Chicago-based post-metal experimentalists Suicide Note have announced their new album, Empty Rooms, was released earlier this month on drummer John Gagovski’s own Hawthorne Street Records. The record is their first effort in four years, since 2004’s Too Sick To Dance. Drawing influences from Drive Like Jehu, The VSS, Sonic Youth and Fugazi, Suicide Note look to expand their adrenaline-fueled, pulverizing sound on the new album. (more…)

On Oct. 7 Toronto punks Fucked Up are set to release their second record The Chemistry of Life. In addition to some guaranteed rocking riffage, the record, whose name and content celebrates the random chemical processes that brought life to Earth eons ago, is littered with exciting guest vocal appearances by Brooklyn’s own Vivian Girls, as well as Fucked Up’s hometown friend, Katie Stelmanis. Be sure to check out Chemistry’s first single “No Epiphany,” which is streamable below in the track listing section.

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Childhood friends Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel have been playing music together for over a decade and performing as Two Gallants since 2002. Their newest record, a self-titled release on Saddle Creek, showcases their talent for blending traditional folk and blues with a rock edge, creating an infectious lo-fi indie sound that is at once a breath of fresh air and a staunch reminder of the timelessness of American music. (more…)

AhCold Fact, the record that almost wasn’t, is finally here. Recorded nearly four decades ago with the legendary Motown players The Funk Bros. and dripping with the same psychedelic charm from the late 60’s when it was recorded, Rodriguez’s debut Cold Fact has been fully reissued and is now ready to be heard by the masses for the first time here in the US. Though the Detroit guitarist is a household name in other countries… (more…)

Coheed and Cambria will bring their uber-popular Neverender shows to Chicago as well as abroad in London. Originally slated for New York and Los Angeles exclusively, tickets for the previous two Neverender events sold out in three hours. Presented by Q101, Neverender is a new, four-night concert project in which the group will perform all four of their concept albums in their entirety, from beginning to end. (more…)

Once popular in Peru, chicha is a style of music that combines psychedelic riffs with Amazonian rhythms. Popular among indigenous empowerment members of the 1970s, the music was never truly accepted by the mainstream or middle classes in the country. Now, however, the sound is welcoming a resurgence through world music hotspot Cafe Barbès‘ club owner Olivier Conan and his band, Chicha Libre. (more…)

With a sound dubbed “Casio-grindcore” by the press, U.K. concept-metal trio Trencher mix the brevity of hardcore with grindcore’s ferocious incomprehensibility and Cookie Monster vocals, sprinkle a little prog on top, and wrap it up in a cartoonish, psychedelic, synth-driven package. Midway through Lips, their newest full-length, a curious track called “In Reverence” even finds the band exploring several minutes of uncharacteristic drone. (more…)

ALARM Magazine is proud to present Don Caballero, Pony Tail, and Mt. St. Helens Saturday, August 30 at Chicago’s  Subterranean. Tickets are available for $12, doors open at at 9PM, show begins at 9:30PM. (more…)

Brooklyn minimalist math rockers Takka Takka have debuted their video for “Silence” off of their latest album, Migration (Ernest Jenning Recording Co.), in which the band is conquered by tiny soldiers, Gulliver’s Travels-style. Director Amy Finkel uses a stop-action techniques as the soldiers make their way over the actual bodies of the band’s members.   (more…)

Political punk rock quartet Anti-Flag have announced they will be playing three “protest shows” including their August 30 appearance Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival, a free concert on the lawn of St. Paul Minnesota’s capital building, and a third show opening for fellow protest-rockers Rage Against the Machine at the Target Center in Minneapolis, which will take place simultaneously with the 2008 Republican National Convention in the same city. (more…)