The Witzard

Jeremy Bolm's headshot and Balladeers, Redefined mustard with red splatter vinyl (CREDIT: Casey Lee / SOURCE: deathwish, Inc.) Painstakingly orchestrated over a two-and-a-half-year period by Jeremy Bolm (Touché Amoré, Hesitation Wounds, The First Ever Podcast,) Balladeers, Redefined showcases 31 Screamo/Screamo-adjacent bands both new and old hailing from all across the world. It saw a wide release just this past Friday on Bolm's own deathwish, Inc. imprint, Secret Voice Records now available on bone with splatter, mustard with red splatter, and Coke bottle green-colored vinyl, digital, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, and zip-up hoodie formats. We recently sent out a five-question fact-finding questionnaire. 14 of these bands/artists graciously got back to us for a partial Balladeers, Redefined track-by-(almost every)-track breakdown. Check it out below and go pick up a copy of Balladeers, Redefined on your preferred format of choice and with that said, "LET'S F***ING ...

Touché Amoré & The Strokes (SOURCES: Epitaph Records / @thestrokes) It's the return of Bandcamp Fridays! While we really don't have the time to go through the endless amounts of emails we've received to give you some recommendations this fine day... we will say this: go and support your favorite artists, big or small. Today, Bandcamp is waiving their fees for 24 hours and providing the artists with 100% of their sales raised. We will, however, provide a recommendation released by one of our favorite bands, Touché Amoré. The Los Angeles-based Post-hardcore band led by Jeremy Bolm and featuring lead guitarist Clayton Stevens, rhythm guitarist Nick Steinhardt, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin have shared something special in honor of today's Bandcamp Friday festivities. "To celebrate the 20 year anniversary of Is This It? by The Strokes, we did a cover of "Hard to Explain," which will be available tomorrow exclusively for Bandcamp Frid...

Late last year, Los Angeles-based Punks Touché Amoré shared a mysterious new stand-alone single entitled "Deflector" in both physical and digital formats. It was a blood-churning chunk of three and a half-minute Post-hardcore/Screamo produced by Ross Robinson, whose credits include At The Drive-In, Glassjaw, Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot. "We need to take a chance with the unfamiliar. Someone who would take us out of our comfort zone. Enter: Ross Robinson, a man who knows no comfort zone. I followed his career all through my youth to being a young adult. When we returned from our recent Midwest tour, we entered the studio to record a song with Ross and see if there was chemistry," frontman Jeremy Bolm shared within a "Deflector"-era press release, at the time. Right around the same time, Touché Amoré released another non-Ross Robinson produced stand-along single, "Green," as well as a newly re-recorded version of 2009 debut full-length, ... T...

CREDIT: Reid Haithcock American Ethos are a mysterious Punk/Hardcore band based out of New England. I, actually, heard about American Ethos through a recent post made by @simpsonsXcore on Instagram, wherein they re-created the cover for American Ethos' recent self-titled debut full-length. Primarily functioning as the long-time "solo" project of guitarist and frontman Daniel Lajoie, American Ethos has featured a rotating cast of players. First established in 2011, Lajoie's American Ethos released a 3-track Demo Twenty Eleven, followed by a 2015 EP entitled Cosmetics​, and yet another EP in 2018 called Futurism. Last year, right before year's end on December 26th, American Ethos returned once more with their self-titled 12-track debut full-length on Texas-based Conditions Records. For this album, Daniel Lajoie has recruited drummer Mike Moschetto and Ryan Stack, who plays organ on "mulligan" and some guitar licks on "the killing chair" & ...

Hesitation Wounds is a Hardcore/Punk super-group consisting of current and former members of Touché Amoré , True Cross, Trap Them , The Hope Conspiracy, The Suicide File , Gouge Away, and Axis . Initially formed in 2012, Hesitation Wounds' first incarnation featuring Touché Amoré frontman Jeremy Bolm , Neeraj Kane (The Hope Conspiracy,) Stephen LaCour (True Cross,) and Jay Weinberg —yes, Max Weinberg of The E Street Band & The Max Weinberg 7's son!—quickly released a 4-song self-titled EP on Deathwish Inc. 's sister label, Secret Voice Records , founded by Bolm. Weinberg briefly played with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, as well as Madball & Against Me! and drummed throughout Slipknot's .5: The Gray Chapter (2014) and will be featured on their upcoming album, We Are Not Your Kind; Jay Weinberg played on Hesitation Wounds' 2016 album, Awake for Everything released on 6131 Records , but has, seemingly, left the band as of June 2019. It appe...