New Music: Call It In

           

Editors are back, four years on since their last album, "EBM," the  indie rockers return with frantic new single "Call It In". The tune is another emotive guitar-driven track from the five-piece that arrives after frontman Tom Smith released his 2025 debut solo album, "We spent a lot of summer '25 holed up in rural Gloucestershire, working on songs with all of us in a room, in a more traditional band set up," Smith said in a press release. "'Call It In' is one of the newest songs we worked on, it’s a song about asking for help, really, in the presence of an existential dread, finding solace and comfort in someone close, escaping the deafening noise of modern life."

New Music: Punching The Flowers

            

Death Cab For Cutie have shared "Punching The Flowers", the second single from their 11th studio album I Built You A Tower, out 5th June via ANTI- Records. The track is described by frontman Benjamin Gibbard as a gnarled, angular rock song built around a real-life moment of a toddler having a tantrum and literally punching flowers outside a bodega, transformed into a metaphor for a man who finds something beautiful but feels caged by it, the video has been directed by Jason Lester‘Punching the Flowers’ is a song about stagnation and the feeling of being imprisoned by The Known,” Gibbard explains. “And about the damage done when someone ventures deeper into the unknown.”

 

Rocktrospectiva: The Epic "10,000 Days" Turns 20

Released between 28-29 April 2006 in parts of Europe and Australia 1-2 May in the UK and USA, "10,000 Days" was the fourth studio album by US band Tool. It marked the first time since recording 1993's Undertow that the band had worked at Grandmaster and without producer David Bottrill. 10,000 Days spawned three top ten rock singles: "Vicarious", "The Pot", and "Jambi". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, with first week sales of 564,000 copies. 10,000 Days was Tool's last release for more than a decade; the band would not release their next studio album, Fear Inoculum, until August 30, 2019.

 

Tool recorded the album at O'Henry Sound Studios in Burbank, as well as at The Loft and Grandmaster Studios in Hollywood, California. It was mixed at Bay 7 in North Hollywood, CA and mastered at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine.

 

Guitarist Adam Jones employed various recording techniques for the album, including a "pipe bomb mic" (a guitar pickup mounted inside a brass cylinder), and a talk box guitar solo on the song "Jambi." Drummer Danny Carey operated many of the sound effects on the interlude tracks on the album using electronic drums called Mandalas. 10,000 Days has a heavier sound than its predecessor, largely because of the influence of avant-garde metal band Fantômas, who toured with Tool before the writing process.

 

The title 10,000 Days is thought to refer to the orbital period of the planet Saturn (the actual time period is 10,759 days). According to singer Maynard James Keenan, the Saturn return is "the time in your twenty eighth, twenty ninth year when you are presented the opportunity to transform from whatever your hang-ups were before to let the light of knowledge and experience lighten your load, so to speak, and let go of old patterns and embrace a new life." Keenan expected that the songs composed would "chronicle that process, hoping that my gift back would be to share that path and hope that I could help somebody get past that spot." The title 10,000 Days additionally refers to the amount of time that Maynard's mother, Judith Marie Gridley, was paralyzed.

 

In an interview, Alex Grey, who worked on the illustrations for the 10,000 Days and Lateralus covers, said that many of his artworks for Tool have been based on and influenced by the visionary journeys of a brew called ayahuasca. He described the 10,000 Days cover as "a blazing vision of an infinite grid of Godheads during an ayahuasca journey", and also talked about the Lateralus cover in a similar fashion. Grey stated in another interview when making the 10,000 Days cover that it depicts visions received during a DMT trip.

 

The album received generally favorable reviews, albeit with less enthusiasm than previous Tool albums. Most critics praised the album as another example of Tool's musicianship.  Critics who gave 10,000 Days a relatively low score questioned the merits of its ambient interludes, which Tool have also used on their previous releases. However, the album received a Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Recording Package. That same year, the song "Vicarious" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. In 2008, 10,000 Days garnered another Grammy nomination when "The Pot" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance. 

 

Other reviews praised the album for re-embracing of the epic-length rock songs found at the roots of early heavy metal, while others called the album as probably the most engagingly brilliant heavy metal album that'll be released on a major label all year.

