The Witzard

Chicago-based 666th Wave Ska/Skath band. Grave Danger, have returned with their third festive offering. "Wake The Dead" follows their 2021 single, "Specter Inspector," and 2019 debut, TOMB IT MAY CONCERN EP. Grave Danger told Punk News , who recently premiered "Wake The Dead:" "with "Wake The Dead," we wanted a big, menacing sound, worthy of the Lovecraftian Horror that inspired it, to balance out the fun, bouncy horn parts that we love to write. We had a great time working to get the vibe just right for this monstrous love letter to coffee." Grave Danger is Dave Schwantes providing guitars, bass, keyboards, tenor sax, baritone sax, and backing vocals, drummer Dane Erbach, vocalist Chris Marcanti, trombonist Margaret Miller, trumpet player Andy Miller, and Emily Erbach on theremin/synths. Wake the Dead by Grave Danger "Wake The Dead" was produced by Dave Schwantes with album artwork by David Buist (@david_buist) and mi...

Jumbled watering his pumpkins (SOURCE: John Bachman) So, by now, anyone who regularly reads this site should know we are long-time, supporters, and fans of anything our beat-making friend from Baltimore, John Bachman (otherwise known as Jumbled) creates and releases to the masses. With that said, Jumbled is back with his latest seasonal EP, Project 138. Yes, this is a project primarily featuring samples from New Jersey's own Horror Punk pioneers, The Misfits, and, maybe, even some Samhain & Danzig, too. It's hard to tell, though, because Jumbled layers samples and creates his beats so well, but Glenn Danzig and company are sampled throughout; Project 138, also, incorporates audio soundbites about The Misfits and their genre-altering rise to fame like bats out of Hell. Project 138 by Jumbled Bachman describes his inspirations behind creating the ghoulish project as, "there have been a few "inspired by..." Rap projects lately, but I feel like they haven...

Southern California Punk legends Unwritten Law shared the short film/music videos for "Magnetic" & "The Hum" from their recently released seventh studio album, The Hum, yesterday. Directed by Joseph Russo, the short film follows the story of a couple, played by Tyler Posey & Tehya Elam, as they enter an alternate reality world known as The Hum. The two become obsessed with the lives they lead in this alternate reality and, eventually, sacrifice their real life for the fantasy life that will never come to be. The story begins with "Magnetic" and continues with "The Hum." Unwritten Law is, also, excited to announce The Hum Headlining Tour for 2023 with support from Authority Zero, zebrahead, Tyler Posey ( Five North , Teen Wolf,) and Tony Lovato of MEST. Beginning January 19, 2023 in Los Angeles, California at The Roxy, the band will head out on a short run, stopping by in San Diego & Santa Ana, California before wrapping in Phoenix,...

Foliage is the latest seven-track mixtape from White Plains, New York emcee, producer, music journalist, and children's book author Stan Ipcus. It's the proper follow-up to his Spotify-only exclusive release aptly titled White Label . Actually, Foliage boasts two of the same tracks as White Label with "Grizzly" and "Cream." Ipcus expalins Foliage is "a dedication to the most beautiful time of the year in The 914 and a nod to the trees. Memories of summer, change, nostalgia, new school energy, lush landscapes, fall flavors, crisp breezes, and bright colors that eventually turn dark." Along with "Grizzly" and "Cream," "Pumpkin Cheesecake" has been previously released, as well. So, that leaves "Bust The Way I Flip It," "Tummy Time," "Ganja," and "Gifted" as the four brand new new tracks on Foliage. Foliage by Stan Ipcus Stan Ipcus himself produced "Grizzly," "B...

The Misfits (CREDIT: Eerie Von) Art Inhuman is a collaborative effort between Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) artist Dan Schenker and writer Matt Horowitz. Dan takes band names, lyrics, and song names and with the help of an A.I. manipulates them into what he feels best represents them visually. If you have a suggestion for an upcoming addition to this series, Tweet Matt at @SharpChedder856 and/or Dan at @heydanschenker and Tag the band or artist you'd like us to feature next. This project spawned from Dan's decades-long love of music. Dan had been a fan of the band FOLLY since early high school—for the blend of Punk, Ska, and Hardcore they seamlessly wove, for the energy their music made him feel, and for the almost disproportionately poetic lyrics and topics they covered. So, when Dan thought to input some of his favorite lyrics, song titles, and album titles into Midjourney, the results were staggering. He posted them to Facebook, which caught the attention of the band, w...

