Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Nightmare Comes to Life


Avenged Sevenfold released their brand new album Nightmare yesterday. To celebrate, A7X is doing some stuff on the web this week that you can take part in.

1. The band will host a LIVE CHAT online where they will talk to their fans tomorrow night (Thursday, July 29th @ 5p EST).

2. The band will air a LIVE FEED of their concert in Syracuse, NY on Saturday, July 31st.

Both events will happen on Avenged Sevenfold's UStream page.

So there you have it...a few really cool things going on this week that you can be apart of from the comfort of your computer chair. Enjoy!

Friday, July 9, 2010

A Thousands Suns Burst Forth


Finally! I'm not even going to waste my time with an introduction to this. Linkin Park have announced that their new album, A Thousand Suns, will be released on September 14th.

Score!

Now that the nitty-gritty of the news is out of the way, I'm going to discuss. After all of the back and forth and all the waiting, our patience has finally paid off. We need but wait another two(ish) months.

It's interesting to see that Linkin Park is sticking with the "nuclear" theme. If you don't know what I'm talking about, allow me to enlighten thee. The band's last album title, Minutes to Midnight, is in reference to the Doomsday Clock which marks the theological, philosophical, and hypothetical number of minutes until midnight; midnight being representative of mankind's annihilation via nuclear war. The lower the number of "minutes to midnight", the closer humanity is, in theory, to blowing ourselves to smithereens.

In case you were curious, the Doomsday Clock is currently (at the time of writing this blog) at 6 Minutes to Midnight.

The new album title, A Thousand Suns, is a reference to a statement made by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the developer of the Atomic Bomb, after bearing witness to the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon.

"Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."

At the time of the statement, Oppenheimer was quoting The Bhagavad Gita.

"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds."

What does any of this have to do with Linkin Park? Probably nothing. I just thought it would be fun to give you a history lesson.

Linkin Park's new album, A Thousand Suns, hits stores September 14th. That's all you probably care about.

Do keep an ear out for their new single "The Catalyst", which will be released August 2nd.

As always, keep it here for updates on this and other New Rock announcements.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Trapt and Unapologetic


The band known as Trapt has seen a large burst of popularity since it's inception and debut single "Headstrong". Their last album Only Through the Pain debuted at #8 on the Billboard 200 and it had two wildly popular singles "Who's Going Home With You Tonight?" and "Contagious".

Personally, while I enjoyed Only Through the Pain, it was obviously an album of ballads. There weren't any songs on the record that really reached out and punched you in the good'n'plenties, if you know what I mean. It was a softer, more melodic album lacking any powerful anthems like "Headstrong" of "Stand Up". I'm not saying it wasn't good, because it was good. In fact, it was very good. Still, it just felt like something was missing.

It was for these reasons that I was excited to learn that Trapt was putting out a new album this year. I was curious as to which direction the band would go from here. Finally, word came down yesterday that the new album is called No Apologies, and it is due out on September 14th*.

Having listened to "Sound Off", the first single off the new record that is due to hit radio on July 20th, I can say with some certainty that Trapt understands the grievances that myself and many more of their fans had with their last studio effort. I say that because "Sound Off", the very FIRST new single, is exactly the type of song that Only Through the Pain was missing. It's an anthem through and through, and the fact that it is the lead-in single to the new record implies that Trapt is making a statement with it. This song is evidence of a great new record, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

As always, keep it here for updates on this and other New Rock announcements.

* UPDATE 08/12/10 - The release date for No Apologies has been pushed back to October 12th.