It is easy to devolve into rock-and-roll review cliché when discussing The Gaslight Anthem’s stunning fourth album, American Slang, but it would be a disservice to the band to resort to such clichés because on their new album they do so assiduously. Far from your typical three-chord punk rock exercise, The Gaslight Anthem exercises their musical chops by delving into both soul and classic rock constructs. By doing so, they make clear both their reverence for the past and their desire to propel those sounds to present-day audiences.

In 34 exhilarating, manic minutes, the band blasts through 10 songs without ever feeling rushed. Their songs never feel incomplete and you’re left with one standout track following another. The title song, which is also the album’s opener, is magnificent and urgent, and you can’t help but want to pump your fist in time to the pounding drums.

From there, the disc just explodes. “Stay Lucky” demands to be played loud with the top down. And it is two tracks in where you realize, as a listener, that you cannot describe the disc without lapsing into cliché because the album is so full of energy, so alive that you want to tell people to open their windows, put the roof down, and turn the volume up to 11.

The album is also so well-written, performed, and assembled that you want to highlight every track. Without ruining the entire surprise, it’s worth pointing out that “The Diamond Church Street Choir” will make you understand the comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, more specifically, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, circa-1973. The “Wall of Sound” allusions, the sing-along chorus, the way in which every instrument fights to jump to the forefront while, at the same time, knowing its place, these are all components that hearken to The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. American Slang proves, on this track, that The Gaslight Anthem cannot be shoehorned simply into the punk genre.

Closing the disc is “We Did It When We Were Young,” which is melodically reminiscent of U2’s “With Or Without You” and much like that band’s “40” would serve as a tremendous closing song for their live shows. (Some might argue that it should be the penultimate track, followed by “The Diamond Church Street Choir,” but we’ll leave that discussion for another time.)

Simply put, The Gaslight Anthem’s American Slang is the best album released so far this year and while it is possible – though unlikely – that a band will produce as good a release in 2010, they won’t release a better one.

100

U2 has been forced to postpone its 2010 tour of North America, and cancel its June 25 headlining spot on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury festival, as a result of frontman Bono’s emergency back surgery.

Bono called Glastonbury organizer Michael Eaves earlier Tuesday to tell him that the band would not be able to make its first-ever appearance at the festival, due to his back injury, which will keep him out of action for two months.

“I’m heartbroken,” Bono said in a statement. “We really wanted to be there to do something really special – we even wrote a song especially for the festival.”

No replacement has been named. Some reports have Dizzee Rascal moving up the bill to take the headlining spot and others have indicated that Eaves will ask Coldplay to perform.

According to U2.com – the band’s official Web site – Bono sustained the injury during tour preparation training. He has been discharged from the hospital.
“Bono suffered severe compression of the sciatic nerve,” Dr. Muller Wohlfahrt said on the site. “On review of his MRI scan, I realized there was a serious tear in the ligament and a herniated disc, and that conservative treatment would not suffice. I recommended Bono have emergency spine surgery with Professor Tonn at Munich’s LMU University Hospital on Friday [May 21].”

fessor Tonn, who carried out the operation, added: “He was already in severe pain with partial paralysis in the lower leg. The ligament surrounding the disc had an 8mm tear and during surgery we discovered fragments of the disc had traveled into the spinal canal. This surgery was the only course of treatment for full recovery and to avoid further paralysis. Bono is now much better, with complete recovery of his motor deficit. The prognosis is excellent but to obtain a sustainable result, he must now enter a period of rehabilitation.”

Wohlfahrt added that “we are treating Bono as we would treat any of our athletes and while the surgery has gone very well, the coming weeks are crucial for a return to full health. In the next days, he will start a light rehabilitation program, with increasing intensity over the next 8 weeks. In our experience, this is the minimum time.”

Lady Gaga continues to dominate the music industry by picking up five (5) awards at the World Music Awards held yesterday in Monte Carlo. The singer took home the following awards: World’s Best Single for “Poker Face,” World’s Best Album, The Fame, World’s Best Pop/Rock Artist, World’s Best New Artist and Best-Selling US Artist. In addition to Gaga other winners included David Guetta, Black Eyed Peas, Akon and Jennifer Lopez was honored with the Legend for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts award.

