Dejan

NEW ALBUM AT THE END OF THE YEAR ONSTAGE at the Earl’s Court Exhibition Center here was a glittery dress rehearsal for the annual Brit Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys. Although U2 was not among the nominees, it had the opening slot for the Feb. 19 show: a live performance of the hard-riffing “Get On Your Boots” from its new album, “No Line on the Horizon” (Interscope). U2 had blasted the same song earlier in the month at the Grammy Awards. After the run-through the four band members headed to a grimy loading zone behind the auditorium for a photo session. The photographer had them walk down a ramp; Bono, who often calls himself a “Method actor,” wanted to know what kind of walk. A short discussion settled it. The band started a proud, seasoned swagger as Bono announced, “Last gang in town!” It wasn’t exactly a joke. U2 has entered the fourth decade of a career that began in 1978, when its members were teenage schoolmates in Dublin; they are now in their late 40s. And U2 may well be the last of the megabands: long-running, internationally recognized rockers whose every album, from “Boy” in 1980 to “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” in 2004, has sold millions of copies worldwide. In an era when CD sales have plummeted, Top 40 radio favors hip-hop and teen-pop, albums are fractured by MP3 players’ shuffle mode and the old idea of a rock mainstream seems more and more like a mirage, U2 still, unabashedly, wants to release a blockbuster. “How do you puncture pop consciousness with a tune anymore?” Bono said later over a pint of Guinness in the restaurant of the venerable hotel Claridge’s. “That’s actually your first job as a songwriter.” A conversation with Bono is a free-associative adventure. Between thoughts about the album he dispensed fascinating digressions, casual but carefully placed on and off the record. He gave a full-voiced demonstration of Italian opera vowels and Frank Sinatra style — heads swiveled nearby — and mused on cathedral architecture; he described encounters with presidential candidates and plans for his future columns on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. He spoke fondly about his band mates as characters he’s still trying to figure out, about songs as bursts of serendipity and about what he wants in a performance: “spastic elastic energy.” From its beginnings, in the wake of punk-rock, U2 made music on a grand scale. The band’s early signature sound — Bono’s ardent Irish tenor backed by open, echoing guitar chords from the Edge and the anthemic march beats of Larry Mullen Jr. on drums and Adam Clayton on bass — was suited to resound through the biggest spaces while Bono sang of boundless yearnings: romantic, social, spiritual. Once the band reached the arena and stadium circuit in the 1980s, it stayed there. It has had no lineup changes, no breakups, no reunions and no catering to nostalgia. “People don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Bono said. “Our fans are not sure. Could we embarrass them? Maybe. Could we inspire them? Maybe. They don’t know. That’s very important, because when you become a comfortable, reliable friend, I’m not sure that’s the place for rock ’n’ roll.” Bono added: “It’s very hard to be relevant, so there’s a lot of stake for us on this album. I know the quality of the work is there, but will it be taken? I really don’t know. I’m genuinely curious. I think it might have a bumpy start.” In the United States radio stations gave “Get On Your Boots” a lukewarm reception; its fuzz-toned guitar riff doesn’t suit Top 40 playlists full of Taylor Swift, Britney Spears and Beyoncé. U2 also faces competition from younger bands steeped in its own music. At the Brit Awards other rock bands performing on the show — Coldplay, Kings of Leon, even the grown-up English boy band Take That — couldn’t help sounding like U2 knockoffs. Later that night Coldplay and the Killers shared a bill at the 2,000-capacity Shepherd’s Bush Empire, in a benefit for War Child International. For the finale Bono joined Coldplay, Gary Barlow from Take That, and Brandon Flowers from the Killers in the Killers’ song “All These Things That I’ve Done.” Backstage, Mr. Flowers marveled at having Bono sing his song: “I was trying to write ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,’ so it’s a real honor.” Yet even as other bands mine U2’s catalog, the band defies its past. After two albums of comparatively straightforward guitar-driven rock, “No Line on the Horizon,” U2’s head-spinning 12th studio album, takes new experimental tangents and redefines the band yet again. The album, to be released Tuesday, burbles with cross-rhythms, layered guitars and electronic undercurrents in songs the band wrote with its longtime producers, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. It’s not as startling a swerve as 1991’s “Achtung Baby,” on which U2 reinvented itself after the earnest ’80s with irony and electronic beats. But “No Line on the Horizon,” the result of a convoluted two-year process, presents a band that is still restless and impassioned, kicking formulas aside. In songs about true love, worldwide connections, transcendence and technology the music heads for extremes. “Get On Your Boots,” at 149 beats per minute, is U2’s fastest song ever, while “Cedars of Lebanon,” which ends the album, is a somber meditation on war, separation and enmity. The album includes likely arena singalongs in “Magnificent,” “Unknown Caller” and “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” but it also encompasses the ricocheting patterns of “Fez — Being Born” and the stately “White as Snow,” which bases its melody on the Advent hymn “Veni, Veni Emmanuel.” (Mr. Clayton said “White as Snow” was conceived as the last thoughts of an Afghan killed by an improvised explosive device; its four minutes are the time it takes to die.) “Get On Your Boots,” Bono said, is an almost journalistic collection of images of taking his family to a fun fair in southern France on the eve of the war in Iraq, with warplanes zooming overhead. One verse proclaims, “I don’t want to talk about wars between nations/Not right now.” That line, along with hints in “White as Snow” and “Cedars of Lebanon,” provides what Bono described as “peripheral vision”: a recognition of the turbulent world beyond the private thoughts in the lyrics. “That’s the elephant in the room, the absence of this thing, that almost draws attention to it,” he said. “It never takes away from the personal or the psychodramas that are going on, but it’s there.” One theme that runs through the songs, Bono said, “is the ability to surrender, to give yourself, whether in reverie or revelry. And the journey of the artist is surely the journey away from self-consciousness.” He paused and smiled ruefully. “Fame is all about self-consciousness.” Bono has leveraged celebrity into political clout. Part policy wonk, part showman, part charmer, he works on causes like ending extreme poverty in Africa. While he has been mocked as St. Bono, he strives not to be too single-minded. He said: “Edge is always whispering in my ear: ‘You’re an artist. That’s how you’re getting away with this. If you start to behave in a correct fashion and very serious and doing a serious job, it’s awful.’ ” Bono added: “I feel as an artist that my job is to try and understand the forces that are shaping the world that our songs occupy. And maybe, if you get a chance, try to shape it. That’s what the band didn’t understand. They thought the natural flak that we would receive for daring to want to play with the big boys, philosophically and every other way, would frighten our audience away. But actually our audience feels much more powerful.” The Edge suggested that being a rocker is like a vacation from Bono’s political efforts. “I think that’s what he looks forward to,” he said. “There is no end to the other thing. That struggle is ongoing. With U2 it’s like, there’s things you can say, well, we did that. We delivered a record. We delivered a show.” Making the new album was “arduous,” Mr. Mullen said. “There has to be a simpler way,” he continued, “but we don’t understand simple or easy.” At first U2 decided to record with Rick Rubin, who has produced the Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash and Metallica. Mr. Rubin is renowned for getting bands back to basics, and instead of overseeing U2’s habitual free-form studio sessions, he urged the band to bring finished songs into the studio. Two songs made with Mr. Rubin appeared on “U218 Singles,” a 2006 anthology. But the group shelved the rest of the Rubin sessions and started again with a contrary strategy. Bono had been invited to the annual ecumenical Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco. He asked the other band members to join him and perhaps do some recording there during a two-week stay. To his surprise they all agreed, as did Mr. Eno and Mr. Lanois They rented a house and set up equipment in a courtyard open to the sky and started making music with no deadline or goal. “This was far from back to basics,” the Edge said. “This was exploring the fringes.” While hints of triple-time trance rhythms and Arabic vocal inflections occasionally surface, U2 avoided what band members call “musical tourism.” The band plunged into recording. The instrumental foundations of three songs — “No Line on the Horizon,” “Moment of Surrender” and “Unknown Caller” — each emerged virtually complete in a few hours. Yet after those two prolific weeks, recording stretched out for two years: in Dublin, in the south of France, in London. Steve Lillywhite, who produced U2’s first albums, and Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas helped shape and finish songs. The deadline that would have allowed U2 to release the album before the lucrative Christmas season came and went, but the band wasn’t satisfied with the music until November. U2 expects to release a companion album, which band members say will have a more meditative and processional tone, before the end of the year. Making the music was determinedly intuitive: a collation of momentary impulses and collaborative sparks. Bono’s lyrics blurt out declarations of love, character sketches and self-mocking admonitions: “Be careful of small men with big ideas.” The Edge, after making a guitar documentary, “It Might Get Loud,” with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Jack White of the White Stripes, decided to try writing the kind of brash guitar riffs he had long shunned. Mr. Eno brought loops and textures that became seeds of songs and pushed the band toward vocal harmonies. Through the album U2’s longtime strengths — hymnlike melodies, guitar superstructures — are preserved but revitalized, bent in new ways as the songs reach for U2’s defining duality: an intimacy that strives to encompass the universe. With the album’s release intuition gives way to calculation. “No Line on the Horizon” sets up a worldwide stadium tour that begins in July. U2 intends to perform in the round, offering affordable seats to fans behind the stage and up front, hoping to attract a new, younger audience. Because U2 can no longer depend on exposure through radio and MTV, it lined up major television moments. Three days after the Brits, the band finished an awards-show trifecta by performing at the Echo Awards in Germany. U2 is to appear all this week on “Late Show With David Letterman.” Those are prerogatives for a brand-name band, but they are also signs that U2 isn’t taking anything for granted. The group also represents one last hope for the increasingly desperate recording business: a bankable act. Last year U2 signed a 12-year deal with the concert promoter Live Nation that covers global rights to the band’s touring, merchandising and branding. Unlike Madonna and Jay-Z, whose deals with Live Nation include future recordings, U2 has kept its recording and publishing with Universal Music, which absorbed U2’s previous labels, Island and Interscope. The band’s manager, Paul McGuinness, said via e-mail that U2 is signed to Universal for “several more albums,” declining to specify a number. The Edge said: “My instinct is to stick with the record guys. They have to sell your records or sell the downloads, whatever it ends up being. To do that, first of all you’ve got to love and understand the music, and right now I’m not seeing any group that rivals the record labels on that front.” Bono put it bluntly. “I’m interested in commerce,” he said. “The excuse for bigness is that songs demand to be heard if they’re any good. And without the kind of momentum of being in a big rock ’n’ roll band, you won’t get your songs heard.” As the Brit Awards rehearsal started, U2 used its sound check to play Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” in full blare, like a classic-rock cover band. “Weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs,” Bono announced afterward. “We’re available for work. U2.” (nytimes)

