villains is the first full album offering from Queens Of The Stone Age since 2013’s …Like Clockwork gave the band its first #1 album in the U.S. Like the stunning artwork of returning illustrator Boneface, the sonic signatures of the lineup that took …Like Clockwork around the world and back are as unmistakable as ever, though coexisting with sufficient new twists to induce recurring double takes. As Homme himself puts it, “The most important aspect of making this record was redefining our sound, asking and answering the question ‘what do we sound like now?’ If you can’t make a great first record, you should just stop—but if you can make a great record but you keep making records and your sound doesn’t evolve, you become a parody of that original sound.” Longtime Queens cohort co-producer Mark Rankin added, “After the baptism of fire that was …Like Clockwork, I was excited to get into the studio again with the challenge of pushing the sound for this record, especially with the the addition of Ronson into the creative mix… What we’ve made is forward looking yet unmistakably Queens.”

2LP – Double Vinyl w/ 3-sides audio and 1-side etched; includes 32-page booklet

Pearl Jam will release their much-anticipated eleventh studio album, Gigaton, on March 27th. It marks the band's first studio album since 2013. "Making this record was a long journey," explains Mike McCready. "It was emotionally dark and confusing at times, but also an exciting and experimental road map to musical redemption." 2020 officially marks 30 years of Pearl Jam performing live, with over 85 million albums sold worldwide and a 2017 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk of Rage Against The Machine, Chuck D and DJ Lord of Public Enemy and B-Real of Cypress Hill have lived the resistance from day one. So it's no surprise that in the midst of 2016's tumultuous election, the revolutionary musicians would join together as Prophets of Rage to combat the coming storm, whatever it may be.

While the fierce independence and enduring influence of their collective lineage is nearly impossible to overstate, these creative kindred spirits knew immediately this was a different beast. Set for release in September of 2017, Prophets of Rage, their explosive, self-titled debut LP, exemplifies the band's commitment to creating a more decent and humane world. The 12 tracks, produced by Brendan O'Brien fuse the diverse styles, sonic firepower and hard-hitting social consciousness of the group's previous work into an inventive and commanding new musical statement.

The lead singer of beloved heartland-punk band The Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon steps away from that sound and into a stripped-down Americana space on his third solo album, Local Honey. Produced by Grammy-award winning producer Peter Katis (The National, Frightened Rabbit, Death Cab for Cutie), the album showcases Fallon's songwriting in small vignettes, from a loving devotional for his daughter to a vengeful murder ballad.

Lilly Hiatt felt lost. She’d just returned home from the better part of a year on tour in support of her acclaimed third album, Trinity Lane, and, stripped of the daily rituals and direction of life on the road, she found herself alone with her thoughts for the first time in what felt like ages.

So Hiatt did what’s always come most natural to her in times of questioning and uncertainty: she picked up a guitar. Over the course of the ensuing winter, she wrote new music that grappled with her sense of self and place in the world, reckoning with issues that had been bubbling beneath the surface of her subconscious in some cases for years. The result is Walking Proof, Hiatt’s fourth and most probing collection to date. The record walks the line between Hiatt’s rough, rock and roll exterior and her tender, country roots. Lilly Hiatt’s not feeling so lost these days, and with Walking Proof, she’s crafted a roadmap to share with the rest of us.

