Salem is not a new band. Born from the ashes of As Friends Rust, one of Florida hardcore finest band, Salem release their debut EP on Fiddler, “Love It Or Leave Me”, a record featuring five good examples of rock. Not hardcore, not emo, just rock. The songs played by the band are catchy, and at the same time dark, intense and filled with passion. With influences ranging from U2 to The Cure to The Polices, Salem has got a great ability in putting melodies at the first place. “Smoke And Mirrors” and “Cancel The Sun” are the best tracks, filled with rock riffs that are some of the finest I ever heard. Oh wait a moment, the guitar riff of “Cancel The Sun”, one of the finest rock riff I truly ever heard played by a guitar, is the same of the As Friends Rust song “Won”, taken from AFR masterpiece last full length, “Won”. Anyway, the EP delivers some great rock music, an example for all the bands to come: I am sure in a few years we’ll look back to this EP and say this has been the milestone of a new rock generation.

This record from UK finest ska punk band is a kind of weird record: this is a part cover, part live, part brand new collection of [spunge] songs, so if you like ska punk as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Bigh Fish, Sublime and the likes, you know you’ll find something good here too. The cover songs are: “Centerfold” by J. Giels Band, “Circle In The Sand” by Belinda Carlisle, “Olivers Army” by Elvis Costello, “Land Down Under” by Men At Work, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers, and “Happy Hour” by The Housemartins, all played with some punk ska rock influences. There are also three live demo’s ( the sound quality is good but I think it does not stress the quality of the tunes ), which are : “Whitehouse”, “Get Along” and “Skanking Song”. The two brand new tracks from the upcoming [spunge] record are “Some Suck, Some Rock” and “Don’t Ruin My Day”, and they work out well as a taster for fans and new fans. The CD also contains the music video for “Centerfold”; it’s a nice try, if you want to try something new and un-trendy.

When I popped the CD into my stereo, and heard the music that came out, I could hardly believe these four kids came from Italy. Vanilla Sky play one kind of pop punk rock influenced by those bands as Yellowcard, Midtown and The Ataris, but with some very personal attitude and feelings: you can hear some great songs as “Wastin All My Time”, “Distance” and “The Point”, plus other eight songs that make this LP one to look out for. The lyrics are simple, dealing with friendships, girlfriends, personal life stories, and yes, also about getting laid, all played with easy listening and catchy chords.The band also does a lot of use of acoustic guitars as on “Wait For The Sun” and even a piano and violins, on the sad songs of the record, “Broken Car” and “Looking For Memories”. My favorite stand out track is “Your Words”, because I truly can relate to it, but even tunes as “Wastin All My Time” and “70 Miles Far Away” are some of the most catchy you can get to hear these days. Vanilla Sky released possibly the finest poppy punk album an European band could do, so, please, take a moment, go to www.wynonarecords.com and give this record a listen.

No Motiv is the oldest band on Vagrant and with their new LP, “Daylight Breaking”, they should finally start getting what they deserve. Yes, because this is the finest record Vagrant EVER released. Oops, I said it! Yes I said it. No Motiv release an album filled with power, gritty, raw, dirty punk rock, with a lot of melodies, harmonies and great guitar chords. The vocals are perfectly redundant, and the production is awesome, yet the record is honest, fast, someway pissed and No Motiv show how they are in it just for the rock, for putting out great rock music. THIS IS GREAT ROCK MUSIC!

The ninth episode in “The Show Must Go Off” DVD series comes from The Vandals. Actually this is something like the third Vandals DVD, after the 1992 “Sweatin’ To The Oldies” and the “Oi To The World” Christmas themed DVD, but this is the first DVD where The Vandals actually play their full set. Featuring all of the finest tracks by The Vandals, the DVD lives great moments on such songs as “It’s A Fact”, “Oi To The World”, “People That Are Going To Hell”, “The New You”, “Merry Me”, “My Girlfriend’s Dead” and the classic closer “I Have A Date”, featuring Warren on vocals. The DVD comes out with a free music CD where you can listen the same show; plus, you can also buy the CD with the bonus DVD, so you can actually choose, as it’s been for the Guttermouth live DVD+CD, between two diffent packages. The nice thing about the DVD, and that’s what makes this show special, is the “Josh Freese cam”: a lot of drummers buy the Vandals’ CD’s and DVD’s just to study the ability of Freese and so director Joe Escalante had the great idea to film all of Josh’s works with two cameras ( one for the kick pedal and one as the normal camera), so yes, you can watch the best drummer ever to perform during the entire show, and trust me, it values the cost.