Supergrass Road Movie [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY60FYcX4Vs]YouTube - Supergrass - On Tour (Part 1)[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBhCnvuPooo]YouTube - Supergrass - On Tour (Part 2)[/ame]

AMEN TO THAT

I need to know the name (and surname) of a dj from BBC RADIO 1,now it looks like he's no more on the station.......all i know is that he's the son of a popular actor or musician (i don't remember exactly). Who can help me ? edit: actually i'm not sure about the radio. bbc1 or bbc6

Live session video @ the kcrw radio http://www.kcrw.com/media-player/mediaPlayer2.html?type=video&id=mb090216andrew_bird

Pete Doherty has claimed that he will convince former bandmate Carl Barat to reform The Libertines with him. Speaking at the Shockwaves NME Awards after picking up the Best Solo Artist award Doherty said in an exclusive video, which you can watch by clicking below, that he planned to record more solo material and keep his current band Babyshambles going, as well as reforming The Libertines. "I've written and recorded a solo record," he said. "There's probably another on the way, there's an amazing 'Shambles record on the way, and The Libertines is gonna happen in the next couple of years, by hook or by crook. He added: "I don't twist it [Carl Barat's arm] too far. He doesn't take kindly to it. He's not harder than me, but he's got a nasty streak, twist it too far and it'll snap." And according to an "insider" quoted in U.K. "newspaper" The Sun, co-frontmen Doherty and Barat have made amends for good. "Pete's drug use and erratic behavior tore the [Libertines] apart and its demise left Carl heartbroken," the source said. "He vowed not to return until his old best pal had sorted out his problems and, after having a lengthy heart-to-heart with him, he's confident Pete has turned a corner. He is looking forward to working with him again." The Sun's source added that "Carl has always said he would not get back together just for the money." It seems like Doherty's priority has always been the friendship too. What was that thing he said again while bragging about the "ridiculous" millions the Libertines were offered to headline the UK's Reading festival? Oh yeah: "Let's be friends!" Doherty enthused. "Friends who go and make lots of money." Barat, who recently called it quits with his post-Libertines project Dirty Pretty Things, sounds ready to be in his old rock band all over again: "I hate working alone. It's boring and I struggle with it. I do miss the support of being in a band."

