Aaron Burgess
Guitarist Chad I Ginsburg slides perfectly into frontman role on CKY’s ‘The Phoenix’
CKY
The Phoenix
FILE UNDER: REBORN ROLLER RAGERS
ROCKS LIKE: Alice In Chains, Queens Of The Stone Age, HIM
WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Somewhere between now and CKY’s last album (2009’s Carver City), the acclaimed alternative-metal band suffered a schism that led to three-fourths of them keeping the name and the frontman playing his own music under a new moniker. The Phoenix, as
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Mutoid Man pack ‘War Moans’ with a war ensemble’s worth of raging
Mutoid Man
War Moans
FILE UNDER: METAL UP YOUR ASS
ROCKS LIKE: Iron Maiden, Kyuss, Testament
WHAT’S DIFFERENT: There’s no room for weak links in a power trio, and Mutoid Man—guitarist/singer Stephen Brodsky, drummer Ben Koller (Converge, All Pigs Must Die) and bassist Nick Cageao—are as mighty as trios come. Unabashed, unironic an
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John Frum bring adventure to the metal genre with ‘A Stirring In The Noos’
John Frum
A Stirring In The Noos
FILE UNDER: Psychedelic death metal
ROCKS LIKE: Gorguts, Gigan, Ulcerate
WHAT’S DIFFERENT: Considering John Frum’s lineup—current and ex-members of the Dillinger Escape Plan, the Faceless, John Zorn and more—you’d expect the band’s debut to be an eclectic but surgically precise slab of tech-metal. A Stirring In The Noos benefits fr
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Lamb Of God’s EP ‘The Duke’ snaps and chugs in ways that recall their earliest material
Lamb Of God
The Duke
EPs tend to be stopgaps: an easy way to hold fans’ attention between albums. Considering that Lamb Of God dropped their last full-length, VII: Sturm And Drang, a year ago, simply releasing the two new songs on The Duke would’ve been enough to buy the band time. But focusi
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Dillinger Escape Plan continue to challenge heavy music’s rules with final album
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Dissociation
With their 1998 EP Under The Running Board, the Dillinger Escape Plan forced metalcore to evolve overnight. The New Jersey quintet's stabbing, atonal guitar figures felt like Morse code from a war zone. Th
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‘Revolution Radio’ is the most intensely personal Green Day album in years
Green Day
Revolution Radio
Whether it’s wrestling with the world outside or the enemy within, punk needs a struggle if it’s going to mean something. For Green Day, wartime under George W. Bush gave 2004’s American Idiot a career-resurrecting sense of purpose, while the existential aftermath of a post-Bush America fueled 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. And while the band’s 2
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Dillinger Escape Plan open up on breakup: “People are done when they’re dead”
Talking to AP before a gig in Toronto, Greg Puciato sounds remarkably composed for a man whose band, the Dillinger Escape Plan, are less than 24 hours from announcing their breakup. That’s because, in that same short window, Dillinger will also announce the Oct. 14 r
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METZ’s ‘II’ hits like a concussion grenade (review)
Metz
II
Options are good things to have. And, after making waves with their eponymous 2012 debut, Toronto noise-rock trio METZ saw their possibilities upped with album No. 2: fancier studios, more time to write, more temptation to embellish
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Jawbox ‘My Scrapbook Of Fatal Accidents’ reissue befits the strength of their influence (review)
Jawbox
My Scrapbook Of Fatal Accidents
Hard to believe, considering that Washington, D.C., post-hardcore legends Jawbox came up in an era where vinyl was king, but this marks the first time the band’s posthumous 1998 singles collection, My Scrapbook Of Fatal Accidents, is getting the vinyl treatment. And,
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Never Young blur the lines among influences and genres on their self-titled EP
Never Young
Never Young EP
“Synthetic,” “digital” and “futurist” pop up among the adjectives in Never Young’s bio, but the Bay Area quartet’s secret weapon is a fuzzed-out analog peal that’s as indebted to early-’80s noise pop as it is to ’90s post-hardcore. Throughout this eponymous EP, the band sound like they’re ejecti
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Loincloth – Iron Balls Of Steel
Loincloth
Iron Balls Of Steel
	It's taken 12 years, one instantly out-of-print 2003 demo, and the departure of a founding member (guitarist Pen Rollings), but Virginia/North Carolina instru-metal trio Loincloth can finally cement their legacy with a full-length debut. Al
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Thursday/Envy- Split
Split
	From left-field film soundtracks to dark literary figures like the late David Foster Wallace, Thursday’s influences have never been limited to hardcore; it’s just that the media blitz around the band traditionally gravitates toward the louder, faster elements of Thursday’s sound. Heck, even if yo
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From the Editor’s Floor: Green Day Part 2
In the first installment of our web-exclusive interview with GREEN DAY, frontman BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG revealed what went into the making of their upcoming follow-up to American Idiot. In part two, Armstrong talks about the bigger picture.
	There was a lot of tension in the band going into American Idiot, to the point where you guys ended up in a sort of group therapy...
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From the Editor’s Floor: Green Day
BRAND NEW DAY
For our "Most Anticipated Albums Of 2009" cover story, AP was granted exclusive access to the Hollywood studio where GREEN DAY have been working on the follow-up to 2004’s mega-platinum American Idiot. You’ll have to pick up the issue for the juicier dirt on the songs and the story behind Green Day’s latest opus, but considering all the great material the band left us with,
The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ire Works
Ire Works
	Without a doubt, anyone reading about the Dillinger Escape Plan circa 2007 will see plenty of variations on the most famous old Nietzsche maxim: Because all that hasn’t killed this New Jersey quintet-namely a legacy of label/contractual problems and the gradual drop-off of all but one original member-has certainly made them stronger. But
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Shadows Fall – Threads Of Life
Shadows Fall
Threads Of Life
	Shadows Fall have enjoyed a tremendous surge of hype since their 2004 breakout, The War Within, cracked the Billboard Top 20; and even though there’s a big difference between being Century Media’s biggest act and impressing the bean counters at a major label, the band sound more than ready to prove their mettle with Threads Of Life. While Mast
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Underoath – Define The Great Line
Underoath
Define The Great Line
There’s a church in Pittsburgh that, although named for a bridge on the city’s South Side, also has the best accidental summary of Christian heavy music’s m.o. in its moniker. And while Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community (that’s no joke) is just one of many young arts- and music-friendly churches in America right now, it’s also just the kind of symbol we on the outs
Minus The Bear: A Body In Motion
Their songs may make you want to get out of your seat, but for their new album, MINUS THE BEAR had to get out of themselves to rediscover their voice.
It’s an otherwise humdrum Thursday night in late June, and AP is trying to pin down the members of Minus The Bear at various points throughout the band’s hometown of Seattle. While we c...