Richmond, VA melodic punk band HOLD TIGHT! have released a brand new seven song EP to their Bandcamp page titled Call The Zoo. Notably each of the songs is less than a minute long, which kind of gives it a “Short Music For Short People” vibe, particularly with tightly enclosed tempo changes. Mildly addicting stuff…

From the inbox:

Bay Area CA’s CEREMONY are excited to announce their forthcoming Covers EP which will be released August 9th via Bridge Nine Records. The 6-song EP features cover songs from Urban Waste, Pixies, Crisis, Eddie and the Subtitles, Vile and Wire, and were recorded with Dan Rathbun as outtakes during the Rohnert Park recording session. The Covers EP pays homage to a few of the artists that have influenced Ceremony along the way and will continue to inspire them. Ceremony’s Covers EP is available for pre-order now on vinyl, limited edition CD and cassette at the Bridge Nine store.

Moving forward, Ceremony will be calling Matador Records their new home (the label is known for their work with bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement, Interpol, and many others). Bridge Nine owner Chris Wrenn said, “Today is a very bittersweet day, as Ceremony is moving on to Matador. We are sad to see them go, but so excited and proud of the band. Our relationship with Ceremony has been an incredible one over the years and we will continue to stay close with the band. B9 wishes Ceremony the absolute best, and are just as excited as everyone else to hear their next record.”

COVERS EP TRACK LIST:

• Urban Waste – Public Opinion
• Pixies – Nimrod’s Son
• Crisis – Holocaust
• Eddie and the Subtitles – American Society (L7 version)
• Vile – 5 to 10
• Wire – Pink Flag

From the inbox:

SOUL CONTROL is excited to release their Get Out Now EP on July 12th, which features 4 songs (+1 digital bonus track) of their best material to date, and the band will be premiering some new tracks tomorrow when they hit Santo’s Party House in NYC for a show with Strike Anywhere and Iron Chic. If you haven’t seen SC’s new video, you can do so at Vimeo and listen to their new song at Brooklyn Vegan.

Cross contra cripple crescent, SC lives demands the present. The boys succeed again: throughout, above, and beyond it all. The thunder may be, simply, rock and roll, punk, thrash, drone, distortion. Less a cosmos, more a fist fight, the record battles with sense and judgment, other times without. Anthems with rigidity and a force towards resolution: music to bang your head to. Songs with low end and an encompassing trance: it’s not how you drive, it’s how you arrive. A 5 song EP announcing the present, cross contra cripple crescent!

- I know it’s a rah-rah press release, but if you listen to “Snakes” on the Brooklyn Vegan site, the second paragraph makes plenty of sense.

I don’t have it in me to hate on SET YOUR GOALS. These guys have been on the preferred plan at Pastepunk HQ for more than five years now, and frankly, I’d clutch a copy of This Could Be The Death of Us to that remote desert island we’ve all thought about. The changes brought [...]

- There’s a great quote on the YouTube page for this song that truly sums it up – “Brian [Fallon] just took some elevator music and made it sound amazing”.

From the inbox:

Pre-order for the first EP from NJ-based hardcore band BAYONET is available today from the Mightier Than Sword webstore. BAYONET features members of hardcore music favorites SENSES FAIL, THE BANNER, SUBURBAN SCUM, and FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY. On their debut self-titled 12″, the band recalls the glory days of the past decade’s early hardcore scene, with a sound many have compared to AMERICAN NIGHTMARE, TRAGEDY, KID DYNAMITE, and HOPE CONSPIRACY. The first pressing is limited to 500 records, with 100 on black 180-gram, 200 on clear yellow brown swirl, and 200 on marble swirl clear grey. The band will make select appearances this summer to be announced.

Please welcome Matthew Eliott Baker, born on June 18th at 1:56am. Thanks in advance for your patience with Pastepunk content while family life gets just a little bit busier around here!

I finished reading latest issue of Alternative Press this morning which features an oral history on TAKING BACK SUNDAY. Although the piece is mainly about the personnel issues that have haunted and taunted the band for the past eight years, the background of the group’s origins is full of interesting observations. I was still living on Long Island when the group just got going and twice saw the band perform with original singer Antonio Longo. They were not very good in that formulation. One thing that stuck out was how overly dramatic Longo was compared to the rest of the band. Arms flailing everywhere. Lots of jumping up and down while standing in place. It’s kind of funny seeing that brought up now in the oral history, more than ten years later, confirming those very early impressions.

Later on, a copy of the band’s second demo, the one that got them signed to Victory, was sent in for review on Pastepunk.  The same day it arrived, I listened to it and took it with me to play in the car for Kevin Wade, former Punkrocks.net editor, and eventual Lobster Records dude. I think we were going to see OVER IT that night (the odds were high during that time period that if we went to a show in Northern Virginia it featured OVER IT), and we listened to the demo in my car a few times. It just clicked, we knew this band was going to be special. What I heard specifically that day was the next iteration of Long Island Hardcore and you could just sort of feel that the word “hardcore” wouldn’t be associated with this sound for long. Going over that demo and even Tell All Your Friends today, you can pick out the subtle and not-so-subtle GLASSJAW and SILENT MAJORITY influences, as well as bits from Eddie Reyes’ beloved former band CLOCKWISE. The sharp emo turn of the full-length only obscures so much…

The oral history in Alternative Press glosses over the fact that TAKING BACK SUNDAY’s rise was a slow burn effort at first, much like THURSDAY’s Full Collapse. Shortly after the release of Tell All Your Friends, the band was a part of the 2002 Victory Records Tour and had the opening slot (before STUDENT RICK of all bands…). I went to the DC show on the tour and it was a mess, an early Sunday show that also included REACH THE SKY, who played DC often, but whose brand of melodic hardcore almost always seemed unappreciated here, and CATCH 22, who are not exactly known for drawing a crowd that was willing to watch other bands outside of a ska/punk sphere. Maybe this is a stretch in my memory, but I think TAKING BACK SUNDAY played to about 75 people at the 9:30 Club, a venue that fits 1300. The 2002 Victory Records machine eventually helped push the band to amazing heights, but their humble beginnings are worth remembering.

With the band returning to the Tell All Your Friends line-up for their new full-length, it’s pretty much a last ditch effort to stay afloat. I don’t think young kids get easily inspired by fifth-album releases by dudes in their 30s… and when there’s an Oral History of Your Band in Alternative Press, that’s already a sign that your epitaph has been drafted. That said, here’s to hoping that a little bit of the magic that was created during the band’s big bang finds a spot for 2011.