Watch Nathan Followill breeze into his local Nashville watering hole, and it's obvious that he's well-known and well-liked by the crew at McCabe's Pub. Clad in sweats and a Yankees cap, the Kings of Leon drummer comes off more as cool local guy than international rock star. Nothing in this manner indicates that his band's fourth album is finally making the Kings as big in the United States as they have been in the United Kingdom and Europe since 2004, when it had back-to-back No. 1 singles in the United Kingdom. The band's label, RCA, says "Only by the Night" has sold almost 3 million copies worldwide, going platinum in Canada, Australia, South Africa and Belgium. They've been multiplatinum in the United Kingdom for quite a while. Until now, that kind of success has eluded them at home—the band's three previous albums never broke the 300,000 mark—but that's beginning to change. So far "Only by the Night" has sold 397,000 in the States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and Kings of Leon are now making their home country their target market. Ken Levitan, founder and president of Vector Management, which handles the group, says the game plan was to first break the band overseas, partly because of the chance that Americans weren't ready for a Nashville-based rock band and partly because of staff changes at RCA. "We tried to break it out of Europe first. We thought they really might get the music and the story quicker there than they did here," Levitan says. "So basically we hopped on a plane, got the guys over, hired a publicist, got the label fired up and away it went." The band—brothers Nathan, Caleb and Jared and their cousin Matthew—has a well-documented back story. But the Followills' childhood of traveling with their Pentecostal preacher father didn't resonate at home as it did in Europe. "Over there, we stepped off the plane and they were amazed we had socks and shoes, had all of our teeth and didn't have our tongues stuck in a bottle of Jack Daniel's," Followill says. In retrospect, Followill reckons, the story has helped more than it has hurt. "Nobody believed it," he says with a laugh. "They thought some publicist spawned this whole story, [that] they stuck us in with [producer] Angelo [Petraglia] [and] he wrote all our songs for us. We actually had a publication in Europe that brought swabs to an interview—they wanted DNA, didn't believe we were all related. My idea was to take the swabs and get samples from a black fan, a little person, a Japanese fan and a woman and send them back. They'd get the results and say, 'See, they're not related.' " Although the band's U.S. growth was slow, it was also steady, which suits Followill fine. "We had friends in bands that came out and sold 4 million records in their debut and that's amazing," he says. "Then they come back and sell 3 million on their second and it's considered a failure. The bar gets set so high, you have so much pressure to replicate what was so successful about the other one, which kind of sticks them in a rut." "Only by the Night" has already topped the domestic sales numbers of 2007's "Because of the Times" (226,000), 2005's "Aha Shake Heartbreak" (262,000) and the band's 2003 debut "Youth and Young Manhood" (218,000). "We've had our frustrations" in the States, Levitan says. "Obviously, it would have been great if the whole thing would have blown up really quickly. But when you're doing it this way, laying it brick by brick, your foundation gets much stronger and I think you're in for a much longer ride." The band is still riding on the new album's debut single, "Sex On Fire"—it spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Modern Rock radio airplay chart and has sold 460,000 digital downloads—while the second single, "Use Somebody," is starting to make noise at the format. "This has been one of those projects where the band makes the right record, you lay out a plan and the plan works," RCA VP/GM Tom Corson says. "The market has come around to the band. It's just their time. The band has put in the work over the years, they have their finest album to date, and consumers are into it." Nashville is notoriously nonchalant about its stars in public ("Even your freak fans here are still nice, sweet people," Followill says), but Followill's days of going to bar without being mobbed are numbered. By his own estimation, Followill has spent only a few months at home in the four years he's lived in the West Nashville neighborhood, a testament to the Kings' nonstop touring/recording cycles since debuting with "Manhood." The band has played live in a wide range of configurations, from opening for U2 in arenas and playing secondary stages at festivals, to headlining their own club, theater and arena shows and topping the bill at the largest outdoor events in the world. Only a few days earlier Kings of Leon marked a career milestone by selling out New York's Madison Square Garden for the first time. "It was cool to see we had that many fans," Followill says, "especially considering we never really had a hit." More recently, the band performed at Clive Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party for an audience that included Prince, Jay-Z and Jennifer Hudson. BROTHERS IN ARMS The band's genesis wasn't auspicious, to say the least. "Jared had never picked up a bass, Caleb had never picked up a guitar, Matt had taken two guitar lessons," Followill says. So what made them think they could pull this off? "Boredom. Stupidity," Followill says. "When we signed the deal [with RCA] it was just me and Caleb. The label said, 'We're gonna put you a band together,' and we were like, 'We don't want to be Evan & Jaron. We're gonna buy our little brother a bass, he's a freshman in high school. Caleb will teach himself to play guitar. Our cousin played guitar when he was 10. I'll play the drums, I played in church when I was little.' They said, 'All right, we'll come down in one month and see you guys.' " Levitan worked with the band from its most formative stages. Nathan and Caleb "came into my office and sang a cappella in the corner about eight-and-a-half years ago," Levitan says. Later, when informed they were recruiting their teenage brother and cousin to round out the lineup, "there were some raised eyebrows. But when we heard the music and saw the determination and that they had a vision, it was like, 'Let's put this together and roll with it.' " Armed with a Led Zeppelin boxed set, "we kidnapped our cousin from Mississippi, told his mom he was coming for the week and just never let him go home," Nathan Followill says. "We locked ourselves in the basement with an ounce of marijuana and literally spent a month down there. My mom would bring us food down. And at the end of that month the label people came and we had 'Molly's Chambers,' 'California Waiting,' 'Wicker Chair' and 'Holy Roller Novocain.' " Principal lyricist Caleb continues to impress his older brother. "He's my brother, I've grown up with him, but his songwriting is a part of his personality he really doesn't let out," Followill says. "He's kind of a reserved guy. He doesn't really do that much talking when he's sober. He does a lot of shit talking when he's drunk." Followill says he considers the Kings fortunate "to get a record deal where the label was willing to grow with us, let us take our bruises and figure out the kind of band we were and the band we wanted to be." When touring the world early in their career, oldest brother Nathan pretty much assumed the father role for the band. "I definitely worried the most," he says. "I mean, that was my 14-year-old brother; we're in Hamburg, Germany, and he's out with God knows who. Now it's definitely democratic. Every decision we make, we all four sit down and talk about it." But just as the Vector team sorts through the band's options, "me and Caleb will weed through the shit and then take it to Jared and Matt," Followill says. "They could give two shits less about some of this stuff. The same way there's stuff me and Caleb could care less about but Jared and Matt are really into, like who styles us on our photo shoot. As far as publishing or something like that, me and Caleb are like, 'That's the money side of it. We need to really pay attention to it.' " Caleb Followill calls the new album "the least cringe-worthy album that we've made. I'm pretty proud of these last two records we've made; maybe there's a little more professionalism than previous records. Maybe it's because we're stronger musicians and I feel as though I'm a stronger songwriter. I just didn't want to be the weak link." Kings of Leon are definitely not a "formulaic" band in their studio approach, even though they once again tapped Petraglia as producer, with engineer Jacquire King as co-producer. "We spent six weeks doing this record, and out of the six weeks the most we spent was two hours [recording] in one day," he says. "We'd drink and play wall ball. Most people would record then reward themselves by taking a break. We play wall ball and reward ourselves by going in and recording." And if the Kings can't play a song live, it doesn't make the album. "There's nothing worse in the world than having a record you love and going to watch that band play and they've either got two guys on keyboards behind a curtain, they're playing to tracks or they don't have that and the song sounds empty," Nathan Followill says. "We've got a couple songs on [the new] record that have keyboard parts, so our cousin, Nacho, is our stage manager and we have him play keyboards on a couple of songs. We make sure people can see him. We're not trying to be the Wizard of Oz." Now the game plan is to make the global footprint of Kings of Leon even bigger. "This band has doubled or tripled their audience in every market where they had a meaningful audience already, from Germany to Australia to the U.K. to the U.S., Holland and Denmark," RCA's Corson says. The team will attempt to maximize the impact of "Sex On Fire," then of "Use Somebody, "which is already off to a huge start at rock radio," Corson says. "We have a real opportunity to solidify the rock formats and then get into the pop formats." The band's first U.S. arena tour, announced last week, will keep the Followills far from McCabe's Pub. Before the year is up, the band will headline arenas in Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe; headline a number of large festivals; and make another run through U.S. arenas. Scott Clayton at Creative Artists Agency books the band, and Vector's Andy Mendelsohn handles day-to-day managerial duties. "All the success we're seeing right now, it's great, we love it," Nathan Followill says, "but if it ended tomorrow, we've had an amazing run. We've made enough records to put out a mini boxed set if we wanted to." And, as he heads out the door of McCabe's, he adds, "Wish us luck at the Grammys." (For the record, Kings of Leon won for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals for "Sex On Fire.")

