Swaggering, super-diesel Sydney stompers Speed were one of the most exciting bands on the hardcore underground for years before they released their full-length debut Only One Mode last year, and that hasn’t changed one bit. Next week, Speed will join fellow hardcore giants Turnstile on that band’s massive North American tour. Speed and Jane Remover will open every show, with Blood Orange, Mannequin Pussy, and Amyl And The Sniffers joining in a rotating direct-support spot. I can’t wait. It’s going to be fucking massive. I hope Speed’s Jem Siow plays flute during the Turnstile set. Around the time that tour finishes up, Speed will drop a brand-new EP on our fucking asses.

In 2023, Home Front released their full-length debut Games Of Power, which earned them a spot on our revered Best New Bands list of that year. Today, the Edmonton post-punks are announcing its followup Watch It Die and sharing the anthemic lead single “Light Sleeper.”

When we last checked in on Brooklyn trombonist Kalia Vandever two years ago, she was releasing We Fell In Turn, a stretched-out solo jazz exploration that I described at the time as “basically ambient music.” Her new album goes in a quite different direction.

A few months ago, the Mountain Goats’ masterpiece The Sunset Tree celebrated its 20th anniversary. For other bands, an occasion like that might be an opportunity to slow down, or maybe to do one of those album-playthrough tours for more money. That is not the Mountain Goats way. The band did release a remastered anniversary edition of the album, but they didn’t even include bonus tracks. This band never sits still for long, and they’ve always got another record in the works. This fall, they’ll follow up 2023’s Jenny From Thebes with a new LP called Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan. This one happens to feature a couple of big-name collaborators.

Back in March, Tortoise returned with “Oganesson,” their first new song in nine years. Today, the post-rock greats are announcing their long-awaited new album Touch, arriving this fall. The lead single “Layered Presence” is out now.

Usually, when a singer gets COVID, that singer’s upcoming shows are canceled altogether. That’s not what Blues Traveler did over the weekend when John Popper got COVID. The band are currently on tour with fellow ’90s alt-rock mainstays Spin Doctors and Gin Blossoms, and so the singers of those bands filled in for Popper at their shows in New Braunfels, Texas on Friday and Thackerville, Oklahoma on Saturday. It was interesting.

Rick Davies, singer and keyboardist for the hugely successful UK band Supertramp, has passed away. On their Facebook page, Supertramp revealed that Davies died on Saturday after a battle with multiple myeloma. Davies was 81. In their announcement, the band says, “Rick’s music and legacy continue to inspire many and bears testament to the fact that great songs never die, they live on.”

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

A little over a month ago, Ozzy Osbourne died of a heart attack that came just two weeks after the Black Sabbath legend performed at his epic farewell concert in Birmingham. One of the many guest performers at that farewell concert was one of Osbourne’s old pal Steven Tyler. At the VMAs tonight, Tyler, his Aerosmith bandmate Joe Perry, Yungblud, and Extreme/Rihanna guitarist Nuno Bettencourt took the stage for a tribute medley.