SHREDnews

Four Year Strong was a band that I heard about a few years ago and when I gave their debut album, Rise Or Die Trying, it was an listen it was an album I listened to constantly ever since. When hearing about their second full length record I got so excited to see what they came up with next. Due to this, it’s easy to say I had high expectations due to the first record I fell in love with. Well, it’s easy to say that as much as I loved Rise Or Die Trying, their new album Enemy Of The World not only exceeded my expectations but is easily going to be my favorite album of the year.

Shred’s Bekka gets put in touch with Greg from Truth Corroded. Discussed in the interview is the difference between being an Australian band compared too a UK or a US one, crazy tour stories involving getting drunk with a Mongolian folk band and news on their upcoming release.
 

The light dimmed and a silence infected the room. Cheers erupted from the crowd while seven painfully talented people glided onto an empty stage. Ears stood alert as the sweet melody of an Irish accent swept across the speakers. Tonight was a night of music and celebration. Tonight was a night to rock.

The new, do-it-yourself music industry has given way to major electronic acts like Owl City. However, there is a lower tier of electronic artists on Myspace that are starting to gain serious momentum. Among them is Romance On A Rocketship, the one-man project of Kasey Smith. Previously, Smith was a member of Here I Come Falling and, more recently, Agraceful.

On an ever expanding Scottish music scene Frightened Rabbit have gone largely unnoticed. The band have evolved from lead vocalist and guitarist Scott Hutchinson’s solo project in 2003. Since then they’ve released two albums. Sing the Greys released in May 2006 on home grown label Hits The Fan. Since then follow-up The Midnight Organ Fight (a euphemism for sex), was met with critical acclaim, receiving no less that 80% in any review. Now the band has released the much anticipated The Winter of Mixed Drinks on Brighton label Fat Cat which could catapult them into the eye of the mainstream.

New Found Glory’s guitarist Chad Gilbert has jumped on the side-project bandwagon and started his own called What’s Eating Gilbert. He wrote these songs over the past few years. He recently recorded them with Elgin James, which Gilbert says he’s the “other full time What’s Eating Gilbert member.”

The tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania has long been the home to groundbreaking acts and genre-defying bands. A by product of innovation is the inevitable need to re-focus; the point at which transformation has become stagnant and returning to old ways is necessary. As the pop punk sub genre continues to head more towards the pop sound than punk, one New Jersey band is taking their stance and focusing on the punk sound of the pop punk spectrum.

Writer Darlene Dobkowski sat down with Kristian Hallbert, lead singer of Crime in Stereo, before their show at the Middle East Downstairs to talk about their new album, I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, the beginning of their tour and how they got into hardcore music.

‘I’m Marina. You are the diamonds.’ declares 24-year old Marina Lambrini Diamandis on her Myspace page. Commonly mistaken for a band, Marina and the Diamonds is already tipped to be one of the top breakthrough artists in British music this year, and deservedly so – her debut album The Family Jewels has already reached #5 in the album chart, ahead of new releases by the likes of Johnny Cash and The Courteeners. The Welsh singer/songwriter began to dabble seriously in music back in 2007 when she recorded and self-released her first EP, Mermaid Vs Sailor.

Have you heard of fireworks? No, not those things you watch in the sky after a celebration I mean the band. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you best get caught up now before they begin to explode (see what I did there) onto our screens and stages in the very near future!