Backstreet Boys get in the holiday spirit in October; on tour now

Backstreet Boys have a holiday album, ‘A Very Backstreet Christmas,’ set for Oct. 14 via BMG. Pre-order the CD and vinyl here.

“We’ve been wanting to do a Christmas album for nearly 30 years now and we’re beyond excited that it’s finally happening,” Howie Dorough shares, “We had such a fun experience putting our BSB twist on some of our favorite Christmas classics and can’t wait to be part of our fans’ holiday season.”

The group's first Christmas album and will feature three all-new original holiday songs: “Christmas In New York,” “Together,” and “Happy Days.” Exclusive formats include a 15-track CD at Target which includes two bonus tracks “Feliz Navidad” and “It’s Christmas Time Again” and limited edition red vinyl on the group’s official store.

News of the Christmas album comes as the Backstreet Boys are currently on the North American leg of their DNA World Tour. 

Track listing:

White Christmas
The Christmas Song
Winter Wonderland
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Last Christmas
O Holy Night
This Christmas
Same Ole Lang Syne
Silent Night
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Christmas in New York
Together
Happy Days
Feliz Navidad (TARGET ONLY)
It’s Christmas Time Again (TARGET ONLY)

U.S. Tour Dates:

7/12 - Bristow, VA - Jiffy Lube Live
7/13 - Virginia Beach, VA - Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
7/14 - Camden, NJ - Waterfront Music Pavilion
7/16 - Wantagh, NY - Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
7/17 - Hartford, CT - XFINITY Theatre
7/19 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
7/20 - Mansfield, MA - Xfinity Center
7/21 - Bangor, ME - Maine Savings Amphitheater
7/23 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center
7/24 - Bethel, NY - Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
7/26 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center
7/28 - Clarkston, MI - Pine Knob Music Theatre
7/29 - Tinley Park, IL - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
7/30 - Maryland Heights, MO - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
8/2 - Englewood, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre
8/4 - Salt Lake City, UT - USANA Amphitheatre
8/6 - Wheatland, CA - Toyota Amphitheatre
8/7 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
8/9 - Concord, CA - Concord Pavilion
8/12 - Auburn, WA - White River Amphitheatre
8/19 - Nampa, ID - Ford Idaho Center Arena
8/21 - Spokane, WA - Spokane Arena
8/22 - Portland, OR - Moda Center
9/6 - Lexington, KY - Rupp Arena
9/8 - Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena
9/9 - Memphis, TN - FedExForum
9/11 - Sioux Falls, SD - Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
9/13 - Wichita, KS - INTRUST Bank Arena
9/14 - Oklahoma City, OK - Paycom Center

The long-awaited new album by Alvvays due this fall

Alvvays revealed new album Blue Rev will be released via Polyvinyl on October 7. The song “Pharmacist” is the first to be released from the album, the Canadian band's first in five years.

Writing and recording initally started after 2017’s Antisocialites. But someone broke into singer Molly Rankin’s apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the band’s gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to COVID-19 border closures, couldn’t rehearse for months with their new drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell.

In October 2021, when they arrived at a Los Angeles studio with fellow Canadian Shawn Everett, he urged them to forget the careful planning they’d done and just play straight to tape. On the second day, they went through the Blue Rev songs front-to-back twice, pausing only 15 seconds between songs and only 30 minutes between full album takes. And then, as Everett has done on recent albums by The War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves, he spent a long time alongside Alvvays mixing the results.

Tour Dates:

08/16 - Chicago, IL @ Here and There Festival - The Salt Shed
10/14 - Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre $
10/15 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave. $
10/18 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot $
10/19 - Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory $
10/20 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom $
10/21 - Eugene, OR @ McDonald Theatre $
10/22 - Seattle, WA @ The Moore Theatre $
10/24 - Arcata, CA @ Arcata Theatre Lounge $
10/26 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore $
10/27 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore $
10/29 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern $
10/30 - San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park $
11/02 - Austin, TX @ Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater $
11/04 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall - Downstairs $
11/05 - Dallas, TX @ The Studio at The Factory $
11/07 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse $
11/08 - Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works $
11/09 - Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel $
11/11 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club $
11/12 - Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall $
11/15 - New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall $
11/16 - New York, NY @ Kings Theater $
11/18 - Boston, MA @ Roadrunner $
$ w/ Slow Pulp