the new album is AWESOME

So there's no comparison with the mgmt because this is a side project ? I DON'T GET IT...

U2 Attempt To Sell Their Shares In Live Nation U2 have reportedly attempted to sell their shares in Live Nation after the value plummeted to just over a fifth of the original amount. The Irish band signed a deal with Live Nation last March that tied them in for 12 years with the band being paid partly with stock. U2 were given 1.6 million shares with Live Nation guaranteeing that they would be worth $25 million, when the market closed on Wednesday evening in New York they were worth just $6.1 million. According to the Wall Street Journal Live Nation were they forced to make up the remaining $19 million, in an SEC filing Live Nation said they would do this with cash on hand or borrowed money. Live Nation last year signed similar deals with Madonna, Jay-Z, Nickelback and Shakira – promising to pay out millions to artists in return for revenue from the 360 deals which encompassed concerts, fanclubs and merchandise. Live Nation have moved to play down the U2 stock sale, with Chief Executive Micahel Rapino saying: "Madonna and U2 are the only two deals that did contain this provision. The Madonna business is great, and we look forward to monetizing our investment in U2 next year." U2 are set to tour in 2009 with announcement expected to be made in market about the schedule.

Kings of Leon's "Only by The Night" album becomes the biggest selling digital album ever! As of this week, "Only By The Night" has sold 133,155 digital albums passing Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" as the biggest selling digital album EVER in the UK! Congratulations to Kings of Leon for this huge accomplishment!

