Bands You Should Know: Bella Ruse

A few years ago I stumbled across the duo Bella Ruse and have been in love with their music ever since. This year they’re releasing a Christmas album and it’s wonderful. Discover this wonderful group for yourself and fill your house with Christmas cheer this holiday! Also, they’re album Kuhzoo is pretty fun and worth checking out!

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Bands You Should Know: The End of America

I just discovered the band The End of America and they’ve quickly become one of my favorite bands recording right now. Their debut album, Steep Bay was recorded over 9 days in and around a remote cabin on Schroon Lake, located in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

The result is 9 songs with an energy and fire you can’t get from a studio. Steep Bay has jumped to the top of my “Best of 2011″ list (yes, I know it’s early in the year) and is very much worth checking out. You can buy the album digitally for $4.99 or buy the CD w/ a poster for $8.99 HERE.

Hear a song, watch 2 videos and read the press release after the jump.

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Refused’s “The Shape of Punk to Come” Gets the 3 Disc Deluxe Treatment

One of the best albums in over a decade will finally get the deluxe treatment it deserves.  Refused unleashed the album The Shape of Punk to Come in 1998 and it changed the landscape of hardcore and punk for the better. (That is until bands like My Chemical Romance and Hot Topic ruined it again.)

Listening to The Shape of Punk to Come over 10 years later, it still seems ahead of it’s time.  For fans like myself, June 8th can’t come soon enough.  Epitaph will be releasing the 3 disc set.  It will include the original album, a previously unreleased live album recorded in Sweden in 1998, and a DVD of the breakup documentary Refused Are Fucking Dead.

Shortly after Refused released The Shape of Punk to Come the band broke up.  Frontman Dennis Lyxzén later formed the (International) Noise Conspiracy.

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Muppet cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” rules all

This has been making it’s way throughout the blogs. It made my night.

Check out The Muppets taking on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in all it’s splendor. Love it.

David Bazan Unleashes a New Song: Bless This Mess

In order to promote his first full length without the Pedro the Lion moniker, David Bazan has released a track off of his upcoming album Curse Your Branches.  The track is called Bless the Mess and according to Bazan is a kind of autobiographical song.  Something he’s never really done.

According to Bazan:

The song is largely autobiographical. So any narrative in the song reflects actual events. Though I may have embellished a bit. But the main lyrical gimmick is sort of a self-conscious and hopeful interpretation of the Beatitudes, which I have an uneasy relationship with as the narrative tends to illustrate.

Curse Your Branches is available for pre-order! You’ll get access to a free stream of the record if you order before Sept 1.

Pre-order HERE!