See the full list of winners below:

Lady Gaga
World’s Best Single- “Poker Face”
World’s Best Album- “The Fame”
World’s Best Pop/Rock Artist
World’s Best New Artist

Black Eyed Peas
World’s Best Hip Hop Artist
World’s Best R&B Artist
World’s Best Pop Artist

David Guetta
World’s Best DJ
Producer of The Year

U2
World’s Best Rock Artist

Andrea Bocelli
World’s Best Classical Artist

Jennifer Lopez
Legend for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts

The Scorpions
Rock Legends

Best Selling Artists from Around the World
Africa: Akon
America: Lady Gaga
Asia: Namie Amuro
Australia: Empire of the Sun
Canada: Michael Bublé
France: David Guetta
Great Britain: Susan Boyle
Ireland: U2
Italy: Tiziano Ferro
Latin America: Shakira
Middle East: Elissa
Scandinavia: Ah-a
Spain: Monica Naranjo

Even prior to the kick-off of the 2010 North American leg of Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour, fans will be able to purchase tickets for the 2011 leg , starting May 14. The 2011 North American Monster Ball tour will begin February 19, 2011, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Ten arena dates have been confirmed for the 2011 North American tour. Semi Precious Weapons will support Lady Gaga on all of the 2011 dates…

It has announced, via a post on the band’s official Web site, that Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler has left the band.  “He has decided to follow another path, and to pursue new goals,” the note read. “This separation is amicable, and we whole-heartedly wish him great happiness and success. We will remain, as always, deeply respectful fans of this blazingly talented individual.” Carlos D completed working with the band on its forthcoming album, but will be replaced for the band’s upcoming tour, including dates in support of U2…

Anthrax announced Monday (May 10) that original member Joey Belladonna has rejoined the band officially after 18 years away from the group. Belladonna fronted the group from 1985 through 1992 and performed with the group for the 2005-2007 Among the Living tour, but Belladonna and the other members of the band consider this an official return. The group will be touring with Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer this summer…

Every generation has a band whose regular creation of compelling, literate albums causes them to become iconic. Perhaps their first album was a huge hit and they were able to follow that success with further critical and popular hits – Pearl Jam in the 1990s. Perhaps they released albums of high-quality and gained popularity with each subsequent release, before exploding into the popular music consciousness with an album so big, it could not be ignored – U2 in the 1980s and 1990s or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps they released a number of critically-acclaimed albums and created a rabid fan base, but never crossed over to the mainstream – The Replacements in the 1980s come to mind immediately.

The progression is not necessarily a rapid one, even if the success is immediate. Tens of thousands of bands have produced one great album and thousands have produced two. Rare is the band whose output is – with few missteps – consistently engaging and enervating. The great bands usually pair their studio talents with a compelling live show; one that causes its fans to want to be there every night, so as not to miss a moment of potential magic or mayhem.

Inevitably, the problem with anointing a band, even if it fits relatively well into one of the categories described above, is that opens oneself up to criticism. If you make the proclamation early in a band’s career – after three albums – there will be those who want to hear an established body of work, and who will argue that it is, indeed, too soon to label the band as great. If you make the proclamation after the band has released half a dozen discs, the cynics will wonder what took you so long, even if you wanted to stamp the band with the imprimatur of greatness a few discs earlier. (The mathematically-inclined among you will likely argue that the number is somewhere between two and six, and that four is the answer to the question.)

And so, it is with that 300-plus word introduction that this writer will posit that the time is right (and the time is now) to declare that The Hold Steady is the best band in the United States. There is no double-elimination bracket that can prove this statement conclusively – which is unfortunately, because the argument can be made that The Hold Steady would be a five-or-six seed and a shrewd gambler would be able to clean up – but, with the release of its fifth album, Heaven Is Whenever – a disc that is likely to hold up when it’s time to make the year-end, best-of lists – The Hold Steady has proven not only that the band has proven worthy of being placed in the lofty company of the bands named above, but also that it’s time for music fans to embrace them so that they can continue to grow, and so that they won’t eventually go in the direction of their hometown Minneapolis, Minnesota legends, the Replacements; a band that only began to get its proper due long after it was broken up.