 

10,000 Days Track List:  

 

1. Vicarious

2. Jambi

3. Wings For Marie (Pt 1)

4. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)

5. The Pot

6. Lipan Conjuring

7. Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)

8. Rosetta Stoned

9. Intension

10. Right In Two

11. Viginiti Tres

The Compilation: Now Vault '85

NOW That’s What I Call Music continue with their Yearbook Vault releases of "lesser compiled" tracks with a look at 1985. 4CD and 3LP coloured vinyl collections dig deep into the year’s musical landscape – with 78 tracks on the CD editions and 45 songs across three coloured (green) vinyl LPs.

The 4CD set – which comes in the usual deluxe hardcover book and card sleeve editions opens with Bruce Springsteen’s "My Hometown" – the last single from the mega-selling Born in the USA before moving on to Bryan Ferry and Sting with "Windswept" and "Love is the Seventh Wave". Both of those songs are classic Vault tracks: great tracks off classic albums (Boys and Girls and The Dream of the Blue Turtles, respectively) that peaked WAY short of where many assume they did (neither cracked the UK top 40). Go West’s "Eye to Eye" was only a single in the US, while ABC's "Be Near Me" was released both sides of the Atlantic, but fared much better Stateside. This disc continues with offerings from Fine Young Cannibals, China Crisis, Simply Red, Thompson Twins and the Art of Noise.

The second disc has an alternative flavour, at least initially, with songs from Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Dream Academy and New Model Army before widening it’s net and scoping up minor hits from the likes of Tina Turner, Matt Bianco, Chris Rea and Squeeze.

CD3 has a dance floor slant with tracks including Cameo’s brilliant "She's Strange", Sheryl Lee Ralph's "In The Evening", the Stock Aitken Waterman produced "The Heaven I Need" by The Three Degrees and Divine's cover of "Twisting The Night Away". Elton John & Millie Jackson's "Act of War"  was a minor hit a few years before Nikita revived Reg's commercial success in the UK.

CD 4 has the kind of artists oftenly find on US compilations from the 80's such as Pat Benetar, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Kim Carnes, Dio, The Cars, Rick Springfield etc. 

NOW Yearbook Vault ’85 will be released on 15 May 2026.

Track List: 

CD 1

1. Bruce Springsteen – My Hometown

2. Bryan Ferry – Windswept

3. Sting – Love Is The Seventh Wave

4. Go West – Eye To Eye

5. Scritti Politti – Perfect Way

6. ABC – Be Near Me

7. Fine Young Cannibals – Blue

8. The Colourfield – Castles In The Air

9. China Crisis – You Did Cut Me

10. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – La Femme Accident

11. Midge Ure – That Certain Smile

12. Blancmange – What’s Your Problem

13. Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder – Good-Bye Bad Times

14. Heaven 17 – …(And That’s No Lie)

15. Simply Red- Come To My Aid

16. The Style Council – Come To Milton Keynes

17. The Power Station- Communication

18. Adam Ant – Vive Le Rock

19. Thompson Twins – Revolution

20. TheArt Of Noise- Legs

 

CD 2

 

1. Cocteau Twins – Aikea-Guinea

2. The Jesus And Mary Chain- Just Like Honey

3. The Dream Academy-The Love Parade

4. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Green Shirt

5. The Clash – This Is England

6. The Stranglers – Let Me Down Easy

7. The Damned – The Shadow Of Love

8. Sisters Of Mercy- No Time To Cry

9. New Model Army-No Rest

10. This Island Earth – See That Glow

11. Marillion- Heart Of Lothian

12. Bonnie Tyler with Todd Rundgren – Loving You’s A Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It)

13. Tina Turner – Show Some Respect

14. Princess – After The Love Has Gone

15. Loose Ends – Golden Years

16. Brilliant- It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World

17. Matt Bianco-More Than I Can Bear

18. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Method Of Modern Love

19. Chris Rea- Stainsby Girls

20. Squeeze – Last Time Forever

 

CD 3

 

1. Sheryl Lee Ralph – In The Evening

2. Barbara Pennington – On A Crowded Street

3. Miquel Brown – Close To Perfection

4. The Three Degrees – The Heaven I Need

5. Hazell Dean- They Say It’s Gonna Rain

6. Laura Branigan-Spanish Eddie

7. Divine – Twistin’ The Night Away

8. Eddie Murphy – Party All The Time

9. Patti LaBelle – New Attitude

10. Elton John & Millie Jackson – Act Of War (Part 1)

11. The Pointer Sisters – Baby Come And Get It

12. Ready For The World – Oh Sheila

13. The Limit – Say Yeah

14. Mary Jane Girls – In My House

15. Steve Arrington – Dancing In The Key Of Life

16. Cameo – She’s Strange

17. Sister Sledge- Dancing On The Jagged Edge

18. Five Star – R.S.V.P.

19. Eighth Wonder – Stay With Me

20. Marilyn – Baby U Left Me (In The Cold)

 

