Author: Dave

Big Deal have just shared a music video for brand new track ‘Always Boys’.

The three minute flick marks the dawning of a new era for Big Deal, with their Sakura EP due for release July 14th via Mute. ‘Always Boys’ offers a reminiscent nod to their trembling acoustic past before rocketing into full-band set up with soaring riffs wrapped around Alice Costelloe’s delicate vocal. Hit play below.

Big Deal will also release a deleuxe version of their last album June Gloom on July 21st. Catch the band on tour at the dates below.

UK Tour
18th July – Truck Festival
25th July – Secret Garden Party
1st Aug – Nozstock Festival, Hereford
8th Aug – Boardmasters Festival, Newquay

Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O has announced her first solo album will be released September 8th via Julian Casablancas’ new label, Cult Records.

Crush Songs is first official release from O since the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ 2013 album Mosquito. The 35 year old singer has revealed the album will contain an intimate collection of songs recorded privately at the age of 27. She has also shared a hand written note about the album on her website.

Last night we saw the first screening of Positive Force: More Than A Witness. A new documentary exploring the history and ideals behind Positive Force DC, a punk rock activist collective that emerged in 1985, inspired by the creative, politically-charged fury of the Washington DC punk scene.

Bethnal Green Working Mens Club played host to a full screening of the feature length documentary before opening the floor to questions with host and Positive Force DC co-founder Mark Andersen.

The documentary sheds all light on Positive Force DC and its near 30 years of punk politics in action. Featuring interviews with Kathleen Hana, Penny Rimbaud, Ian Mackaye, Jello Biafra and many more punk icons involved with the collective, the film draws you into a 1980s and 90s DC, documenting Positive Force’s constant questioning and refusal of US government, noise protests, the creation of the PF commune, extensive gig footage and much more.

Positive Force: More Than A Witness is due for release imminently following a successful Kickstarter Campaign by the films director Robin Bell. Head to the offical website for details.

Here at Crossfire HQ the phrase “head-melting” is bannded around on a daily basis. What better phrase to describe rocking bands with? LA trio Liars take this to the next level in their new video for ‘Pro Anti Anti’, streaming via Nowness.

Check out the clip below, caputring Angus Andrew and Aaron Hemphill’s heads receving a plastic 3D rebirth, before meeting their sticky fate. Nice.

‘Pro Anti Anti’ is taken from sevnth album Mess, out now on Mute Records.

Photo Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Not often do fans and outsiders get the chance to peer behind the scenes, into a musicians thoughts and musings, catching a glimpse of their creative process. Yesterday a draft version of Bob Dylan‘s lyrics to 1965 hit ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, penned by the man himself, sold at auction for a record breaking $2m.

The four hand written pages, scrawled on hotel stationary, are said to feature unused ideas and scrapped lyrics that never made it to tape, as well as unseen doodles and drawings. Could these four pieces of paper be the most valuble written words in music?

The seller chose to remain anonymous, however the auction house revealed they were a fan from California who previously bought the lyrics sheet form Dylan personally. A life time fortune in exchange for four pages of one of the worlds most famous musicians’ scriblings. Worth it?

Post-rock heroes This Will Destroy You have announced their new full length album Another Language is due for release September 15th via Suicide Squeeze.

The Texan four piece’s fourth LP marks a triumphant return from a dark period of the bands career that threatened to break both the band and the members themselves. As a result, the band claim Another Language captures them at their most potent, honed, and utterly powerful form to date. Catch This Will Destroy You at their UK dates in August and September, stream new track ‘Dustism’ below.

UK Tour Dates
Aug 29 – Bristol UK, ArcTanGent Festival
Sep 1 – Glasgow UK, Mono
Sep 2 – Manchester UK, Deaf Institute
Sep 3 – London UK, Scala
Sep 4 – Brighton UK, The Haunt

French has paidhomage to his love of noise in the form of a Monday Mixtape for LoDown Magazine this week. From Bolt Thrower to Venom, stream these 40 minutes of carnage below.

Track List
Bolt Thrower – ‘No Guts, No Glory’
Bulldozer – ‘Mad Man’
Disgorge – ‘Compost Devourment’
Sodom – ‘Conjuration’
Nuclear Hammer – ‘Blasphemous Command’
Doom – ‘Police Bastard’
Exhumed – ‘Open The Abscess’
Sanctum – ‘Scepter Of Pestilence’
Nihilist – ‘Morbid Devourment’
Sadistic Execution – ‘Mathematikus’
Inhume – ‘Sodomizing Encounter’
Waco Jesus – ‘A Butt Plug In Your Pussy My Fist Up Your Ass’
Tank – ‘Blood, Guts & Beer’
Venom – ‘Countess Bathory’

The Vaselines have announced three UK dates for the Autumn to accompany the release of their third album, V For Vaselines, due September 29th.

Featuring musical contributions from Michael McGaughrin (1990s), Frank Macdonald (Teenage Fanclub), Stevie Jackson (Belle & Sebastian), Graeme Smillie (Olympic Swimmers), Paul Foley (Mandrake Shepherd) and Scott Patterson (Sons & Daughters), the album was self-produced and recorded at Mogwai’s Castle Of Doom studio in Glasgow.

Live Dates
September
29th – Edinburgh – Caves
30th – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
October
1st – London – Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

Stream album track ‘One Lost Year’ below.

Zach Braff, a man respected for drawing the attention of the masses to The Shins with his 2004 flick, Garden State, has again championed the bands music in his latest film Wish I Was Here, due for release July 18th. ‘So Now What’ is the first offering of new music from The Shins since their 2012 album Point Of Morrow and it sounds fantastic, stream the track below.