THE RIDDLIN’ KIDS remind me a lot of the professional baseball player Tony Clark, who has played with the Mets, Yankees, and Tigers. You see, Clark is a big man who knows how to hit a baseball hard and far. Very far. But Clark also strikes out a lot, and has a miserable career on-base [...]

FIVE DAYS OFF – Deerfoot Trail (Funtime)

- Melodicore still thrives in Belgium, and these guys do it better than most. If you still clutch your copy of NO USE FOR A NAME’s Making Friends like it’s the last vestige of an era, I strongly encourage you to check out this band.

mp3: FIVE DAYS OFF – The Ship

From the inbox:

Kansas City foursome the ARCHITECTS have designed a scorching, vitriolic rock & roll album steeped in the art of getting even. The acclaimed group that Alternative Press hailed as ‚Äúpowerful Midwestern rock n‚Äô soul the way it was meant to be played‚Äù (5/05) will unveil their new offering Revenge February 21 on Anodyne Records. The ARCHITECTS — who‚Äôve built a reputation for fiery live performances — will perform a slew of hometown shows and a special Los Angeles appearance on January 16 at the Viper Room, with a full winter tour to be announced soon.

On Revenge, the ARCHITECTS have drafted a boozy, bluesy and–above all else–heartfelt album, where punk fury and whiskey-drunk prowess meet and exchange dirty looks. Cops, politicians, ex-lovers and even dewey-eyed, nostalgic GADJITS [the founding members‚Äô former band] fans all get thirty lashes on Revenge, the follow-up to the group‚Äôs critically commended 2004 debut Keys To The Building (Anodyne Records).

‚ÄúFor Revenge, the goal was to make a record that would capture the live sound of our band,‚Äù says frontman BRANDON PHILLIPS. ‚ÄúFor ten years, in this band and THE GADJITS our first band, the struggle was always to make a record as good as the live show.‚Äù The group–with the assistance of producer John Seymour–pushed itself to make a record more consistent with the grit and guts of their live performances. Recorded in just four days, the songs are urgent and compelling. From raw and contagious opener ‚ÄúReciprocity,‚Äù to the earnest Midwestern punk of ‚ÄúWidows Walk‚Äù–which recalls the magic of both Soul Asylum‚Äôs Hang Time and the Replacements‚Äô Tim–to the hard snarling, cop-baiting croak of ‚ÄúBadge‚Äù and the socio-political ‚ÄúDon‚Äôt Call It a Ghetto,‚Äù Revenge is a restoration of faith.

For BRANDON (lead vocals, guitars) and his younger brothers ZACH (bass) and ADAM (drums), who all did time as the aforementioned GADJITS before conspiring with lead guitarist MIKE ALEXANDER (ex-The Breakups and the Revolvers), the overwhelming notion throughout Revenge is that ‚Äòloud and fast‚Äô rules. And Revenge BRANDON confesses, ‚Äújust may be one of my favorite perspectives to write from. People who are jilted because they were passive or took any other route than the confrontational one–that angry, ‚Äòwalking along the railroad tracks kicking rocks‚Äô headspace.‚Äù

link: anodynerecords.com

- I know these guys have moved on from their GADJITS days, but really, At Ease was one hell of an album, and it’s a shame the band never regained the kind of clarity they had on that one as the ska-craze fallout got the best of them.

From Blackout Records:

In what is becoming a monotonous scene of breakdown anthems, A WELL THOUGHT TRAGEDY bring their hearts to the table over and over again. Every-time blowing minds more than the time before. AWTT‚Äôs love and appreciation for metal is reflected in their killer riffs and melodic choruses. After that complete brutality takes over. Having been compared to bands such Dead to Fall, As I Lay Dying, I Killed The Prom Queen, and other uprising bands in the metal-core scene, A Well Thought Tragedy is guaranteed to reel you in like a blood thirsty barracuda. Unlike a lot of metal-core bands out today, these fellers break the mold introducing head bopping riffs that even the inexperienced of this style can appreciate. AWTT brings elements of every style from old/new school hardcore, big hair/groove metal, to just plain out brutal…with a hint of punk rock here and there. Be prepared for a new sound in this “”every band sounds the same”" era. Seriously, you won’t be disappointed.