CD 4

 

1. Billy Joel – You’re Only Human (Second Wind)

2. David Lee Roth- California Girls

3. John Mellencamp – Small Town

4.Bon Jovi – In And Out Of Love

5. Dio – Rock ‘N’ Roll Children

6. Pat Benatar – Invincible

7. Kim Carnes – Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)

8. Oingo Boingo – Weird Science (From “Weird Science” Soundtrack)

9. Animotion – Let Him Go

10. The Cars – Tonight She Comes

11. ‘Til Tuesday – Voices Carry

12. Foreigner- That Was Yesterday

13. Journey – Only The Young

14. Rick Springfield – State Of The Heart

15. Michael McDonald- No Lookin’ Back

16. Philip Bailey – Walking On The Chinese Wall

17. Chaka Khan- Through The Fire

18. Whitney Houston – You Give Good Love

New Music: Duvateen

           

The Afghan Whighs released another new track, "Duvateen." According to a press release, it's named for the light manipulating material, "which here serves as a symbol for morality." The song builds up a huge swell of sentimentality around Greg Dulli's peerless voice as he reflects on his own life journey. When I finished "Duvateen," it felt like my life passing before my eyes. The references to the teacher chasing me down the hall reminded me of my childhood. Digging a hole was an obvious allusion to a grave. I’m at a precipice in life where I can look behind and clearly see the forest of my youth, but I can also see the path to the other side. And it’s going to inform what I do for the rest of my days, said Dulli.

New Music: Out Of Place

            

Trip hop pioneer Tricky will be releasing his 15th studio album, Different When It’s Silent July 17, 2026 through his own label, False Idols. The new album is the first full-length effort from the legendary and influential artist and producer under his own name in six years. Different When It’s Silent came about during a rather prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces, Tricky has released material under several different guises including, Lonely Guest‘s 2021 self-titled effort, a collaboration with Mike Theis, called Theis Thaws, which released 2024’s Fifteen Days and last year’s collaborative album with Marta Złakowska, Out The Way. Different When It’s Silent's first single "Out of Place" feat. Marta Złakowska features a brooding and cinematic string sample introduction before morphing to a breakneck middle section which features Tricky's imitable gravelly vocal with a punchy, almost punk-like deliver and Złakowska's sultry yet restrained crooning. The song closes with a boarding and cinematic string sample. The result is as song that’s simultaneously forceful, uneasy and gorgeous while evoking the sweaty, self-aware sensation of somehow being out of place in your environment through a shifting series of contrasts. Originally written for Złakowska’s own album, Tricky ultimately reclaimed the song for the forthcoming album. Directed and edited by Steve Gullick, the accompanying video for “Out of Place” features the collaborators shot in blurred and constant motion in the foreground. In the background we see stylishly shot footage of each artist singing their respective part — or just being in a brooding photo shoot. It further emphasizes the feeling of being out of place. 

New Music: Billy Says

           

Graham Coxon released the single "Billy Says," the first of ten songs from "Castle Park"  the never-heard-before 2011 album while reissuing all of his solo records. The Blur guitarist turned solo star and one half of The Waeve  will be reissuing all of his solo albums over the next 12 months, starting with his 1998 debut "The Sky Is Too High" and 2000 follow-up' "The Golden D" arriving on 19 June. produced by Ben Hillier, the album was recorded in 2011 as part of the sessions for 'A+E' and originally intended as a follow up his eight solo LP, but postponed due to Blur’s initial reunion and then abandoned as Coxon moved on to other projects. "Billy Says", a regular feature from Coxon’s live sets and echoing the album’s classic Mod sound with hints of The Kinks and the guitarists inimitable knack for a sweet and simple guitar-pop hook.

New Music: Free To Love

           

Duran Duran and Nile Rodgers are taking it back to the '70s with their new single "Free to Love." The British rockers released their joint new track, which features Rodgers, on Thursday, April 23 with an accompanying music video that's all sorts of disco fabulous. "Free to Love" is disco for the 2020s. It's upbeat and up-tempo,” singer Simon Le Bon said in a statement. "It's about freedom; it's about loving the modern world instead of hating it, and that is something we need right now. Be free! Be free to love!". Duran Duran first worked with Rodgers, on a remix of "The Reflex" more than 40 years ago. They teamed up to co-write the new song, and Rodgers appears in the video, too, which also stars British TV personality Clara Amfo as a host introducing the band's performance. The video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, and was made in association with Italian perfumer Xerjoff, with whom the group worked to create their fragrance NeoRio.