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Recorded at Ringo’s home studio in Los Angeles, Give More Love has 10 new tracks featuring collaborations with friends including: We’re On The Road Again featuring Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Edgar Winter, Steve Lukather; Laughable co-written and performed with Peter Frampton as well as Benmont Tench, Timothy B Schmit, Richard Page and Amy Keys; Show Me The Way co-written and performed with Steve Lukather and with Paul McCartney; Speed of Sound co-written with Richard Marx and featuring Steve Lukather, Peter Frampton and Nathan East; Standing Still co- written with Gary Burr; King of the Kingdom including performances by Dave Stewart and Edgar Winter; Electricity co-written with Glen Ballard and featuring Joe Walsh and Don Was; So Wrong For So Long co written and performed with Dave Stewart; Shake It Up co written and performed with Gary Nicholson and including Don Was and Edgar Winter; and Give More Love co-written with Gary Nicholson including Timothy B Schmit and All Starrs Richard Page and Gregg Bissonette. Give More Love also has four bonus tracks: Back Off Boogaloo, You Can’t Fight Lightning, Photograph and Don’t Pass Me By. This version of Back Off Booglaloo is based on the original recording Ringo made when he wrote the song. He recently discovered the tape when he moved houses. The other three bonus tracks are collaborations based on performances from Starr’s 2016 Peace & Love Birthday event. Alberta Cross performed You Can’t Fight Lightning and Vandaveer performed Photograph and Don’t Pass Me By. Starr loved their renditions and asked them to each record them for his new album, also adding his own vocals. In October Starr will hit the road in the US with his All Starrs, the same beloved lineup he has performed with since 2012: Steve Lukather, Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie, Richard Page, Warren Hamm and Gregg Bissonette.

this long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. eyes up and filled with dreadful joy - we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward.  we recorded it all in a burning motorboat.

Tesla visited the iconic Abbey Road Studios for a one-night musical event, performing songs from their legendary arsenal including "Love Song" and "What You Give" along with their classic covers of "Signs" and "We Can Work It Out." Additionally, for the first time ever, the band performed the track "California Love Song," from their latest studio album, Shock. The performance was recorded and filmed in 4K HD, bringing forth Tesla's upcoming live album, Five Man London Jam. Available on 2LP.

In their 15 years as a band, Shout Out Louds have toured the world many times. The band played a show in the Brazilian rainforest with a freezer box for a dressing room. They once performed in Yokohama, Japan, for an audience of two Austrians. They played in a Sicilian rainstorm so heavy they had to shake out their instruments afterwards, with the soaked backdrop left hung to dry on a hotel façade. The music sites will remind you that the band have performed for David Letterman and Jay Leno and toured with The Strokes during their heyday, but most importantly, they have released four albums of brilliant pop music. Ease My Mind, the band’s fifth full-length, is a welcome return from these Swedish pop masters. After the departure of drummer Eric Edman who played on 2013’s Optica, the band recruited Lars Skoglund, known for his drumming with Lykke Li. One could say that Shout Out Louds returned to their roots. They recorded the album with Fredrik Swahn (from the band The Amazing) who filled the band with such new energy that they were willing to commute to the ’burbs during the darkest months of the year. He was joined by Mĺns Lundberg who produced the song “Souvenirs” and Axel Algmark who produced “No Logic” and “Angel.” After a three-year break for family life and side projects, Adam, Bebban, guitarist Carl von Arbin, and bassist Ted Malmros decided to focus on Shout Out Louds once again. This was an active choice—as it has to be, perhaps, to keep going after having already spent half a lifetime together. The four band members have been friends since high school and grew up together as colleagues and travel companions. You never get to know someone as closely as you do when you’re crammed together in the same touring vehicle, mile after mile. Are the band members more like siblings or an old married couple, then? “We’re more like siblings than anything else. We all know what everyone else hates about ourselves at this point,” they all agree. “We all have sides that are easy to make fun of. We play because we enjoy it so much, but we’ve also done this for half our lives. We’ve learned not to take everything to heart, and to just go for it.” The title of the second track, “Paola”—Bebban’s given name—was chosen by Adam as a tribute to the band members’ longstanding friendship. He explains, “It’s about a time in our lives before we started the band. It’s about finding a different way of living than the one you came from. Choosing another path. I had different lyrics for it at first, but then I felt like the album needed a song like this one.” Adam and Bebban write: “The world is a different place now than it was in the beginning of the 2000’s. We didn’t grow up very aware of political messages in music and probably didn’t feel much of an urgent need to understand the world around us, in that sense. However, that has changed over the years. The world has seemed extremely dystopic and frail for quite a while now, and having children and getting older forces you to open your eyes to issues more devastating than heartbreak and feeling lost. But in our music, we still allow ourselves to address things the way we always have: through emotions rather than analysis. Music as a means of escape, a need to take a break from feeling petrified with fear. Ease My Mind is a lot about that for us.”