Empire Of The Sun Interview The much-tipped out-there Aussies speak to Clash... Strip away the hyperbole and the buzz, dismantle the column inches, and what’s left? Just what is, and who are, Empire Of The Sun? The short answer: an Australian duo comprised of Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore, both of whom have worked in different musical fields prior to this project. Their debut album, ‘Walking On A Dream’, was released in the UK on February 16. The longer answer: takes some open-minded understanding. Flamboyant, colourful, imaginative… excessive? There are so many adjectives one can attach to the twosome who sit before Clash on a rainy London lunchtime, and many will be cast aside as improper, inaccurate, misrepresentative. Both are fully made-up, a la the imagery on their album sleeve and in their videos. Yet the band allows no photographs to be taken. “When we first signed we said there’s no photography allowed,” says Littlemore, draped in black with face-paint and a feathery headdress to match (I guess you’ll just have to believe me). “We’ll never let a photograph go. These images (gesturing at promo artwork), these are paintings. We will allow illustrations.” So I could have brought a court artist with me for this interview? “You could! We’re happy to do that. If it involves creativity then it’s okay.” And it’s this ‘rule’ that seems to underpin so much of what Empire Of The Sun is – the need to express one’s imagination, their creativity and their artistic vision. This band is, as we discover, not a band at all, and they’re already tipped as one of 2009’s hottest... um… well, bands, actually. Let the rhetoric commence. So, must be pretty amazing to be sat here, now that this little idea of yours has become a reality? NL: I guess we like to think of it as quite a big idea. It’s great. We met years ago, but this has come together over the last two years – we thought if we were going to do anything, we should do everything. LS: I think we reached that point… We’d been talking about how music stimulation is invisible – it’s with your eyes closed. But once it becomes visual, it’s 50/50, and if the visual element is strong, as strong as the music in your ears, then it gives the music more power. Everything about it is more dynamic… There’s more electricity. NL: I think music for us has always been about stories and landscapes, and colour. Tonally it’s more… it’s a load of different colours to me. Which makes Empire Of The Sun what, a rainbow? NL: I guess it’s like Rothko’s early work – the honeyed yellow and the pinks, and the subtleties within them. We try to paint with emotion. And, via intent or otherwise, you’ve wound up with this excessive record of huge commercial potential… NL: Well, I don’t think that was our intention. The thing that was always apparent from working with Luke was that his voice is so strong. I wanted to work with him to embrace his genius, to create a coupling around his voice; to frame it, if you like. I guess we kind of knew that if we were to create something round an element that was already so strong, and enhance it, it would be popular, because Luke probably has the best voice in the world. And the sound of the record – it’s rich, warm, almost excessively sweet at times… NL: You keep saying ‘excess’, but I’m not sure it is excessive in that sense. I think it is something of a backlash against so much demotivating music, as music can be so colourful. This is only 20 per cent of how far it will go, too. I think our music is colourful, but it’s really just about getting closer to how we hear and see things anyway. We can create anything. LS: And, sonically, you do want it to be good enough to be played on the radio, on any radio station around the world. NL: Yeah, the meter for us still is the superstars – why would you make anything if you weren’t trying to make it the biggest thing in the world? But when you aim for the stars, you’ve got to at least be wary of not losing touch with the ground. You can’t put yourself in a position where achievements and successes are taken for granted. NL: I think when you make music, you do it to communicate with people, and it is largely a very selfless act of laying down your emotions for the good of the world, and if we can heal people through songwriting then I think we’ll have achieved something. The reaction to your music has, so far, seemed unanimously positive. LS: It’s all positive, eh? There have been a few negative things, but not much. I was listening to this preacher, and he said: When you have a big dream, it stirs up small-minded people. And I think that the ones that do say that we’re gaudy or comical, or whatever, I think they’ve got a small-minded approach. NL: Yeah, I think it’s important that people realise we’re doing this with all of our hearts in it. You must understand the sceptics, though. I mean, the way you present this project, visually, isn’t in keeping with the notion of authenticity…/b] NL: We’re happy people, and that comes through on the record. But there have been acts throughout time that have done these sort of projects, for whatever reason, and they can be for the greater good of the world. And that’s what we’re about. And when it comes to taking Empire Of The Sun live…? NL: It’s going to be more like a play than a rock show, as we want to distance ourselves from that sort of guitar-and-drums set up. Music, as Luke said, is clear, it’s invisible; we really want to create something that’s visible, and that takes you somewhere further than just sonics could. How do you feel about being seen as a fashionable act, what with the various tips for the year… LS: We don’t want to be fashionable. We never want to be fashionable! NL: That’s because if you’re fashionable, it’s a transient state of being. We don’t ever want to be transient. Would you say that the Aztecs were a fashionable civilisation? I think this is more about creating a lasting thing, that’s better than it was. What I would say is that the record doesn’t sound very ‘now’; it does have a ‘70s, ‘80s sound to it. LS: I’ve heard people say it’s got an ‘80s feel, but I’m not so sure about that. NL: Most of the equipment is from the 1960s and 1970s, but we also worked with hardware engineers on building new machines. We’ve got this robotic device that attaches to one of Luke’s guitars, and we’re getting a lot more into that, although the development of such things is obviously financially difficult. Do you feel invention, on a practical, equipment level, is important in the progression of music? NL: Well, we want to be untouchable, so to be that we have to invent. Once your concepts are really strong, then nobody can touch you. As a tipped act yourself, do you follow what’s hot and not in the music industry? LS: We don’t really follow the industry. We’re completely, like, not in the world. If you want to change the world, stop acting like the world. It’s like, don’t lay your treasures where rust decays, lay them elsewhere. This vision is bigger… It’s not like of Montreal, or MGMT, or those comparisons or whatever. I’ve seen you compared to both those acts, but they’re not bad bands to be associated with, surely? I’d say both appeal to a fan with a certain degree of open-mindedness. NL: But we’re interested in appealing to single-minded people too, and expanding their horizons. The thing with these comparisons, though, is that we’re not a band. Compare us to ancient Rome, or the Milky Way. Those comparisons are just as relevant. Or to a flower opening, or to making love. I can’t see that we’re like a band. We’re a prophecy of hope, with positive energy. The sun is our energy. Does saying things like that play up to those who will view Empire Of The Sun as a light-hearted, almost comical project? LS: It’s imagination, you know? NL: We just want to unlock this potential in people, and we’re going out there on a limb, so that people can do so in much smaller ways. What I would say is that the record does feel uplifting. NL: We put a lot of love in that record, and even though there are sad moments, we’re channelling all those wasted tears towards a useful future; we’re creating a positive vibe as people don’t want depressing music. It’s beautiful to make it, but it’s also contrary to what artists should do. We’re here to teach people. I mean, ‘Without You’ is a very sad song, but it also comes… it also gives a lot of hope. Releasing in Australia before the UK must act as something of a commercial barometer. How has ‘Walking On A Dream’ done back home? LS: It’s exceeded our expectations, I think. NL: It just keeps growing, and keeps moving up the charts. It’s fantastic. But we really try to make global music, that can be accepted by everyone. Australia’s a great place and all that, but it’s just another place for us, musically. It’s wonderful that we’ve had the opportunity to come here, and we’re going to France and Germany, and all over. I hope we never stop travelling because we are travellers, and that’s more what this is about – spreading the word and learning along the way.