One speed bump on the road to immortality is the fact that the new disc, while as compelling as its previous releases, is less accessible, less commercial, than its predecessors. It is a disc that showcases a band in flux; one which lost its keyboardist, Franz Nicolay, and which demands more attention than previous releases. The disc is layered, with multiple levels of sonic enjoyment weaved into the musical tapestry that is its tracks. A genuinely-compelling listen the first time through, the disc grows, from its country-tinged opener, “The Sweet Part of the City,” into a rock disc which feels more organic than its previous few discs.

It’s not clear that Heaven Is Whenever will bring an influx of new fans of The Hold Steady, but it will convince its current base that this is a band that continues to challenge its fans and itself, and that this is a band that deserves to be revered, for few make better music than The Hold Steady does.

Since Rolling Stone has been one of the most respected music publications for the past 40 years, it’s only right that they continue to expand on their eight languages in over 15 countries around the globe.  The publication entered the Bulgarian market in November 2009 and, while it is the baby of the bunch, has already been covered by a few heavy hitters including Robbie Williams, U2, The Beatles, Lady Gaga (which is reminiscent of her The Fame Monster album art) and most recently, Madonna.

The launch comes as a labor of love of American University in Bulgaria student, Anelia Ilieva, who is also the editions’ editor-in-chief. Founder Jann Wenner expressed, “We are happy that our readers continue to expand in number. We admire the optimism and enthusiasm of the Bulgarian team in this unfavorable economic climate.” The Bulgarian edition is published and distributed by Sivir Publications. Check out the covers below.

Seattle, Washington’s Minus the Bear has announced the May 4 release of its new album, Omni, via Dangerbird Records. The group will kick off a six-week tour of North America, with dates and cities to be announced shortly…

Interpol will support U2 at six stadium shows this summer.  Interpol will join the tour June 27, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and will remain on the road through a July 12 performance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lenny Kravitz and The Fray were also announced as opening acts for U2 this summer…

Grammy-award winner David Guetta will launch an exclusive iPhone application March 2. Guetta’s fans will be able to follow him as he moves from city to city, and will be able to use a feature which transfers the iPhone and iPod Touch into a miniature mixing deck, allowing fans to remix and play with Guetta’s “Sexy Bitch” (featuring Akon)…

The Hounds Below, a new band featuring the Von Bondies‘ frontman Jason Stollsteimer will kick off a tour of the western United States Wednesday (February 24), in Spokane, Washington, and wrap with a pair of shows in Austin, Texas, March 20…

Robbie Rivera will headline Juicy Beach, March 25, one of the showcase events of the Winter Music Conference, in Miami, Florida. The 17-hour event will feature performances from Rivera, Joachim Garraud, Funk Agenda, Antoine Clamaran, Alex Gaudino, Oscar G, Wally Lopez, and many other electronic artists.

Groovevolt.com recently spoke with the energetic and genial Rivera about the evolution of Juicy Beach and the overall state of electronic music in North America.

Groovevolt: Tell me a little more about Juicy Beach and why you put it all together in the first place.
Robbie Rivera: I started doing the Juicy party in Miami around 2005 and I was just doing it in small venues with around 100-odd people and they were swamped, swamped, swamped parties and people couldn’t get in and Monica, my wife said that we could throw a party for three, four, five thousand people, but where could you do that in Miami. I went to Nikki Beach, I know the owner, so I asked him, ‘Hey, can we do a humongous beach party here where we bring the Juicy sound, the sexy rhythms, the happy vibe, to the beach crowd, and dancing all day and then continuing the party inside the venue at night and he just loved the idea, and we held the first one here, and we get in around seven thousand people.

GV: You curate all of the artists yourself. Are there certain people that you wanted to get and couldn’t for this year, and how happy are you with the lineup right now?

RR: When I do my lineup, I try to bring a lot of my friends I know and people that produce music on my label and sometimes I want to bring people I know are difficult to get now, for example, I wanted to get Benny Benassi here, Benny and I got way back, playing that party three times, four times, but he couldn’t this year because he was exclusive to another party, so it kind of gets difficult with the talent that I want to bring, so what I do now is bring in new cats who are blowing like Koen Groeneveld.

GV: You’ve become such a brand that everyone wants to be a part of it. Is it difficult as an artist to also think of yourself as a brand?
RR: It’s awesome that my name and the Juicy brand have taken off. We’re planning now this summer coming up doing JuicyBeach at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. We had offers from three different hotels in Vegas and I was overwhelmed and I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome,’ and I never thought of myself as a brand, but I guess it turned out to be that way.

