The Damned Things and Crobot
After around seven years of silence since their debut release Ironiclast, hard rock star amalgam the Damned Things will drop a new album on April 26 via Nuclear Blast, High Crimes, with a support tour due to hit Brick by Brick a month later, on May 25. The group has shifted the lineup slightly, having lost former Anthrax (and current Volbeat) guitarist Rob Caggiano and Shiner bassist Josh Newton. However, the roster still features all high caliber players with the kind of marquee pedigree that could populate an entire Wayne’s World soundtrack: Every Time I Die singer Keith Buckley, Alkaline Trio bassist Dan Andriano, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, and two members from Fall Out Boy, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley.
The video for the lead single “Cells” kicks right off in full airplane takeoff roar, with Buckley screaming defiantly about how “I’m a sinful man” and how “you fucked up all my plans.” It’s a frenzied studio performance, filmed in staccato snippets that include almost subliminally brief shots of the band members in between takes, wound down in decompression mode, which by juxtaposition makes all the tats flying around in the camera’s face that much more frenetic. The bill includes Pennsylvania rockers Crobot.