Kill Rock Stars is pleased to announce that on March 1st we will be digitally releasing a new album from Winnipeg quintet Boats! Boats makes music songs in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Sometimes their songs are about fictional performing duos who have holes in their bodies and/or have a belief that they will one day give birth to a flock of birds. Sometimes they are about winning the Superbowl and finding treasure before encountering colossal failure. Often they are about a...

When Cage the Elephant released its' debut album just shy of two years ago, the band exhibited the kind of pent-up energy often found in one of Jack White’s many musical excursions; hectic, driven, and bouncing off the walls like a kid snowed in after a three-day sugar binge. That was a really strong start but, with their second studio album, the Elephant is really out of its' cage and the result is a sound that rampages willy-nilly across musical...

With a sixteen-year history of basically releasing the same thing each time they record a new album (punk rock covers of pop songs – d'uh!), it's a pretty safe assumption that everyone in the world knows what to expect of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. Everyone knows that, whatever might come out next from everyone's favorite cover band, it's going to be fun, it's going to be funny and it's going to be effective; those who like the Gimme...

Sick Of Sarah and everything they represent is beautiful. What the band has done on its' debut long-player, 2205, is revive the truest and most honest kind of girlie power pop (think either The Runaways or The Bangles at the beginning of their respective careers) written and performed with nothing to lose; they just go for it. You're skeptical – I know. The Bangles and The Runaways were both dogged by the fact that they had too much money to...

Awright youse,I'm not sure wha's goin' on here, but how'd I go from snaggin' FORTY pieces o' beaut-ee-ful SWAG fer you junkies, an' 'en I'm down ta twenty less 'en a week later? Which one o' youse ratted us out huh? HUH?! That wasn't too bright, was it? Well, lucky fer you, yer uncle Don has his ways o' gettin' good stuff when stuff's not all 'at plentiful an' I done myself proud this week. I found some good, good...

"Fat” Mike Burkett has gone on the record reasonably recently saying that, shortly before work began on Coaster in 2009, NOFX has strayed a little too far from center for everyone in the band's comfort and needed a little reigning in for their next record. “I asked why we aren't we playing old-school punk anymore,” remembers the singer of the time. “we've been playing this 'NOFX breakneck speed' melodic hardcore, hardcore started with The Germs and Black Flag and...

The acclaimed Chicago rock band Wilco has formed its' own dBpm Records. The full-service label, which will release all future Wilco recordings and more, will be headquartered in Easthampton, MA and run by Wilco's longtime manager Tony Margherita. ANTI- Records will provide distribution and additional labels services for all dBpm Records releases.  "This is an idea we've discussed for years,” said Tweedy. “We really like doing things ourselves, so having our own label feels pretty natural to me. And, to...

Note:  It is my goal to make it all the way through this review without using the cliché “have your cake and eat it too,” but I promise nothing.You know what the best thing is about a band’s greatest hits album?  It’s all their old classics, conveniently bundled together.  The downside to greatest hits albums is that they're just sets of old classics, conveniently bundled together and that always feels like a bit of an effrontery; bands that stick around...

Some records just can't help but make listeners feel a little dirty as they spin. To be fair, it isn't always an intentional act of defiling; there may not be something overtly offensive about the music, but there's just this ragged undercurrent of madness, mania and violence that flows through the music and makes it feel taboo. There's an inference that something a listener is experiencing is forbidden which makes it very tempting and that ends up being the hook...

So, on January 15, 2011 at 3:58 pm, blogger Jay Frank once again broached the perennial question of rock n' roll's vitality. Such dialogues are far from uncommon and, really, the question of whether or not rock is dead is as valid as it has ever been; there's no arguing that rock n' roll experiences a tidal ebb and flow of interest, but this time the numbers support the possibility that the details of rock's demise aren't exaggerated. Here are...