In the words of Royksopp’s Svein Berge, “there are things brewing in the north.” Not least among them is the third album from the smooth-talking electro-pop pair. Entitled ‘Junior’, this latest instalment of gilded Royksoppian glitch-pop promises to fall somewhere between their million-selling debut of 2001, ‘Melody AM’, and the catchier, melodic sensibilities of 2005’s follow-up, ‘The Understanding’. Though ‘Junior’s’ list of guest vocalists reads like a roll call of Scandinavian pop goddesses, it’s the return of the internationally acclaimed Norwegian duo that that fans are most anticipating. In a very special early preview, Svein tells Gigwise what we can expect… “For us ‘Junior’ is following the concert of Royksopp in terms of trying to create unique songs – that sounds very pretentious but that’s what we try to make in all honesty,” Svein begins of Royksopp’s third studio album. Even on the phone, his famed good-humour and silver-tongued press-manner shine through. He tells me that the new album contains “special songs with emphasis on trying to present interesting sounds in the traditional heritage of Royksopp,” in a description so spectacularly evasive that there seems little point asking him to elaborate further. Instead, we move onto Junior’s Scandinavian celebrity line-up. Robyn, Lykke Li, and The Knife’s Karin Dreijer are holding the Swedish fort, while Anneli Drecker represents Royksopp’s own Norway. “There are a lot of good things coming out of Scandinavia at the moment from Sweden, Norway and Denmark,” Svein says of his contemporaries. “We know these people and they know us: it is all intertwined and very inclusive, the whole operation. I don’t mind being associated with these enormously talented artists. Royksopp are a bit on the side of it, but we try and invite ourselves into that clique, obviously.” But Svein is keen to make clear that Royksopp have never quite courted convention: “I notice that we are still being called either a downtempo, chillout duo, which I believe is quite wrong, or I see us branded as a dance act, which I also think is mistaken. I wouldn’t really go out and shake my hips to a song like Royksopp’s ‘Forever’, you know? It would be kind of hard unless you have very special dancing abilities!” “There’s no one around quite like us,” Svein elaborates of the difficulties of being a crossover between dancefloor acts like Daft Punk, Justice, or the oft-compared polished electro-pulse of Air, and the recent surge of indie-electro bands, like MGMT. “This album in particular I believe is quite eclectic and diverse: I couldn’t really recommend one single place to listen to it. Torbjørn likes to listen to it while he’s driving a car. I’m more of a shower man myself, I like to listen to it when I’m showering. I’m an Aquarius, so I like being close to water, and then there’s nudity, which adds to it.” The ten years of Royksopp’s history make for impressive reading. Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland met at school, though Royksopp came into being a few years later, in 1998, in a Norwegian musical renaissance remembered as the ‘Bergen Wave’, after its place of origin. Just three years on, the success of their debut, with its ingenious videos and ubiquitous commercial licencing, catapulted them into an international sphere of recognition that has seen them win numerous awards and sell millions of records. It’s an illustrious career, no doubt, but Svein isn’t quite finished just yet: “I’ve always wanted to touch Vangelis’ beard. I want to touch divinity, and to me he is the god of synthesizer. After that I can just wither and die, I’ll have done my share of mortal toil.” I meekly suggest that some Royksopp fans might object to this rather unexpected demise of Norway’s best-loved musical export, at which point he muses, “well, there’s always the option of remastering Melody A.M. ten times with different remixes…” To the contrary, new single ‘Happy Up Here’ more that suffices to prove that Royksopp have no intention of living off their past successes: “Age is coming whether you like it or not – but it’s not as if we are going to drift into mediocrity,” Svein assures. The single’s seductive, reverberating throb coats familiar Royksoppian melodic murmurings that promise, "You know I really like it/ I know I'll always be here.” And while, much like ‘Forever’, the allusions to eternity strike of ambition beyond Svein and Torbjørn’s mere-mortal means, it’s clear that Royksopp haven’t quite lost their charisma, musical or otherwise, just yet.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmM2RwlxGt0]YouTube - Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream[/ame] Running For The Thrill Of It... Empire Of The Sun Ambition, it’s a big word in music. For stadium sized bands it is the stick with which they are beaten whilst anyone repeating themselves two albums in a row is seen to lack it and tossed mercilessly upon a pile of rejects. Perhaps it’s the idea of what ambition actually is, is it the ability to transcend sticky floored toilet venues and make music that touches large numbers? Or is it to do something beyond the confines of the norm, to have a vision that can’t be confined to an 18 month campaign of re-releases, key festival slots and TV montage scenes. Empire Of The Sun are a band who have ambition, they are a band who see a lack of magic in the music ‘industry’ and want to inject it with a shot of surreal beauty. There vision is, according to Nick Littlemore, “The one joining emotion that binds all humanity together from the enlightened to the ignorant. Until life itself is questioning its continuation, for humanities lessons are contrary to the world. For me the term greed is led by it’s failings since the dawn of time and we must turn humanity against itself like a jealous angel. There are heroes, Empire Of The Sun, who must make sacrifices in order to save the free world. Our heroes the wise travelled, having assimilated civilisations from all four corners of the globe, to gain a depth of understanding and enlightened path to give up their mortal dreams and become animals, taking the form of a flock of black cockatoos”. To put this in context this writer asked a member of Franz Ferdinand a similar question last week and he said “Well we just want to make things a bit more dance orientated.” Empire of The Sun certainly have ambition. “That’s pretty much what it’s about. We (Luke Steel of The Sleepy Jackson comprises the other half of Empire...) were basically just travelling around the world and the one binding emotion that seemed to be coming up in humanity was sadness. So many of us are not doing what is vital to our existence. I met Luke back in 2000, we met in a bar and at that point Luke was always carrying around a suitcase and every time you saw him he had something different in there like an umbrella or a kid’s doll, bricks from a chimney or just full of parking tickets. Anyway the day after we met I took him to the bush just North of Sydney and we wrote three or four songs. It’s incredible to meet a mind that you connect with so quickly and strongly. We didn’t get to record anything for another six or seven years though, perhaps because it took us meeting about fifty other people before we realised our connection was so strong and we needed to explore it further.” The subsequent result of that exploration is the album ‘Walking On A Dream’ released on February 23rd. Surely though for such a high concept project the ten track LP format must be incredibly limited? “Well the live show is going to be like a twenty five track show. The live show is going to be like a play, we don’t want to do a rock show, we both got so bored of that in the past. I see myself more as an artist than a musician; if I had to compare the live show to anything it would be Laurie Anderson (American experimental performance artist) where it’s a much more visual thing. Luke and I both talk visually when we write songs, you’ll note a lot of colour in our music and emotions and those colours can’t be ignored when performing our songs. We chose those initial ten (tracks on the album) because they best represent us. We’re writing songs all the time and in the past (Nick is a member of Pnau) I have always tried to fill the full amount of space on a CD but on this one we just said like let’s just do a ten-tracker you know and have ten songs, like the Ten Commandments. We don’t need anything other than these ten.” One of the most memorable tracks on ‘Walking On A Dream’ is the haunting end-track ‘Without You’ Nick sites this as a favourite moment too, “I actually wrote it at a very low moment, I was very deeply depressed and it was great to channel the weight of tears, the weight of all that welling up inside and create something out of all the madness and the sadness. I often reference it now when I am feeling down or lost. It works for me, there’s a lot of heart in there”. Is depression something that aids a lot of your song writing? “I try to channel it into a joy but on ‘Without You’ it just came as it was. It was the vocal that took the longest to record; I think we recorded it forty times to get it right. It had to have the right feeling and that was hard to achieve. There was a real sense of quiet when we finished it, like when you’re fishing in the ocean and you catch that silver light and when you know you’ve got that moment you hold on for dear life and channel that wisdom.” With theatre shows in the pipeline, elaborate costumes and a make up bill that must run into the thousands how do Empire Of The Sun get these things past their label under the current economical climate? “Well having Elton John’s management company looking after us certainly gives us some clout! We’re driving this from the normal confines of the label where they tell you what to do, it’s really extreme. Elton got involved with us when he picked up my Pnau album in Australia and then rang me to say it was the best album he’s heard in ten years and we became fast friends. Then, about six months ago, I asked him to manage us and he’s just been amazing ever since.” Does Elton John give good advice? “Yeah, he’s a fantastic mentor. He tells us to believe in ourselves and who better to listen to than one of the most successful recording artists of all time, the master of melodies? We got great advice from Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) too, he said ‘Always ask yourself ’Is it necessary?’ and I think that’s a great thing to bear in mind, so many people do things because they can not because they need to. It all comes back to the self and wanting to channel something positive, What do we need in the world right now? The world is such a dark place and we need positivity and something to lean on, we need goodness, we need enlightenment, we need a guide.” That guide could well be Empire Of The Sun. Whatever happens to them in 2009 you can guarantee it won’t be anything less than magical. (gigwise.com) Listen to the full album here: http://www.myspace.com/empireofthesunsound official website: http://www.walkingonadream.com/

