The Scorpions have just been awarded the “Worst Pun Of 2012″ award for their album “Comeblack.” In related news, Goth fans everywhere are angry they did not think of that title sooner. O, opportunities lost!
Lacuna Coil is back with more of the same Lacuna Coil dark goodness. Love the trading off male/female vocals? Love that guys accent? LOVE METAL? Lacuna Coil’s Dark Adrenaline is the album you need to pick up this week. Stay tuned for an in-depth Lacuna Coil review.
Tim McGraw, that hunky country superstar drops an album anyone could be proud of. But McGraw has said in recent interviews that this is his best album to date. I disagree, like, A LOT, but I will concede that the first track “Halo” is a damn good song. Check it out.
How about you? What’s your favorite release this week? Let me know in the comments! And if you love what you read here and want to get updates right in your inbox, SUBSCRIBE!
Where did song report 2 go? It was eaten by the internet. Sorry. But please enjoy the new song report #3, the third week of January 2012.
The Shins
The Zach Braff approved band is coming back with a new album. ”Port of Morrow” will be released this March. Check out the first single from Port of Morrow entitled Simple Song. Simple Song by The Shins
Shine Down
Known for their smash hit 45, Shinedown have released the first single off their new album Amaryllis, which comes out March 27, 2012. Bully is about, er, bullying. The song itself is a slow tempo but energetic, and I have to say it is insanely catchy. I’ve been trying to get it out of my head for about an hour now. The lyrics are a bit simple, like something a high school poetry class might produce, but the message is powerful; I think a lot of fans may be able to stand behind it. Check out the song below:
Crosses
Fronted by Chino Moreno, better known as the Deftones lead singer, Crosses is a new project with Chino and Shaun Lopez. If you liked Team Sleep (another project by Chino), or the Deftones song Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event, you’ll probably dig the first single from Crosses. EP 2 from Crosses will be available on January 24th, 2012.
The Used
It’s been a few years since The Used released Artwork. Back with the new album Vulnerable (due out March 27), I Come Alive is full of energy, a crazy kind of schizophrenic passion that fuses laid back verses with slightly babbling lyrics, to a full out heavy chorus, this is The Used as we know and love them. Check out I Come Alive:
Adam Lambert
Got a thing for American Idol losers? Or maybe you are a self-admitted Glambert (and really, who among us is NOT?). In any case, the walking advertisement for black eye liner is back with a new single called Better Than I Know Myself. His new album, Trespassing is due out this spring. Check it out below:
Subscribe!
Want to stay up to date on the latest new songs and album release? Sign up for the NewMusicRelease.net newsletter and receive 1 email every week with all the new releases. Just enter your email below:
To check out these new music releases, click here.
If you enjoy the sound of mega-pop hits watered down to cater to a kid friendly audience (or, I guess, if you have kids and they somehow do not understand the complexities of adult-voiced pop music), Kidz Bop 21 is the perfect album for you. Featuring such recent hits as Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Bruno Mars’ “It Will Rain,” and the inappropriately sexy “Moves Like Jagger,” and 13 more radio friendly hits.
Anthony Green, former singer of Saosin, current lead singer of Circa Survive, and the most energetic person I’ve seen on stage EVER, releases his second solo album Beautiful Things. The 13 track album is the follow up to 2008′s Avalon. Stay tuned for the album review, which will be posted tomorrow.
What do you all think of the rest of new music being released this week? Have you been looking forward to any particular album? Have you heard one? What are your thoughts?
Snow Patrol kicks the new year off with the first release from a mainstream band. Nightwish, a Finnish opera-metal band releases their first album since 2007′s Dark Passion Play.
In this first report of 2012 there are many new songs to “oooh” and “awww” over like at a zoo. Some are cute little pandas and others are xxx, but we try to love them equally, don’t we?
The Scissor Sisters
If you’ve ever wondered what the Black Eyed Peas would sound like if they were from Kentucky, let me introduce you to the Scissor Sisters. You may be big in Japan, but the Scissor Sisters are HUGE in England. Their new song “Shady Love” off an upcoming album shares structure and tone with some of the best (or worst?) Black Eyed Peas songs.
But, you know, if you’re into that sort of thing, Enjoy!
I’ve got no music to show for this tidbit, but if you like supporting charity, and are wondering what it would sound like if Shakira and Miley Cyrus performed a duet, I’ve got good news for you! Aceshowbiz reports that the two will perform a song tentatively titled “Love & Rock.” Compelling stuff. It seems like these two singers go together like mayonaise and chocolate cake, but I have to admit I’m kind of curious to see how it will sound. What do you think? Train meets crash or chocolate meets peanut butter?
Jason Mraz
Hey, remember when Jason Mraz DIDN’T look like a cross between young Ted Nugent and an old Sammy Hagar? Hey, at least he stopped wearing those hats he got made fun of on Family Guy about. We can still thank our lucky stars that he SOUNDS like Jason Mraz still. Not quite as clever and fun with the wordplay as in the past, but the voice is solid. Check out his new songs below (via cambio)
This tree actually has credits on three different songs....
As 2011 comes to a cold and snowy close, NewMusicRelease.net will look back at the 10 best albums of 2011. These albums are listed in no particular order. This is first of 10 posts.