Cavetown’s major-label debut album, SLEEPYHEAD, due out March 27, 2020, on Sire Records. Recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Skinner himself in the bedroom of his new London apartment (some things never change), the 11-song collection is set to prove to the world why he’s become not just a cornerstone of the bedroom pop community, but a torchbearer for the next generation of his genre.

By focusing less on the more imperceptible aspects of his productions, Skinner’s distilled his energy on Sleepyhead into what really moves fans: the songs themselves, occasionally lighthearted, largely poignant – but always authentically him. The album is awash in ambient indie-rock nuance, creaking acoustic guitars and Skinner’s poetic lyricism, all steadied by his tranquil melodies and reassuring timbre.

Some 250 million Spotify plays and 1.15 million YouTube subscribers after launching Cavetown, he’s a radically different person than he was just a few years ago. “Basically every aspect of my life has changed since putting out Lemon Boy,” he admits. “Often when change happens, it’s so slow that you don’t notice it. The speed at which it’s happened has made me appreciate everything.”

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Half Waif Nandi Rose is on her own again, and three songs into her forthcoming album The Caretaker, the singer, songwriter and producer declares her fearlessness: "Baby don't worry about me, I don't worry about you." Here, on "Ordinary Talk," Rose meditates on the heaviness of ordinary moments, the constellation of tears and chores and self-doubt and small talk that comprise being a person, accompanied by her most cinematic, pulsing arrangements to date. It's an apt introduction to The Caretaker, an ax-lbum that negotiates the space between working alone and with others, between isolation and connection. The result is her boldest work yet. Over the course of eleven songs, Rose creates the lush world of a humid summer night, dreaming of and reaching for a season in which she is her "best self."

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Every Country's Sun takes two decades of Mogwai's signature, contrasting sounds – towering intensity, pastoral introspection, synth-rock minimalism, DNA-detonating volume – and distills it, beautifully, into 56 concise minutes of gracious elegance, hymnal trance-rock, and transcendental euphoria. Produced by psych-rock luminary Dave Fridmann, it's a structural soundscape built from stark foundations up; from a gentle, twinkling, synth-rock spectre to a solid, blown-out, skyward-thrusting obelisk. There's percussive, dream-state electronics (“Coolverine”), church organs as chariots of existential fire (“Brain Sweeties”), tremulous, foreboding bleeping – possibly from a dying android (“AKA 47”). Their most transportive album yet, it also hosts their most fully realized art-pop sing-along of their storied history, “Party In The Dark,” a head-spinning disco-dream double-helix echoing New Order and The Flaming Lips, featuring Braithwaite's seldom-heard melodic vocals declaring he's “directionless and innocent, searching for another piece of mind”. This is music as a keep-out chrysalis, protective audio armor through exalting organs and portentous, dissonant guitar fuzz warping at the edges, bending the world inside-out into a reality in which you’d much rather live. The last three songs ascend into explosive exorcism, closing with the colossal “Every Country’s Sun,” its searching intensity whooshing towards infinity in a dazzling cosmic crescendo.

The film, 'Viva The Underdogs' features over a decade of behind the scenes personal footage, coupled with unprecedented access to the bands most explosive live tours and world's biggest music festivals. The film gives an incredibly honest and candid look at Parkway Drive's journey; the good-times, battles, triumphs, and sacrifices. "Viva The Underdogs" the album features 14 tracks; 11 of their biggest songs recorded live at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany, as well as three of their most popular tracks re-imagined, recorded in German and one with a feature from German Rap artist, Casper.