http://site.yeahyeahyeahs.com/

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXOHlLH1_ig]YouTube - Coldplay, The Killers, Gary Barlow & Bono - All These Things i've done[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gp0Ux_vBZg]YouTube - The Killers, Coldplay and Bono[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KpN1KD_zTc]YouTube - Coldplay, Killers and Bono, O2 Academy[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwvxK0YY0zI]YouTube - **205 million CASH! Drug dealer caught by Mexican Police[/ame]

I like this part of the description: "The record feels like that hour in the night when the foxes are abundant and the lights are low, driving past the frozen disused warehouses.

DAMN this album is......a waste of.......time. It's time for them to retire

U2: No Line On The Horizon - full review (plus what Bono really thinks) The new U2 album, 'No Line On The Horizon' will be released on March 2nd. It is a great record, and greatness is what rock and roll and the world needs right now. From the grittily urgent yet ethereal title track all the way to the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda of 'Cedars Of Lebanon' it conjures an extraordinary journey through sound and ideas, a search for soul in a brutal, confusing world, all bound together in narcotic melody and space age pop songs. Get On Your Boots: an escape from politics "Let me in the sound" is a repeated lyrical motif (showing up in three songs, including current single 'Get On Your Boots'). The theme of the album is surrender, escaping everyday problems to lose (or perhaps find) yourself in the joy of the moment. For Bono, it clearly represents an escape from the politics of his role as a lobbyist and campaigner into the musical exultation of rock and roll, yet the very notion of escape remains political, if only with a small p. "Every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street / With arms out, got a love you can't defeat" is the inspirational bridge in an epic, explosive rock anthem 'Breathe', that could be set in Gaza or at your own front door. Scattershot half-spoken verses fire images like news reports from the battleground of life ("16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up / And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus ... Doc says you're fine, or dying") til he is "running down the road like loose electricity", tension building in thundering drums and grungey two note guitar riff until it all lets loose in a soaring, anthemic chorus, as Bono tells us "I found grace inside a sound / I found grace, it's all that I found / And I can breathe". The theme is even more explicit on 'Moment Of Surrender', a pulsing, dreamily gorgeous 7 minute weave of synths, silvery guitars, sub-bass, handclaps, Arabic strings and soulful ululating vocals, in which the narrator experiences a spiritual epiphany at the very prosaic setting of an ATM machine. It is a beautiful piece that provides the album's beating heart and shows how far U2 can drift from their stereotype as a stadium rock band into unknown territory while still making something that touches the universal. Musically, these songs might be the two poles of an album that switches between overloaded rockers and hypnotic electro grooves: the U2 / Eno divide. 'No Line On The Horizon' was produced by the professorially brilliant Roxy Music synth magus Brian Eno with his rootsy, muso collaborator Daniel Lanois, the same team that has presided over U2's finest albums, Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991) and their latterday reclaiming of pop's high ground 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' (2000). The chief difference is that here they have been explicitly invited into the songwriting process, with 7 of the 12 tracks credited to both band and producers, and recorded with a six-piece line up featuring Eno on electronics and Lanois on acoustic and pedal steel guitar. It is these songs, in particular, which push U2 towards the invisible horizon of the title, at once more linear (they tend to be driven, with singular grooves, often pulsing along on particular sound effect or rhythmic repetitions) and lateral (they defy obvious song-structure, choruses drop rather than soar, Bono's rich, high voice subsumed into stacked harmonic chants). These tracks draw out of Bono a contemplative depth, so even the fantastically odd 'Unknown Caller' hits a vein of emotional truth, when the spaced out singer is cast adrift on the soundbites of computer and communications networks ('Password, you enter here, right now / You know your name so punch it in') yet seems to find himself talking to the inner voice of God ("Escape yourself, and gravity / Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak"). Words and music dovetail in surprising ways that send the senses spinning. Left to their own compositional devices, U2 produce rock songs of high-wire adrenalin and in-your-face immediacy. It is almost a relief when they arrive like a troop surge in the middle of the album, reclaiming familiar territory with a burst of shock and awe. This is U2 on safe ground, ramming home the kind of smack bang crunch pop rock that they know radio programmers will fall at their feet for, yet there is almost too much melody and a surfeit of lyrical ideas. Current single 'Get On Your Boots' is the prime example, walloping along with two note punk rock energy, a low-slung heavy metal guitar riff, an expansively melodic psychedelic chorus and playful sloganeering lyrics in which Bono gets off the soap box to pay homage to the more prosaic pleasures of a beautiful woman in comically "sexy boots". Along with the Oasis on steroids singalong pop of 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight' and pop Zepplin-esque grooviness and shuffling beats of 'Stand Up Comedy', these songs are the albums most immediate and yet least resonant tracks. They are light relief from the more demanding adventures into new sonic terrain. Bono's worst reflex as a lyric writer is sloganeering, partly because he is so good at it. On the three songs just mentioned, he piles catch-phrase upon soundbite to build up a thematic idea, often one that plays with his image. So in 'Stand Up Comedy' the diminutive rock star in stacked boots warns us to "stand up to rock stars / Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas" and in 'I'll Go Crazy' he confesses (or complains) "there's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet / And there's a part of you that wants me to riot." It is all good fun but too often sounds like a series of t-shirt slogans rather than a song with a heart of its own. His phrasemaking is put to much better effect when it pared back so that the emotion of the song takes precedence, as on the strange, addictive title track, where he loses himself in the blur of a mysterious love, a person whose unknowability represents a kind of Godliness and who tells him "infinity is a great place to start." On 'Breathe', U2 locate the emotional and philosophical heart in an out and out ball busting U2 anthem (which Eno, apparently, asserts to be "the most U2 song" they have ever recorded). It is matched, in this respect, by the quite wonderful 'Magnificent', in which the U2/Eno/Lanois combo conjure up an instantly recognisable U2 classic in a love song with the flag waving pop drive of 'New Year's Day'. These are songs that will fill their fans with joy, but it is in the album's more intimate, off beat adventures that U2 lock into something that forces listeners to sit up and take note of them anew. There is a busy-ness in terms of sonic tapestry, the meshing together of Edge's sci-fi guitars and Eno's synths providing an intricate, detailed soundscape that constantly tugs at the ears and mind, but the U2/Eno/Lanois songs hold the centre, slowly revealing themselves, demanding repeat listens. It certainly sounds like U2 (as do a lot of groups these days) but in its boldest moments is as fresh and ambitious as the work of first timers, not veterans 33 years on the road. If it has a flaw, it may be in U2's inherent tendency to want to be all things to all people, so that in album of surrender, they can't quite let themselves go all the way. They still want to bat the ball out of the stadium everytime, and so instinctively counterbalance their desire to reach something otherwordly with the safe bets of crunchy rock hits. In that respect, it doesn't have the innocence or singularity of 'Unforgettable Fire' or 'Joshua Tree', nor does it quite affect the bold re-wiring of their sound that was 'Achtung Baby'. To me, it is probably the album 'Zooropa' was supposed to be, building on the sonic architecture of classic U2 and taking it into the pop stratosphere. But what a place for a band to be, in orbit around their own myth, making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that? Anyway that's my opinion. I can tell you what Bono thinks, because he has been texting me. He comes (as he explicitly says on 'Breathe') "from a long line of travelling salesmen" and he would probably sell his album door to door if he could. "Lifeforce, joy, innovation, emotional honesty, analogue not digital, home-made not pro-tooled, unique sonic landscape," are his buzzwords (although punctuation and spelling are mine). "I pinch myself every morning, evenings no longer a trial. Soul music for the frenzied, rock music for the still. The album we always wanted to make. Now we f*** off ..." Not for a while yet, I suspect. (telegraph.co.uk)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFmfncE-jD0]YouTube - Andrew Bird - Anonanimal[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLi91egdbbk]YouTube - yeah yeah yeahs: zero[/ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rNiAQZwXJo

Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown, one of 2009's most-anticipated records, releases in May. Yesterday, reps from the band's label, Warner Bros., swung by SPIN's lower Manhattan office to play us six of the album's 16 tracks and feed us a bucket of fried chicken. Our verdict? We love it. (The chicken was pretty good, too.) In the six songs, Green Day keep their punk urgency and lyrical angst, but expand their ambition. They use dramatic musical shifts reminiscent of Queen, and Who-like classic rock guitars. There's even a poignant piano ballad that Fiona Apple could love. Billie Joe Armstrong's vocals push towards falsetto, adding a new level of emotion to his singing. And his lyrics mix the political with the social, depicting marginal characters betrayed by church and state. Focusing on greed, corrupted religion, and war, the conceptual album is broken into three parts: Heroes and Cons, Charlatans and Saints, and Horseshoes and Handgrenades. 21st Century Breakdown, the follow-up to 2004's Grammy-winning American Idiot, took Armstrong three years to write. The band has been in the studio with producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Against Me!) since last fall. Here are some highlights from the six tracks we heard: "21st Century Breakdown" Green Day's most epic song yet. With the quiet-verse, loud-chorus dynamics of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," this five-minute cut builds from harpsichord and Edge-like guitar fills to assaultive drums and arena-filling barre chords. Armstrong's lyrics about his peers are as urgent as the music: "My generation is zero / I never made it as a working class hero. Dream America, dream / Scream America, scream." "Know Your Enemy" The song's fast pace and feverish guitar make this track sound like an outtake from the Dookie sessions. And Armstrong continues his political screed: "Do you know the enemy / “Silence is the enemy so give me revolution.” "Before the Lobotomy" Armstrong sings like you've never heard him before. Strumming an acoustic guitar, he hits all the high notes, as his lyrics lament a character in such pain his "misery [is] drenched in gasoline." "March of the Dogs" Handclaps, surf guitar, lyrics about sodomized dogs -- all accompanying a scathing indictment of contemporary religion. Hard and fast from start to finish, this spiky four-and-a-half-minute tune finds Armstrong ranting, "I threw my conscience in the river in the shadow of doubt," referencing the famous Biblical passage, Psalm 23:4, which reads, "I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death... I will fear no evil." "Restless Heart Syndrome" Green Day's largest sonic departure yet. With quiet piano and confessional lyrics ("I've got a really bad disease / Its got me on my hands and knees") Armstrong channels Fiona Apple. Until the Linkin Park-style guitars kick in. "21 Guns" The catchiest of the new songs. This track covers a lot of territory in its five minutes, from a solo acoustic guitar (reminiscent of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams") to Brian May-worthy electric riffage. But the chorus holds the killer hook, as Armstrong hits never-before-reached highs with his voice in a thrilling moment that reminds us of Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes." Well done, guys. (spin.com)

excuse me ???