Track listing:

Pharmacist
Easy On Your Own?
After The Earthquake
Tom Verlaine
Pressed
Many Mirrors
Very Online Guy
Velveteen
Tile By Tile
Pomeranian Spinster
Belinda Says
Bored in Bristol
Lottery Noises
Fourth Figure

Tom Chaplin ponder a 'MIdpoint'

Tom Chaplin, frontman for the band Keane, releases a new solo album, Midpoint, Sept. 2 via BMG. It was produced by Ethan Johns. At 43, Tom Chaplin now finds himself at an equilibrium. Or, in fact, a midpoint. The title track is captured in a film starring Niamh Cusack, directed by Lucy Bridger. Watch HERE.

Tom began writing these new songs two years ago when Keane’s 2019 Cause and Effect tour was interrupted by the pandemic. The songs, all founded on reflection and imagination, were recorded in six weeks at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath and Paul Epworth’s The Church in North London.

“I was like, wow, these are bare compared to what I’m used to,” Tom admits. “And it did find it frightening because with Keane records there’s so much layering to thicken things up and fill up the spaces. But this is a sparse record.”

Arriving as Tom enters mid-life, Midpoint is like nothing else. “There’s space for something nuanced that explores a part of life that everyone goes through,” Tom says. “If I can get some of that across and it can resonate with something people are feeling" in their lives as well, "I’d be more than happy with that.”

Tom and his band will tour the UK this autumn Tickets go on sale July 15.

UK dates:

October

Thu 06 LEICESTER, De Montfort Hall
Fri 07 SOUTHEND, Cliffs Pavilion
Sat 08 CAMBRIDGE, Corn Exchange
Mon 10 MANCHESTER, Albert Hall
Tue 11 YORK, Barbican
Thu 13 NEWCASTLE, Gateshead Sage
Fri 14 GLASGOW, Royal Concert Hall
Sun 16 LIVERPOOL, Philharmonic
Mon 17 CARDIFF, St David’s Hall
Tue 18 BATH, Forum
Thu 20 EASTBOURNE, Congress Theatre
Fri 21 BIRMINGHAM, Symphony Hall
Sat 22 LONDON, Palladium

Track Listing:

Rise and Fall
Black Hole
Stars Align
Colourful Light
Gonna Run
It’s Over
Midpoint
Panoramic Eyes
Gravitational
New Flowers
Cameo
Overshoot

The 1975 attempt 'Being Funny in a Foreign Language'

The 1975 have returned with new single ‘Part Of The Band’ - the first bit of their forthcoming new album ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’. Listen to ‘Part Of The Band’ HERE and watch the video, directed by Samuel Bradley, HERE.

‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’, the band’s fifth studio album, was recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, United Kingdom and Electric Lady Studios in New York. It will be released on Oct. 14 via Dirty Hit. 

Pre-order now at the1975.com.

The last album, 2020’s ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, became the group's fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the UK. The 1975 was named NME’s ‘Band of the Decade’ in 2020 after being crowned ‘Best Group’ at the BRIT Awards in both 2017 & 2019. Third studio album, ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships', also won ‘Mastercard British Album of the Year’ at the 2019 ceremony. The 1975 will headline Japan’s rock festival Summer Sonic 2022 in Tokyo and Osaka on Aug. 20-21.

Track list:

1. The 1975

2. Happiness
3. Looking For Somebody (To Love)
4. Part Of The Band
5. Oh Caroline
6. I’m In Love With You
7. All I Need To Hear
8. Wintering
9. Human Too
10. About You
11. When We Are Together

R.E.M.'s debut EP to be reissued on CD

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, R.E.M.’s debut EP CHRONIC TOWN will be released for the first time ever as a standalone CD with extensive liner notes by the original producer Mitch Easter (Let’s Active). It will be released in three different formats: CD, Picture Disc, and Cassette on August 19 via I.R.S./UMe and can be preordered here.

