Football, or Ted Leo on Sunday December 6th at Bowery Ballroom?

Since the show is sold out at the Bowery (I'm glad I have seen Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on more than one occasion, because they are pleasant in that they take less time to set up than most and have a blend of hyper rock and roll that spells out words like conscience and progressive and empathy and meaning) I'm going with football, but they will most likely be spilling the beans on their new record out on March 9th of next year called The Brutalist Bricks.

Brooklyn Vegan has the artwork and the free mp3 from indie patron saint Matador Records, who is putting out the album, all the tracks, as per usual with albums.

Free mp3 called "Even Heroes Have To Die". Sounds heavy. Here's the artwork. It's just mostly yellow.

New Converge Song "Dark Horse" and back in NYC supporting Adult Swim's Mastodon/Dethklok tour

Converge is streaming a song from their latest album, Axe To Fall (out October 20th on Epitaph), called "Dark Horse" on their MySpace page. Check it out here. Also, check out the awesome artwork here on Lambgoat.

They previewed a song or two from their new album when I saw them back in March and it sounded promising but as you know, most new songs see a complete downturn in concert energy because they don't know how the story goes.

"Dark Horse" seems to take the thrashing, straight-ahead hardcore that made up a lot of No Heroes and adds, dare I say, melody to it. Like a somewhat catchy melody. There's almost a clear-cut, slight restraint to the song, using quick jabs of shouts and double kick bass, and a pulsing breakdown, then back to what sounds a little like the more metal-ish form of Strung Out on steroids.

Correct me if I'm wrong though guys and gals. It kicks ass with that unmistakable wall of sound that turns out to just be coming from Bannon's vocals.


Converge in support will probably play peanuts (let's say half hour?) unfortunately on their tour with the always awesome Mastodon and Dethklok from the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse. Also featured is High On Fire. It's a great bill fo' sho', and the tour roars into the Hammerstein Ballroom on October 30th, a great way to do up pre-Halloween, morbid style.