Rocktrospectiva: The Seminal And Influential "Ramones" Turns 50

Released on 23 April 1991 "Ramones" was the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones. After Hit Parader editor Lisa Robinson saw the band at a gig in New York City, she wrote several articles about the group and asked Danny Fields to be their manager. Fields agreed and convinced Craig Leon to produce Ramones, and the band recorded a demo for prospective record labels. Leon persuaded Sire president Seymour Stein to listen to the band perform, and he later offered the band a recording contract. The Ramones began recording in January 1976, needing only seven days and $6,400 (equivalent to $36,200 in 2025) to record the album.The album spawned two singles "Blitzkried Bop" & "I Wanna Be Your Friend."

The album cover, photographed by Punk magazine's Roberta Bayley, features the four members leaning against a brick wall in New York City. The record company paid only $125 ($693.46 in 2024) for the front photo, which has since become one of the most imitated album covers of all time. The back cover depicts an eagle belt buckle along with the album's liner notes. After its release, Ramones was promoted with two singles, which failed to chart. The Ramones also began touring to help sell records; these tour dates were mostly based in the United States, although two were booked in Britain.

Violence, drug use, relationship issues, humor, and Nazism were prominent in the album's lyrics. The album opens with "Blitzkrieg Bop", which is among the band's most recognized songs. Most of the album's tracks are uptempo, with many songs measuring at well over 160 beats per minute. The songs are also rather short; at two-and-a-half minutes, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" is the album's longest track. Ramones contains a cover of the Chris Montez song "Let's Dance".

Ramones was unsuccessful commercially, peaking at number 111 on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. Despite its poor chart performance, it received glowing reviews from critics. Many later deemed it a highly influential record, and it has since received many accolades, and since then Ramones  has been widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential punk albums of all time, and it had a significant impact on other genres of rock music, such as grunge and heavy metal. 

Ramones began playing gigs in mid-1974, with their first show at Performance Studios in New York City. The band, performing in a style similar to the one used on their debut album, typically performed at clubs in downtown Manhattan, specifically CBGB and Max's Kansas City.  In early 1975, Lisa Robinson, an editor of Hit Parader and Rock Scene, saw the fledgling Ramones performing at CBGB and subsequently wrote about the band in several magazine issues. The group's vocalist Joey Ramone related that "Lisa came down to see us, she was blown away by us. She said that we changed her life; she started writing about us in Rock Scene, and then Lenny Kaye would write about us and we started getting more press like The Village Voice. Word was getting out, and people starting coming down."

On September 19, 1975, Ramones recorded a demo at 914 Sound Studios, which was produced by Marty Thau. Featuring the songs "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", the band used the demo to showcase their style to prospective labels. Producer Craig Leon, who had seen the Ramones perform in the summer of 1975, brought the demo to the attention of Sire Records' president Seymour Stein. After being persuaded by Craig Leon and his ex-wife Linda Stein, Ramones auditioned at Sire and were offered a contract, although the label had previously signed only European progressive rock bands. The label offered to release "You're Gonna Kill That Girl" as a single, but the band declined, insisting on recording an entire album. Sire accepted their request and agreed to release a studio album instead

In January 1976 the band took a break from their live performances to prepare for recording at Plaza Sound studio. Sessions began later that month and were completed within a week for $6,400; the instruments took three days and the vocal parts were recorded in four days. In 2004, Leon admitted that they recorded Ramones quickly due to budget restrictions, but also that it was all the time they needed.

The band applied microphone placement techniques similar to those which many orchestras used. The recording process was a deliberate exaggeration of the techniques used by the Beatles in the early 1960s, with a four-track representation of the devices. The guitars can be heard separately on the stereo channels—electric bass on the left channel, rhythm guitar on the right—drums and vocals are mixed in the middle of the stereo mix.