Formed in 1999 in Columbia, South Carolina, Burns Out Bright is a four piece rock band that puts all of the inspiration in the music they write. After a couple of independent released EP’s and a split album, the band’s six song debut EP on Deep Elm Records is a collection of inspired music, intense guitar chords, meaningful lyrics and infection rock songs. Tough, “Distance And Darkness” is a hard to label record: at times you might say the band plays some hardcore tracks, while at some other times it’s all about just rock. The lyrics are deep, sincere and about personal expiriences that you can easily relate to, at least this is what happened with me. The best chords and melodies come on “Crowded Streets, Empty Skies”, “Twenty Two” and “Our Proudest Moment”, with some very catchy guitar riffs.

I’m not the average listener of The Casualties’ music, and with their newer release on Side One Dummy, “On The Front Line”, they do nothing to impress me. I guess that most people do not even know the Casualties’ music, but I bet every kid knows the band’s logo as seen on those Good Charlotte dudes’s shirts, which is not very good promotion. Speaking of the music of this record, it’s snotty punk rock ala GBH, Discharge and the likes, which is not really for me. The production, tough, is good and the record sounds like one great disc in its genre. I still like Maxeen more, tough. Word.

“This Is How I Kill My Tears” is the new Deep Elm Records label sampler, and no, it’s not one of those cheap-o-label samplers, this one is a FREE one; every fan can get this record filled with music simply by going on www.deepelm.com. How cool is that? A lot, but it’s even cooler the fact that the CD features 20 amazing rock songs from the 2004 Deep Elm roster. Not only we have already released songs as the ones from the latest albums by Slowride, Settlefish, Benton Falls, Surrounded and Desert City Soundtrack, but we also can hear the new songs from upcoming albums from Red Animal War, Sounds Like Violence, Fire Divine, Lock And Key, and Burns Out Bright. Speaking of the music, the cd is filled with different styles of rock: from the catchy tracks of upcoming artists as Fire Divine and Burns Out Bright, to the post-hardcore of Sounds Like Violence and Lock And Key, the indie rock of Slowride and the chaotic and dark yet soft music of Red Animal War. If you’re a fan, and if you’re a curious person who likes real indie rock, check out www.deepelm.com to get this sampler for free, I bet you can’t find a better indie rock compilation out there right now.

The second volume in the “Pop Punk Loves You” series comes out these days on Wynona Records, and apart the two good looking chicks on the cover, the disco features some of the finest and best known bands in punk, hardcore, emo and pop punk scenes worldwide. Twenty-five bands from all overt the world play on this record, like Slick Shoes, Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, Strike Anywhere, Good Riddance, Lawrence Arms, Millencolin,. Most songs are already released on the bands’ latest records, so if you’re a nerd I think you already heard almost all, but if you want to discover more about pop punk bands today, you can know all just owning this sucker for merely 8.00 bucks.

Are you tired of the snotty punk rock of the Hives? Are you tired of the mellow poppy alterna Queen-esque sound of The Darkness? Are you tired of what bands like those ones are doing on Mtv and mainstream radios? Then, C.Aarmé might be what will make you go crazy. This Swedish militia of punk rockers release their debut LP on Burning Heart: an amazing record filled with anger, melodies, dstroyed amplifiers, guitars through windows, blown out vocal chords, rock’n'roll crazyness and awesome tunes. Bringing influences from Born Against, Bad Brains and The Adicts, the band plays such tracks as “Gasmack”, “O’neill Oh No”, “What’s The Problem Mussolini”, “Baise Moi” and “Total Trash”, that are just some of the finest tracks of garage punk’n'roll music you’ll get to hear in 2004.