If men were sirens, and were super hip and played in an indie rock band that doesn’t CARE what you think, Colin Meloy (lead singer of The Decemberists) would probably be secretary to the head of sirens. Or a mermaid. I forgot where I was going with this…
The Decemberists! Back with a new album. In 2009 they blew up your expectations with a genuine ROCK OPERA. Like an indie sci-fi film, it was pretty freaking good, but it was a little weird.
If you expected them to go even WEIRDER on their new album, you were wrong, Fool! The King Is Dead is a solid indie-blues-folk-rock-whatever album.
But you don’t have to take MY word for it.
Don’t Carry it All starts the album like a gun shot starts a horse race. It’s big and in your face. What is that lovely, ear-caressing sound I hear? Harmonica, b*tch. This song has attitude like a diet coke commercial. It’s slow and plodding; it has a message for you.
Let the yoke fall from our shoulder
Don’t carry it all, Don’t carry it all
We are all our hands and holders
Beneath this bold and brilliant Sun
Colin Meloy has a polarizing voice. It’s strangely gorgeous and vulnerable, like an orchid–but some people disagree. I am not one of those people, but you may be. And that’s okay! I still kinda like you. But not like THAT. You know what I mean.
Second track, Calamity Song, kicks off with some good ole acoustic guitar riffs. If this song was a Yankee Candle it would be call Fresh-Cut-Grass and Down-Home-Jammin. This song has a groove you can dance to at the county fair, and a mood about it that suggests freshly cold weather, muddied hay beneath your feet, and a million million blinking lights, from the ferris wheel to the funnel cake stand. Bring a jacket when you listen to this one.
Rise to Me sees The Decemberists slowing things down a bit, again. This song speaks to strength, and the vocals don’t hold back in telling you to Stand Your Ground. Musically, all the songs on The King is Dead are layered and rich, but they do their best to stand up to the unique vocals.
You are gonna stand your ground
They rise to you, you blow them down
Let me see you stand your ground
They rise to you, you blow them down.
If you’re the kind of person that lets lyrics from song dictate your life (you can’t drive 55, you’re a firework, you did it all for the nookie), you would be hard pressed to find a song better than this to take advice from.
Rox in a Box could be a traveling or camp-fire song in Game of Thrones. It’s a fun little song, but there doesn’t seem to be much there.
January Hymn is a song about beginning; it’s a prelude to another song (June Hymn). When I listen to January Hymn I get goosebumps, because its soft and it captures the mood of the month. This song is frosted windows and hot cocoa around a fireplace. Grab someone you love and curl up together when you listen to this song. It’s simple in the way that baby birds are simple, and its fragile in the same way. Listen to it with your eyes closed. And think about how good its gonna be when June Hymn comes in three more songs (which is much quicker than the ACTUAL month of June. The more your know…)
Down By the Water is what passes for a radio friendly song with The Decemberists. It’s uptempo, it tells a story, and has a damn catchy chorus. Apart from that, it bears little resemblance to current radio hits. There’s no electronic twitching here, just a set of instruments you’d find at a good back country concert by the light of candles in mason jars and fireflies. You bring the moonshine, I’ll bring the flannel shirts and overalls.
All Arise is an old country song. It’s what is playing on the jukebox in that movie you’ve been promising yourself you’d write for five years now. Just do it already! All Arise has the prestige to be the sour that makes the sweet sweeter, as it is the song that precedes June Hymn.
Ah, June Hymn. In my unapologetic opinion, this is one of the best things to ever be written by a band, recorded, and then listened to by someone.
Listen, stop reading this review right now, and listen to the song. I’ve done you the favor of embedding it below.
It starts with sloppily strummed acoustic guitars and a harmonica as thick and sweet as honey. The voice is heartbreaking in the same way that Monsters Inc. was (Damn you Pixar!!). The lyrics are bigger than anything Robert Frost ever wrote, and they reach deep inside the chambers of your heart and echo, and plant little seedlings to take root there and grow within your veins.
Pegging clothing on the line
Training Jasmine how to vine
Up the arbor to your door, and more
Standing on the landing with the war you shouldered all the night before
With songs like this, a band transcends the record they make, the message they bring. It takes a special kind of poet to craft a bundle like this, to capture the intangible, and make you feel it all across your body. The Decemberists have done it before (listen to The Crane Wife pt 3 & 4), and they’ve done it here. And as they are repeat offenders, I’m expecting them to do it again. If you love this song as much as I do, check out this live version with Sarah Watson, from Nickel Creek.
This is Why We Fight is a lot like “Down By the Water.” It’s uptempo and catchy, and would make a great radio single (if you’re into that kind of thing). Never has a disintegrating relationship made me want to snap my fingers and tap my toes. As far as these things go, the song does a good job of cleaning up the mess June Hymn made of you. It plugs you back into reality and reminds you everything is not eternally perfect.
And when we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
Avery wraps up the album in a quiet, wistful way. It has pieces of all the other songs sewn in, like a patchwork quilt that hasn’t frayed too much over the years. This one can be a bit of a tear-jerker, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. In fact, if you’re going to listen to this album, keep a few slices of onion in your pocket. Pull it out if the tears start to fall. Everyone will understand.
No one EVER suspects The Decemberists.
If you’d like to take my advice and buy this album, you should DO IT RIGHT NOW. It’s only $4.99
