Music Video Of The Week: Dawkins Christ by Refused

Fans of Swedish Hardcore Punk band Refused should be excited for their new record Freedom to drop on June 30TH. The band has done their best to treat fans to some of the tracks on the album as they unveiled the singles Françafrique (article here) and Elektra (article here) for all the world to hear and we covered them for our singles of thew week. Now the band has unveiled a music video for one of the tracks off the album titled Dawkins Christ. The band offers some insight into the track itself, “The title refers to the famous biologist whose atheist theology has inspired a semi-cult who in turn sees him as a messianic figure, an irony that partly inspired the lyrics. The music draws from the film scores of Hans Zimmer and Ennio Morricone as well as pre-Reign in Blood Slayer.” The video doesn’t feature the band at all in it, but it contains footage of natural disasters, old religious paintings, and even someone jumping off of a bridge. The track itself sounds amazing and I for one cannot wait for the album to come out via Epitaph Records. The band will be touring with Faith No More from July 30TH through August 7TH and for more of their tour info, go here. Check out the video below:

Single Of The Week: Françafrique by Refused

Last month we had the first single from Swedish band Refused called Elektra which was also their first single in over 17 years. The band aims to not disappoint fans as they have now unleashed another single from their upcoming fourth album Freedom called Françafrique and it’s different than the previous single. While Elektra was an in your face rocker, Françafrique has more of a funk infused pop sound to the track that starts with children chanting “Exterminate The Brute” and I have to admit that I am liking what I am hearing so far from these guys. The band’s history is a little different than most as the band broke up right after releasing their critically acclaimed third album The Shape Of Punk To Come in 1998. In 2012, the band reunited and played some gigs for fans that had been craving it for such a long time. Now the band is releasing the album Freedom on June 30 via Epitaph Records and singer Dennis Lyxzén talks about the reason to record, “When we got back together in 2012, I was very confident that that was gonna be it. We’re gonna do 10 shows,’ you know? But then we wound up doing 82, and somewhere down the line we ended up talking about creating new music together. But before that it was pretty unthinkable that this would ever happen. But I think that was partly a matter of history, and sort of the legacy of what Refused was. A lot of people think, ‘Oh, those guys, their last record was The Shape of Punk to Come, they can never f— with that.’ So it’s very unexpected to people that we decided to actually f— with that.” Check out the track below:

Single Of The Week: Elektra by Refused

What happens to a band that releases an album that garners a boat load of critical acclaim? Well, they break up soon after the release of the record only to reunite 17 years later to release more music for all the world to hear. Swedish Hardcore band Refused released their first album The Shape of Punk to Come back in 1998 and they completely shattered the stereotypes and opened doors for other punk bands to accomplish the unthinkable. Well, now fast forward 17 years into the future and the band has a brand new disc called Freedom that they are releasing on June 30TH via Epitaph and it kicks ass. Frontman Dennis Lyxzén had this to say about the situation, “It’s not a reunion anymore. This is one of the most radical things we’ve ever done, both musically and lyrically.” David Sandström adds to the conversation saying, “Nobody wanted us to f— with the image of the band who makes a great album and splits up. Nobody wanted us to dilute it. That actually provoked us.” The song itself has a hard rocking sound to it that reminds me of the Foo Fighters a little bit as far as vocals were concerned and I love it. According to Loudwire.com, “Fans who pre-order Freedom can grab a limited edition exclusive CD package that includes a 28-page hardbound book, exclusive artwork with gold foil stamping and a double-sided poster.” Check out the track below and check out the track listing below that.

Freedome by Refused Track Listing: 

1. Elektra
2. Old Friends / New War
3. Dawkins Christ
4. Françafrique
5. Thought Is Blood
6. War On The Palaces
7. Destroy The Man
8. 366
9. Servants Of Death
10. Useless Europeans

Supergirl, Suicide Squad Get Green Light + More

This arms race which Is what I am calling the battle for supremacy between DC Comics and Marvel Comics when it comes to the cinema is heating up. We all remember that for a very long time in the 80’s that DC was the serious hitter in the theaters with the Christopher Reeves Superman films and the Batman films of the early 90’s. For the most part all Marvel had going for them in the 80’s was The Incredible Hulk TV series with Lou Ferrigno. It wasn’t until Fox started doing the X-Men films and Sony doing the Spider-Man films that Marvel was taken serious in the Box Office. Yeah, they had some mishaps with the Hulk film, Daredevil (which was actually pretty decent), and the Elektra film, but right when Iron Man hit the theaters after that God awful Superman Returns film, Marvel started to take over and DC slowly fell behind. The only thing that was keeping DC afloat was the brilliant Christopher Nolan Dark Knight Trilogy while The Green Lantern was just God awful. Marvel kept it coming with both Thor films, both Captain America films, the first Avengers film, and now Guardians Of The Galaxy which has Marvel at the 7 Billion dollar mark. I will admit that DC started to get back into the game with The Man Of Steel film, but it seems now that the two prominent comic book companies are taking the battle to the tube. Marvel first stepped up to the plate with Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D while Arrow from DC was a smash hit for fans and it made sense. The show was definitely perfect as a television series rather than a film. In October, The CW will debut the brand new Flash series while fox debuts Gotham. Well, now we have more news for the battle of supremacy.

The other day, Fox had announced that they were indeed going to do the Deadpool film which had a lot of us comic book and Marvel fans excited. How did DC respond to that? Well, first they announced that they had green lighted a series for the only channel (CBS) without a superhero show as CBS will carry Supergirl. Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash) is going to be producing the show for Warner Brothers Television along with Ali Adler who is best known for her work with Glee, The New Normal, and No Ordinary Family (which was a short lived TV Series). It is said that they are going to be producing a pilot in hopes the network will order more episodes or else the network will face a hefty penalty as DC is not messing around when it comes to developing this TV Series. So, now at this point, we know that ABC has The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show, Arrow and The Flash are on CW, Fox has Gotham, and NBC has Constantine. We also know that next year ABC will place Agent Carter as a fill in for The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which the second season opens next week). The battle for supremacy is heating up, but there is more news to report.

DC has also announced that they are going to green light the production of a Suicide Squad film. Do you not know who the Suicide Squad is? They are a team of super-villains that are given an opportunity at a lesser sentence if they go on suicide missions for the government. The team features lesser known super villains like Harley Quinn (The Joker’s girlfriend), Deathshot, and Deathstroke. The film is going to be made by David Ayer who recently directed the new Brad Pitt film that looks amazing in Fury. Even though nothing has been signed, sealed, and delivered on that, you have to think that this film could be an interesting watch with David Ayer at the helm. The man is best know for films like Suicide Kings, End Of Watch, and Sabotage which gives you a little bit of insight into how the film may look. The future of DC is looking bright as the company has already announced that Jason Momoa will star as Aquaman in a solo pic, Joesph Gordon-Levitt as Sandman, and Shazam which will feature Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Black Adam. I wanted to add one thing to this is that I would love to see some other comic book companies get films made like The Invisibles and many others.