GV: Are there other Juicy Beaches planned in other locations?
RR: We’re going to do Vegas once a month throughout the summer at the Wet Republic party, and then we’re going to be doing Cabo San Lucas.

GV: You’re going to be broadcasting Juicy Beach Miami on Sirius/XM. Tell me your feelings about being able to broadcast on satellite radio.
RR: It’s tough, because you have to get the permission of all the artists, because they’re afraid about people downloading [the sets.] But in a sense, having the show live on the radio enables people to listen to the party live and that’s very cool.

GV: Do you get the sense that the electronic music scene is starting to become stronger in North America?
RR: North America is already caught up. I love to play in North America now. All the parties here are crazy. The amount of fans that I’ve seen here compared to other countries, is really up there.

GV: You’ve stated that your influences are rock as well as electronic-based. Tell me about your influences.
RR: I grew up listening to so many different styles of music. A lot of people have asked me what DJs influenced me… My music has lots of energy and I think that came from listening to rock so much. A band that really has that energy is Pearl Jam. I grew up listening to that. I also mix into that by listening to Faithless or Lords of Acid. I had a lot of Latin music as well growing up.

GV: With all your success, is there somewhere you haven’t reached that you want to get to?
RR: I’ve never played in Australia or Japan and I’m looking forward to getting over there. It comes down to where you want to grow as an artist, and financially as well. I think America right now is the biggest place to be an electronic music artist. I think it’s huge here and there’s a lot of people supporting it big time and that’s why I play so much here.

GV: Do you think it’s more fertile than Europe right now?
RR: Europe has gone down big time. A lot of people always think Europe is the best and my main market was Europe for 12 years and it’s switched to North America. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing in France and Spain… but it’s not the way it used to be. Generations change. Kids change. For me, it doesn’t feel the way it was back in the day.

GV: Are there any artists you’d like to work with that you haven’t worked with already? Who’s on your wish list?
RR: I would like to remix many artists I’ve never worked with. I would love to remix bands like Coldplay or U2. I like a lot of pop artists that are out there.

GV: Do you ever see taking the Juicy brand to bigger venues or is a five-or-six-thousand person venue as large as it will get?
RR: I have an idea of doing a humongous Juicy Beach all ages, I haven’t found a location, but it’s definitely in my head.

GV: Have you ever thought of a stadium-sized show?
RR: We had an idea about doing something at the American Airlines Arena here. It’s definitely something that needs a lot of planning, and unfortunately, I do so much stuff, I haven’t had the time to figure it out.

U2 will headline the Glastonbury festival in 2010, marking the first time that the group has played the festival. 2010 will mark the 40th anniversary of the legendary festival. Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young headlined the 2009 edition of the fest. Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis noted that U2 will headline Friday night and that he is still working on “three or four superstars” to appear during the fest. Among the rumored bands are Muse, the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, David Bowie, and Led Zeppelin…

In conjunction with the recent release of his Christmas In The Heart album, Bob Dylan sat down for an interview with journalist Bill Flanagan. The interview, which is the only one Dylan is doing in conjunction with the release of the album, will be syndicated worldwide through the International Network of Street Papers…

Maxwell will headline a special benefit performance at Club Nokia L.A. Live in Los Angeles, California, December 2. The concert will follow the live televised event The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!! All proceeds from Maxwell’s concert will benefit the GRAMMY Museum…

Paul van Dyk will perform a four-hour set on New Year’s Eve at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom. Tickets range in price from $75 to $775…

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, U2, Eric Clapton, Metallica, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Simon and Garfunkel are among the artists who will appear at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, October 29 and 30, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Tickets for the show will go on sale to the general public, starting August 3. A four-hour highlights show will be presented on HBO in mid-November…

Phish will host Festival 8, a three-day music festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, October 30 through November 1. The festival will take place at the site of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The weekend will include a Halloween show where the band will play an entire album by another band…

Billy Joel and Elton John have been forced to postpone a second show in upstate New York after Joel was advised by his doctors not to perform for 72 hours due to “extreme fatigue.” The duo postponed a show Friday night (July 24) in Buffalo, New York, and will not be performing at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, Monday night (July 28). The shows will likely be rescheduled…