Esteemed Punk/Emo act Bayside has released The Red EP , this past Friday, via Hopeless Records. The three-song collection features latest singles, "Strangest Faces" and "Good Advice," as well as one new previosuly unreleased song, "Just Like Home." The Red EP marks Bayside's first new music since 2019 with their eighth full-length album, Interrobang‽ . The band—Anthony Raneri, Jack O'Shea, Nick Ghanbarian & Chris Guglielmo—shares: "we wanted to go out and do some places that are a little smaller than what we've been doing the last few years. We really cut our teeth in a lot of these venues and we can't wait to get back to some of them for the first time in ages." In addition to the new EP, Bayside have announced that they will be hitting the road this winter for The Just Like Home Tour. The line-up pays homage to the band's local scene with fellow New Yorkers, I Am The Avalanche & KOYO, providing support through...

Rejection Pact (CREDIT: Jake Villanueva) Rejection Pact is one of our personal favorite Hardcore Punk bands, who is based out of Boise, Idaho. They formed in the fall of 2017 and their current line-up features Devin Boudreax, Ralph Mugot, Charlie Ritch, Nate Spann & Hunter Wahl. Drawing influence from the mid-late 2000's West Coast Hardcore stylings of Rilvary Records, as well as the classic Bridge Nine roaster, Rejection Pact self-released a demo tape in early 2018 and linked up with Safe Inside Records to release their debut 10-song 7-inch, Threats of The World, in April of 2019. They played locally, as well as toured the West Coast & Western Canada, behind said 7-inch and played with a wide variety of bands, including Drug Church, Regional Justice Center, Mortality Rate, Magnitude, Envision, Trench, BERTHOLD CITY, Keep Flying, Lower Species, etc. Rejection Pact plays a blend of straight-forward Hardcore & Melodic Punk that keeps the songs short and sweet, rar...

Now More Than Ever, L-R: Tyson Ritter, Scott Chesak & Izzy Fontaine (SOURCE: @nowmorethaneverband on Instagram) Now More Than Ever is a new musical group featuring Tyson Ritter, Scott Chesak & Isaac Bolivar AKA Izzy Fontaine. Ritter is, of course, the frontman of The All-American Rejects, as well as an esteemed actor, painter, song-writer, multi-instrumentalist, and model, also, functioning solo in recent years as Sharpton Mann. Chesak is producer, song-writer, session musician, and touring musician, who has worked with (in one capacity or another) The All-American Rejects, Weezer, Panic! At The Disco, Direct Hit!, Red City Radio, Screeching Weasel, Gerard Way, Lykke Li, Big Red Machine, Bishop Briggs, Adam Lambert, Christina Perri, Lea Michele, and his own project, The Old Days. Fontaine is a self-described "guitarist, abletonist, and music directorist," who has worked with Seal, Taking Back Sunday, Glassjaw, Tegan & Sara, BANKS, No Machine, RARE FUTURES////,...

Hit Like A Girl (CREDIT: Fish Outta Water Films) Montclair, New Jersey's own Hit Like A Girl is following up their 2021's Heart Racer EP with a brand new release, Becoming, and this one boasts a completely different sound. Frontperson Nicolle Maroulis cut their teeth in the Hardcore scene and they were inspired to make an EP in that style after witnessing a particularly great set by The Callous Daoboys at The Fest last year. Maroulis recruited their REFRESH Records labelmates Talor Smith (Biitchseat) and Jimmy Wilkens (Jimmy Lo-Fi, The Sonder Bombs,) as well as Avery Hargrave & Michael Morris, to play on it. Steve Perrino, who's worked with Heart Attack Man, The Sonder Bombs, Biitchseat, etc. produced, mixed, and mastered the Becoming EP. Earlier this week, Hit Like A Girl partnered with BrooklynVegan to share our first taste of the forthcoming EP with "Dismay" and its companion music video. It's a fairly aggressive and scuzzy Metallic Hardcore/Screamo...

blink-182 - Viking Wizard Eyes, Wizard Full of Lies (ART CREDIT: Dan Schenker) Art Inhuman is a collaborative effort between Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) artist Dan Schenker and writer Matt Horowitz. Dan takes band names, lyrics, and song names and with the help of an A.I. manipulates them into what he feels best represents them visually. If you have a suggestion for an upcoming addition to this series, Tweet Matt at @SharpChedder856 and/or Dan at @heydanschenker and Tag the band or artist you'd like us to feature next. This project spawned from Dan's decades-long love of music. Dan had been a fan of the band FOLLY since early high school—for the blend of Punk, Ska, and Hardcore they seamlessly wove, for the energy their music made him feel, and for the almost disproportionately poetic lyrics and topics they covered. So, when Dan thought to input some of his favorite lyrics, song titles, and album titles into Midjourney, the results were staggering. He posted them to Face...