CD EP

1.Exhale

2.Failure Was Designed To Destroy

3.Further Down The Spiral We Come Crashing

4.Murder with Your Eyes

5.A Quiet Separation

- The line containing “”head bopping riffs”" has me slightly alarmed. As long as they don’t sound like BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, I think we’ll probably be OK.

The almighty CAVE IN have three in-store performances scheduled in the next two weeks. Here are the details:

Saturday December 3rd, 3pm

Graywhale

208 S. 1300 E.

Salt Lake City, Utah 84102

Adam and Steve acoustic

Sunday, December 4th, 3pm.

Record Exchange

1105 West Idaho Street

Boise Idaho 83702

Adam and Steve acoustic

Sunday, December 11th, 3pm

M-Theory’s

3004 Juniper Street

San Diego, CA 92104

Cave In (all of them, playing loud)

These performances are all taking place while the band is on tour with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMRIDERS and LORENE DRIVE. I wouldn’t pass on this tour if it’s coming to your neck of the woods!

Yup… not much more to add here besides what’s in the headline. Pretty slick looking. Check it out here.

If you head over to iSound.com, you can enter into a Drive-Thru/Rushmore Records contest that covers every release the labels issued in 2005 (including the lengthy pureVOLUME compilation) as well as a couple of t-shirts and so forth.

From the inbox:

Indianapolis, Indiana hosts DEMIRICOUS, the band that offers up an unrelenting mixture of pure American metal and thrash. These guys love old thrash but nothing like that was coming out anymore so and on Halloween night 2001 DEMIRICOUS was born. Recruiting Ben, formally of UPHEAVEL was a turning point for the band and that’s when the guys started to get serious about the project. Fast forward to 2005, the bands self-released EP caught the attention Metal Blade Records and landed them the coveted record deal they had been working so hard to obtain.

DEMIRICOUS have great touring experiences under their belt; with successful runs on Exodus, Malevolent Creation, Extol, King Diamond, The Black Dahlia Murder and Obituary tours; also, the main stage at the infamous New England Hardcore and Metal Fest 2005 where they won over the audience with their brand of no frills metal.

On the band’s EP and early demos it was evident that DEMIRICOUS was sonically different. As the band grew and came into their own it motivated them to keep it going- leaning towards a more straight forward metal sound. Or as the band puts it, ‚ÄúNo fuckin hair dos, ex-girlfriends, or lame shit‚Ķ just good fuckin times and raging metal.‚Äù There is almost a raw punk rock vibe to the new material on the bands debut Metal Blade Records release One. It‚Äôs more about doing what you want or die trying then about caring what the new fashion is or if your hair looks just right. ‚ÄúStyle-wise and riff-wise we call our brand of music ‚ÄúStreet Metal”" because our songs have ALL to do with tough rippin‚Äô ass riffs and pummeling drums and having nothing to do with whatever is cool.‚Äù

In June 2005, One was recorded and mixed at Planet-Z studios with Zeuss (Hatebreed, The Red Chord, Shadows Fall). ‚ÄúWe are just trying to write a solid thrash album and we hope to add something different to today‚Äôs metal scene. I don‚Äôt know what direction we are going in but not a whole lot of bands are going this direction. We are just playing the music that we want to hear. Plain and simple‚Ķ,‚Äù states the band. Demiricous has respect for thier elders, so to speak, and with One truly pay homage to old school thrash; at the same time you will definitely walk away with a feeling that you have not heard anything this raw and honest in a long time. Guitarist Scott Wilson comments, ‚ÄúI’m an old school motherfucker and I miss the rage‚Ķ and the hooks, and the solos,‚Äù and One without doubt delivers all the rage, hooks, and solos metal heads have been waiting for. One hits stores on January 24, 2006 and expect to see the band touring the US heavily before and after the release date.

- That’s a pretty enticing press release; I can only hope this band lives up the high standard that they apparently are holding themselves to.