As I Lay Dying Forced to Cancel Ichthus Festival Appearance

As I Lay Dying has been forced to cancel their appearance at the Ichthus Festival. Here's the statement from the band:

"Due to an unforeseen family emergency we regret to inform you that we have no choice but to cancel our performance this Friday Jun-13 at Ichthus Festival in Wilmore, KY. We apologize to our fans who expected to see us and we hope to have an opportunity to make it up to you in the near future. Thank you for your understanding in this difficult time."

Here are the latest As I Lay Dying tour dates:

Warped Tour:
06/20 Pomona, CA Fairplex Park
06/21 San Francisco, CA Pier 30/32
06/22 Ventura, CA Seaside Park
06/23 Las Vegas, NV The Joint not part of tour w/ Norma Jean, The Devil Wears Prada, August Burns Red
06/25 Phoenix, AZ Cricket Wireless Pavilion
06/26 Las Cruces, NM NMSU Field
06/28 Salt Lake City, UT Utah State Fair
06/29 Denver, CO Invesco Field
06/30 Omaha, NE Sokol Auditorium not part of tour w/ Norma Jean, August Burns Red, Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster
07/01 Maryland Heights, MO Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
07/02 Bonner Springs, KS Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
07/03 Dallas, TX Superpages.com Center
07/05 Marietta, IL Cornerstone Festival not part of Warped Tour
07/06 Houston, TX Sam Houston Race Park
07/07 New Orleans, LA House Of Blues not part of tour w/ Norma Jean, August Burns Red, Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster
07/08 Birmingham, AL Sloss Furnace not part of tour w/ Norma Jean, August Burns Red
07/09 Atlanta, GA Lakewood Exhibition Center
07/10 Orlando, FL Central Florida Fairgrounds
07/11 St. Petersburg, FL Vinoy Park
07/12 Miami, FL Bicentennial Park
07/13 Elkton, FL St. Johns Fairgrounds
07/14 Charlotte, NC Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
07/15 Virginia Beach, VA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
07/16 Columbia, MD Merriweather Post Pavilion
07/17 Cleveland, OH Tower Amphitheatre
07/18 Detroit, MI Comerica Park
End Tour

07/19 Willmar, MN Sonshine Festival
08/29 Sioux Falls, SD LifeLight Festival
08/30 Frenchtown, NJ Revelation Generation 2008

Read More..

The Wonder Years - Won't Be Pathetic Forever [7 inch]

The Wonder Years are hardly my favorite new pop-punk band, but their new 7", Won't Be Pathetic Forever is way better than their abysmal full-length of last year, Get Stoked on It!.

Musically, they actually sound decent, with the keyboard a little less overbearing. However, they really need to just throw the thing out. It's not doing anything for the sound whatsoever. A good example would be the opening instrumental track, "Mike Kennedy Is a Bad Friend." There's pretty much no keyboard here, and as a result it's a perfect pop-punk intro.

Additionally, their vocalist is still usually pretty derivative of the Starting Line's Kenny Vasoli, notably in "Solo & Chewy: Holdin' It Down." He's less grating than on Stoked too, but there are moments where it could certainly elicit "eh"s at best (the title track, where a chorus would be punchier if the "And today!" repetition didn't sound like it was being phoned in by its third delivery).

I still don't know what to think about their lyrics, which I'd generously describe as "cheeky." You can have fun lyrics, but these dudes pack more annoying pop culture references into a song than Eminem circa 2000; kudos for the Clarity name-drop though, I guess.

For the first time hearing this band, the Wonder Years have moments on this 7" where I am honestly stoked. But they're incredibly brief, intermittent sections, ruined by a boring transition or nasally-hindered vocal note. Hopefully this 7"'s title bears some heavy foreshadowing.

from: www.punknews.org

Read More..

Preview Of New Metallica Tracks Available

Classic Rock Magazine has issued the following report:

Classic Rock was among a select band of rock journalists to hear a taster from the new Metallica album today. At present untitled, the band’s new record has been nicknamed by management “Nine epics and one song”. We heard six of 'em – unmixed and all unnamed (we guess at some of the titles in our track by track, below).

Classic Rock was one of the few magazines to give the band’s last album, St. Anger, a bad review on its release, Philip Wilding giving it 2/5. “It’s unfettered hell-for-leather nonsense pretty much from beginning to end,” he wrote. “Forget nuance or gravitas – or Metallica, for that matter – this is latter-day heavy metal pulverised into a risible mush that owes as much to rock music’s deviation in the last three years, as to the credible legend that Metallica have built and cultivated since the early 80s.

“This, you reason, must be the sound of a mid-life crisis…”

The following year’s documentary Some Kind Of Monster let fans

see exactly that – the creative and personal meltdown that occurred during the creative process.

So is the new album the sound of conquering heroes? Or just the sound of some multi-millionaires with a franchise to exploit? Does it try too hard to please – or is it the sound of a band who know they’ve got everything to prove and the year is their’s for the taking?

Maybe it’s the one multi-million-selling triumph that will actually get some radio airplay without resorting to Chili Peppers-style bland-outs. Maybe it’s a re-hash of former glories. Maybe it’s too little too late. Or maybe it’s some metal masters showing the young pretenders how to do it (with riffs and solos and, y’know, singing – not growling).

Are the lyrics the work of a middle-aged doofus with a rhyming dictionary? Or are they the work of thrash titans who’ve found a voice and created fittingly intense music for these intense times?

The jury is out until we can spend some quality time with the album. Until then, this is what we heard…

Track one – (working title ‘Flamingo’)
Opens with a lightly chorus guitar riff, slightly reminiscent of Sandman, a hugely long intro before a gruff, Hetfield patented “three four” breaks down into a SLAYER-ish thrashy riff barrage.

The drum sound is infinitely better than St Anger. Includes a serious wah-wah breakdown and several, distinct melodic chorus refrains. Could be a good radio bet – there’s no mistaking that it’s a Metallica song.

Which is more than could be said of St Anger. Back in the early 00s, of course, Nu Metal producer/overlord Ross Robinson famously banned guitar solos from albums by the likes of SLIPKNOT. That Metallica – metal’s biggest band – seemed to toe the line with this philosophy in order to win the kids over beggared belief.

The good news? The guitar solos are back. With a vengeance. Hammett has been let back off the leash – this track even sees him breaking open the whammy pedal again for a spot of Tom Morello-esque tomfoolery.

Its false ending even fooled the guy from management who has heard it several times before!

Track two – (aka The Single)
It’s an eight-minute behemoth. Intro has elements of techno metal, vaguely reminiscent of QUEENSRŸCHE’s Silent Lucidity clean picked guitar sound (think Martha & the Muffins’ Echo Beach on downers).

It’s a Metallica power ballad – whoever thought a Met song would ever feature the line ‘Love is a four-letter word’? – and it follows more traditional lines than their previous forays into balladry.

Just when you think it might be a little meandering, The Single breaks down with a Battery-style riff and Hammett and Hetfield let rip with a twin-guitar THIN LIZZY-style solo. Nice.

The solo doesn’t stop there, Hammett takes centre stage and ramps it up with a very technical, IRON MAIDEN fret melting solo.

Read the full article at Classic Rock Magazine.

Read More..