blink-182 "and" Scott Sellers (SOURCE: Scott Sellers) Scott Sellers, one-time frontman of beloved Rancho Cucamonga-based Pop-Punk/Skate Punk Rufio has been recording and releasing solo music at a rapid-fire pace since 2018's The Judge. Sellers has also played with a variety of bands since Rufio's 2007 break-up and sporadic brief reunions, including Mercy Street and BigCity with former bandmate Clark Domae . Sellers is known to be an avid blink-182 fan—Scott covered "A New Hope" from their 1997 album, Dude Ranch, on his 2020 covers album, Influence —and we're sure blink were a huge influence and source of inspiration for Rufio. By now, we all know the "classic" (well, second line-up) of blink-182 has effectively re-united as of last week, now including long-time members Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker & Tom DeLonge. DeLonge was in the band from their formation in 1992 up until they broke up in 2005 and then, again from 2009-15 when he left and...

Story of The Year (CREDIT: Ryan Phillips) After a summer of high-energy shows, Story of The Year have announced their upcoming sixth studio album, Tear Me to Pieces , out in March of next year, via SharpTone Records. The new album is distinctly, invitingly, and loudly "Story of The Year." Heartache, desperation, motivation, toxic relationships, pain, loss, anger—all of the essential ingredients of the classic Story of The Year sound propel Tear Me to Pieces in dazzling new ways. "I think this album will be a defining moment in our career," says guitarist Ryan Phillips. "When our fans hear it, they'll be like, "oh, sh*t, these dudes are ready to go!" This is the sound of a band putting everything into it. If a new band came out with this album, I'd be texting everyone in my band about it." To celebrate the announcement, Story of The Year have shared lead single and title track, "Tear Me to Pieces." The track sets the tone for t...

Just in time for this glorious Bandcamp Friday, James Kochalka Superstar has shared a brand new recording of a song he first wrote in 1985 with Eric Bradford on a couch at The University of Vermont for their college band, Jazzin' Hell. This newly-updated 2022 version of "The Mummy's On The Loose" was recorded with Kochalka's friends, ROUGH FRANCIS , with guest vocals supplied by his teenage hero, Jello Biafra (Ex-Dead Kennedys, The NO WTO Combo) and mixed by GRAMMY Award-winning producer and Jazzin' Hell keyboardist, Peter Katis. All of this was collectively wrangled, coordinated, and produced by Neil Cleary. "Whenever I get that first rumored taste of Fall, my soul starts to yearn deeply for Vermont & Burlington. So, watching a new Neil Cleary-directed video of ROUGH FRANCIS backing James Kochalka on a 40-year-old song of his about a mummy is the kind of sentence that means everything to Burlingtonians and very little to most other folks and it...

ANXIOUS 2022 (CREDIT: Rebecca Lader) Since the release of ANXIOUS' debut album, Little Green House, earlier this year, the band hasn't spent much time at home. In support of the record, ANXIOUS has toured relentlessly, playing five consecutive US tours in the eight months since the album was released. That busy schedule has meant ANXIOUS has barely had a moment to stop and catch their collective breath, but that frantic pace, also, inspired them to keep on pushing forward. The result is new single, "Sunsign," a stand-alone single that builds on ANXIOUS' sonic signature and expands the band's sound simultaneously. Sunsign by ANXIOUS On "Sunsign," ANXIOUS—made up of vocalist Grady Allen, guitarist/vocalist Dante Melucci, bassist Sam Allen, drummer Jonny Camner, and a mysterious fifth(?) member—takes yet another step forward. The urgency that carried Little Green House is still there, but it's presented in new, engaging ways. "Sunsign...

Buck 65 Topps baseball card and KISS Destroyer cassette cover (SOURCE: Facebook / Discogs) "I wish I could tell you the craziest story about the song "Kiss My A$$." I really wish I could. But I can't. Next time we run into each other face-to-face, remind me and I'll tell you. Here's what I CAN tell you: When I was a kid—before Hip-Hop changed my life—I was a massive KISS fan. Funny enough, I know now that I was part of a problem for the band at the peak of their popularity. It wasn't exactly cool that hoards of small children were filling the seats at their concerts and as I understand it, some in the KISS camp hated it. But what can I say? I'm not a kid anymore and I still listen to my KISS records. Maybe, it's a nostalgia thing. I don't know. But back in the day, I was probably drawn in by the spectacle like most of the other kids. An entire wall of my bedroom was covered with KISS posters and photos from magazines. I dressed up like di...