For years, this band has been considered to be the German SICK OF IT ALL, and for comparisons sake, that’s a great place to start with “Life’s A Gamble.” This is their first release for Thorp records, after having a few discs released stateside on Century Media. Taking on that toughguy NYHC sound to a [...]

1) I am back from my European tour. London is great – much better than any American city. Bit pricey, but so is the area I live in.<br><Br>

2) The new Yellowcard <a href="http://www.absolutepunk.net/download.php?clip=Yellowcard_-_Way_Away.mp3">song</a> – awesome! I really hope they blow up… and stop trying to steal Pete from over it to sing.<br><Br>

3) The Haunted put out a DVD. It blows. The band is amazing but I've never seen boringness live so directly proportional to awesomeness on CD – not even with the Alkaline Trio.<br><BR>

4) I love hommus so much. It's very close to replacing yellow mustard as the greatest condiment of all time.<br><Br>

5) I got pulled for jury duty! Yeah!<Br><Br>

6) Can someone explain the end of "The Recruit" to me? The movie is decent, but I have NO IDEA what was going on at the end.<br><br>

7) Yeah, Darkest Hour and Anti-Flag… jesus. DH will just scare off all the Anti-Flag fans. I think Bane should tour with Over It.<Br><Br>

8) It's amazing that people are ready to slit their wrists over Taking Back Sunday's breakup and don't even seem to have noticed that PANTERA also broke up! Geez…<br><BR>

9) While in Brussels, my friend asked someone from the UK "do you have mp3s where you live?"<br><br>

10) There's a gigantic mural of my sister on the wall in my family's TV room now. It's really sort of creepy.<br><Br>

11) I'm really making up for lost time here!<br><br>

12) Still listening to the new Yellowcard song.<br><Br>

13) <a href="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/279/belovedrocks.html" target="_blank">Beloved!</a><Br><Br>

14) Kids, lay off Metallica. It's like Michael Jordan on the Wizards – it's not that they suck now, it's that anything they do that has a shred of greatness is masked by 45 stupid things. "St. Anger" may be their worst record, but if it turns kids onto metal with a double bass pedal they more power to them as far as I'm concerned.<br><Br>

15) This is officially long enough to be a column.<br><Br>

16) Okay bye!

I am hooked on <a href="http://www.kerrange.com" target="_blank">Kerrang!</a> magazine. They cover a lot of terrible bands (e.g. Staind, Slipknot, etc.) but their writing is solid and not as snobbish and just flat out mean such as, well, other zines that have been mentioned on this news page.. like my own. BUT why the fuck does it cost $220 for a year's subscription?! I know it's like $3.50 an issue but you can get 400 issues of Sports Illustrated for something like 8 bucks right now! And with that you even get the free football phone and the Swimsuit issue. If anyone can tell me a place where I can subscribe to Kerrang for a better rate than that I will love you forever.

Check out this Flintsone-themed review of the new SETTLEFISH disc on Deep Elm records at <a href="http://www.dfbpunk.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=919" target="_blank">DFB</a>.

I really admire bands that are still sticking to that ska/punk sound in this time of strong hatred for the bands that came and went during the ska/punk craze of the late 90s. Commerically, the genre couldn’t be any deader, but fortunately, there are some great acts like LESS THAN JAKE, NEW DIRECTION, and CATCH [...]

If it seems like this band has been around forever, it’s most likely due to RFTC’s lengthy discography, spanning more than a decade. At one point it seemed that these guys were truly on the cusp of breaking big – but alas, the usual major label hang-ups prevented popular advances, and RFTC just kinda hung [...]

1. DARKEST HOUR is going out on tour with ANTI-FLAG. Gotta say, I never saw that one coming…

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2. Three truly incredible releases have landed upon my door step recently: BRAND NEW – Deja Entendu; THIS DAY FORWARD – In Response; and the gloriously stunning BELOVED – Failure On.

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3. I saw a guy on the metro tonight decked out in full NFL Referee attire carrying only a single sauce pan. You try to explain that…

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4. Issue #56 of Punk Planet is one of their best yet. The interview with Fat Mike discussing his punkvoter.com and latest NOFX release, "The War On Errorism" are fantastic. Plus, there's an interview with BANE that worth's reading too.

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5. Will the METS ever get to .500 this season? For the sake of causing myself and thousands of other fans even more unncessary grief – the answer is a resounding "NO."

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6. With the right push and a stroke of some fine luck, the new MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK <i>could</i> make them as popular as WEEZER. It's silly good.

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7. DARKEST HOUR and ANTI-FLAG…wow…that's like putting LESS THAN JAKE on tour with EIGHTEEN VISIONS. Actually, maybe that's not such a bad idea…

After two successful and widely appreciated eps, this hard working gang of rockers finally dives in and delivers the big one. Although I thought their eps (especially “Forget Their Manners”) were pretty good, they lacked the substance and rigidity to allow this band’s songs to sound complete. But after keeping a solid line-up for more [...]