The songs on Ramones addressed several lyrical themes including violence, male prostitution, drug use, and Nazism. While the moods displayed in the album were often dark, Johnny said that when writing the lyrics they were not "trying to be offensive". Many songs from the album have backing vocals from different guests. Leigh sang backing vocals on "Judy Is a Punk", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and in the bridge of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Tommy sang backing vocals on "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You", "Judy Is a Punk", and during the bridge of "Chain Saw". The album's engineer, Rob Freeman, sang backing vocals for the final refrain of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". Leon wrote in the booklet for the album's 2016 reissue that when layered background vocals appear on the album, they are primarily Freeman's contributions combined with some of Leon and Dee Dee's, and a great deal by Leigh, "all compiled and compressed to create an effective cyborg backing vocal creature." The album's length is 29 minutes and four seconds and it contains 14 tracks.

The opening "Blitzkrieg Bop" was written by Tommy, and originally named "Animal Hop". Once Dee Dee reviewed the lyrics, the band changed the wording, the name, and partially the theme. According to Tommy, the song's original concept was about "kids going to a show and having a good time", but the theme became more Nazi-related after its revision. 

"Beat on the Brat" was said by Joey to have origins relating to the upper class of New York City. Dee Dee, however, explained that the song was about how Joey saw a mother "going after a kid with a bat in his [apartment building's] lobby and wrote a song about it". "Judy Is a Punk" – written around the same time as "Beat on the Brat" — was written by Joey after he walked by Thorny Croft, an apartment building "where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out on the rooftop and drank."

"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" – the album's slowest song – was solely written by Tommy and pays homage to love songs by pop music acts of the 1960s, particularly the John Lennon-penned Beatles song "I Should Have Known Better". The song used a 12-string guitar, glockenspiel, and tubular bells in its composition, and was said by author Scott Schinder to be an "unexpected romantic streak". "Chain Saw" opens with the sound of a running circular saw and was influenced by the 1974 horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. At nearly 180 beats per minute, "Chain Saw" had the fastest tempo of the album's songs and, according to Rombes, is the most "home-made" sounding. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" contains four lines of minimalist lyrics that depict youthful boredom and inhaling solvent vapors found in glue. "I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue," said Dee Dee. 

"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" is also minimalist, and inspired by horror movies. The entire text is composed of three lines, and the composition was based on three major chords. With a playing time of 2:40, it is the longest piece on the album. "Loudmouth" has six major chords and is harmonically complex. "Havana Affair" has a lyrical concept incorporating the comic strip Spy vs. Spy by Cuban-born illustrator Antonio Prohias.

Written solely by Dee Dee, the lyrics of "53rd & 3rd" concern a male prostitute ("rent boy"), waiting at the corner of 53rd Street and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. When the prostitute gets a customer, he kills the customer with a razor to prove he is not a homosexual. "Let's Dance" was a cover version of the hit song by Chris Montez, "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" consisted of two lyric lines and three major chords. One of the group's earliest compositions, written at the beginning of 1974, it was the opener on their first demo. It then segues into the closing track "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", which refers to a Hitler Youth member.

The album has been praised as one of the the most radical, seminal and influential in rock music, with a sound similar to early rock and roll, the record was constructed around rhythm tracks of great intensity, the album was a huge landmark for music history, proclaiming that [it] split the history of rock 'n' roll in half. Ramones is considered to have established the musical genre of punk rock, as well as popularizing it years afterward. Rombes wrote that it offered "alienated future rock", and that it "disconnected from tradition". The album was the start of the Ramones' influence on popular music, with examples being genres such as heavy metal, thrash metal, ndie pop, grunge, post-punk, and most notably, punk rock.

 

Ramones Track List:  

 

1. Blitzkrieg Bop

2. Beat On The Brat

3. Judy Is A Punk

4. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

5. Chain Saw

6. Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

7. I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement

8. Loudmouth

9. Havana Affair

10. Listen To My Heart

11. 53rd & 3rd

12. Let's Dance

13. I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You

14. Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World

New Music: Ride Lonesome

           

The talented eight-time Grammy-winner Beck has released a stunning new single, "Ride Lonesome," and announced a 2026 North American Tour. On the new single, Beck sings during the chorus, "You got to ride lonesome/ You got to try to find the road/ You got to cry a river/ And follow it all the way home/ Alone." The song was produced by Beck and mixed by Nigel Godrich. The single is accompanied by a video, directed by Mikai Karl and Beck. It features the artist walking through abandoned desert landscapes, across train tracks and among windmills. He also announced the Ride Lonesome Tour, a 25-date North American run set to launch this fall. The Ride Lonesome Tour, promoted by Live Nation, will kick off September 16 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver and run through October 31, concluding at The Truth in Nashville.