As a debut release, R.E.M.’s Chronic Town became an anomaly. A record that didn’t quite fit into the constraints of what was played on the radio. So instead of trying to fit into a genre, R.E.M. helped create their own: College Rock. The follow-up to their breakthrough single “Radio Free Europe” which was released in 1981, Chronic Town served as the entry point to what would become one of Alternative Rock’s biggest bands. “One might fancifully say that Chronic Town was the sound of an expedition, ready for anything, setting forth,” says Easter fondly about the EP. “If R.E.M. ‘Radio Free Europe’ single was a signpost, the Chronic Town EP was the atlas."

The EP was critically hailed both upon release and in retrospect. 

Track listing:

1. Wolves, Lower
2. Gardening At Night
3. Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)
4. 1,000,000
5. Stumble

Goo Goo Dolls news

Goo Goo Dolls have announced their 13th studio album Chaos in Bloom, arriving August 12 via Warner Records. It is the first album of their career to be produced by frontman John Rzeznik. Pre-order HERE.

“Chaos in Bloom reminded us how special this whole thing is and to cherish the relationships that we have together,” says Rzeznik about the album. “Where we’ve been, and where we’re going.” 

“I’ve been trying to have a relationship with the bigger picture,” adds bassist and songwriter Robby Takac, “and refining happiness and what it means from that perspective.”

To record the album, Rzeznik and Takac retreated to Dreamland Studios just outside Woodstock, New York during the pandemic. The band blended vintage instruments and gear with modern recording processes and techniques.

First single “Yeah, I Like You” critiques celebrity culture and the people who work so hard to look so disaffected while masking insecurities with false self-assuredness. “In a world that is just drowning in social media and internet stars, many of whom are certainly talented, but many confirm that in 2022 you can be famous for doing nothing,” says Rzeznik. 

“Celebrity in this age has a very quick burn. It was hard not to be consumed by it during the pandemic.” Listen to “Yeah, I Like You” now and watch the official music video now HERE.

For the first time since 2019, the band will embark on a tour this summer. Set to kick off on July 15 in Nampa, ID, the nationwide tour will see Blue October provide support for the entire run. More information and tickets can be found at the band’s website HERE.

Goo Goo Dolls will be partnering with the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation for the tour, a nonprofit founded in 2002 by Ali and Joe Torre to provide healing and education services to youth who have been traumatized by exposure to violence including domestic violence, child abuse, teen dating abuse, and sexual assault to help break the cycle of violence.

TRACK LISTING:

Yeah, I Like You

War
Save Me From Myself
Let The Sun
Loving Life
Going Crazy
Day After Day
Past Mistakes
You Are The Answer
Superstar

Unwritten Law unveils 'The Hum' later this month

It’s been over a decade since the Southern California alt-punk band Unwritten Law has released a studio album of new, original material. 

The Hum is set for release July 29 on all formats including CD and vinyl. Both physical formats include artwork from Mike McKenney (@the_real-theory) and a hand-illustrated lyric sheet created by drummer Wade Youman. In addition, the CD version includes three bonus tracks, newly recorded studio versions of Unwritten Law's biggest songs done during the making of the record, performed by the current incarnation of the band.

Unwritten Law is currently comprised of founding members vocalist/guitarist Scott Russo and drummer Wade Youman with Jonny Grill (bass), Chris Lewis (guitar/vocals) and Scott McLaughlin (guitar/vocals).

The album’s first single, on all digital platforms along with a new video, is “Ghosted."

Stream the single: https://orcd.co/unwritten_law_ghosted

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/4cywj2Qj6zc

Pre-order the CD/vinyl: https://cleorecs.com/store/?s=unwritten+law+the+hum&post_type=product

Pre-order/pre-save the digital: https://orcd.co/unwritten_law_the_hum

TRACK LIST:

1. Luna Pt. 1 Waxing Moon
2. Discordia
3. Beggars
4. Ghosted
5. Magnetic
6. Lighthead
7. Luna Pt. 2 Full Moon
8. Dark Seas
9. Murder Days
10. Little Lies feat. Cailin Russo
11. Take Me
12. Luna Pt. 3 Waning Moon
13. The Hum
14. Chrome And Glass
15. Luna Pt. 4 New Moon

BONUS TRACKS [CD/DIGITAL ONLY]
16. Celebration Song
17. Seein' Red
18. Save Me