The Offspring have posted the artwork for their long-awaited new album. The record is titled Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace and is due out June 17, 2008. It is the follow-up to Splinter which was released in 2003.

You can click Read More for the the art.

Death Cab For Cutie has launched a stream of their new full length. The record is titled Narrow Stairs and is due out May 13, 2008. It is the follow-up to Plans which was released in 2005.

You can check out the stream on The Leak.

Foxboro Hot Tubs (essentially Green Day with touring guitarist Jason White and touring multi-instrumentalist Jason Freese) have announced some club dates later this month. The band recently digitally released their debut, Stop Drop and Roll!!!. A physical release is expected on May 20, 2008.

You can click Read More for the dates.

I got to catch up with Jamies Tworkowski of the non-profit organization To Write Love on Her Arms last weekend at Bamboozle.

You can click Read More to check out the interview.

Today we've got a contest from The Black Lungs, the side project from Alexisonfire guitarist, Wade MacNeil. Along with Wade, the band includes Jordan "Ratbeard" Hastings of Alexisonfire & Jersey on drums, and Sean McNabb, formerly of the band Jersey and now in The Creepshow, on guitar.

The contest is to celebrate the band's debut album. The record is titled Send Flowers and is due out May 20, 2008. The prize package includes a copy of the album and a poster. The band will be hitting the road throughout Canada beginning May 21st and feature City and Colour and Sleepercar.

You can click Read More for the details.

Popular rhythm games Rock Band and Guitar Hero continue to mine classic punk rock for playable tracks. Next week, Rock Band will be adding The Clash's "Train in Vain" from London Calling, Blondie's version of The Nerves' "Hanging on the Telephone" and Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing" from Goo.

Last week, competing game Guitar Hero confirmed that At the Drive-In will be appearing on the fourth edition of their game.

Popular rock/hardcore act Gallows have begun work on the follow up to their wildly successful debut full length, Orchestra of Wolves. They noted:

It's going well so far, we are writing at a rate of one new song every day so far. Hopefully we’ll have alot of material to pick from for the final album tracks. Its a definite progression from Orchestra of Wolves and we’re well pleased so far. It's all about the riffs.

We’ll probably be playing a couple of new joints at the festivals in the summer, as we will have finished recording the album by the end of the summer holidays. Might even make a new one available before Reading/Leeds so you know the words.

While it is unknown who will be releasing the album in the States, the band signed a four album, £1,000,000 deal with Warner in the UK.

City and Colour, the side project from Dallas Green of Alexisonfire will be touring with Sleepercar (At the Drive-In, Sparta) and The Black Lungs (Alexisonfire, Jersey) beginning this month.

You can click Read More for the dates.

As promised, Circle Takes The Square have begun documenting studio work on their long-awaited new album. The band recently entered the studio to work on their first new material in four years. The band issued their last album, As The Roots Undo in 2004.

You can check out the studio blog here.

With their long-awaited new full length just over a month away from release, The Offspring visited KROQ's Kevin & Bean for a video interview. The record is titled Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace and is due out June 17, 2008

KROQ is one of the few sites left that stills streams in Windows Media (instead of Flash) so you'll need that plugin to view the interview. You can find it here.

In a new interview, Yellowcard violinist Sean Mackin discusses some of the issues at play in the band's recently announced indefinite hiatus. Mackin explains:

We’re kind of having a break for a little bit. We’ve been touring for a long time and we don’t know what’s going on with the record label. I think Ryan’s going to move back east, so we’re all just going to take a little bit of a break. . It’s really hard to support a lifestyle now with ticket sales being down and stuff like that. We’re just trying to do whatever we can. We’re going to take a little break to figure some stuff out and keep writing songs.

Sean also discusses piracy in this context, saying:

Even though we’re on Capitol Records, we’re not even quite sure if Capitol Records is a complete entity right now. So that’s all thanks to the people that don’t buy records. Metallica, the biggest rock band of the last 15 years, tried to fight the whole piracy thing but it doesn’t go anywhere. People are going to do it.

You can find the rest of the interview here.

The band released Paper Walls last year.

The Weakerthans have announced their summer tour plans. The band will be spending much of June in Europe and will be hitting festivals in Canada and hitting one stop in Chicago for Lollapalooza.

They released Reunion Tour last year.

You can click Read More for the dates.

The Butthole Surfers have begun announcing summer tour dates. The band will be in the US in June, before heading to the UK and Europe in July. Dates for the European tour are expected soon.

The band adds:

For these shows, Jeff Pinkus will be on bass and Teresa Taylor (along with King Coffey) on drums. This is the rhythm section the band had for most of the 80s and marks the first time this line up has played together since 1989. Paul Leary has prior commitments and unfortunately can't play the European dates (he will be on stage for the New York City show and possibly more stateside).

You can click Read More for the US and UK dates.

Moros Eros have split up. The band explained:

So, as most of you know, Moros is no longer a band. Since we left everything so ambiguous, I felt really terrible about not explaining the situation. It really had nothing to do with Victory, really. I think it started when our van died this past november. We were in the middle of some Navajo reservation for about eight hours and I thought a lot about things.

Things led to other things, deej quit the band a few weeks later, and we eventually came to the conclusion that we didn't really feel up to the task of playing this kind of music anymore. It's kind of tiring to sing almost every day about things that are always bothering you, without ever coming to any final conclusion. Without getting to philosophical, it was just the band's time, and we have already started moving on to other things, musically and personally, that is.

The band released Jealous Me Was Killed By Curiosity last year.