Bullet For My Valentine have announced a string of UK shows throughout November, for some of their biggest shows this side of the pond.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Friday 13th) at 9am. Catch them at:

Sunday 9th November - Edinburgh Corn Exchange
Tuesday 11th November - Plymouth Pavilions
Wednesday 12th November - Birmingham Academy
Saturday 15th November - London Alexandra Palace
Sunday 16th November - Manchester Apollo

US rockers My Morning Jacket have announced some UK dates for June and July as they do the “European festival thing”.

They’ll play five dates between trips over to mainland Europe and trips to T in the Park and Glastonbury. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but I assume they will by by Friday, 9am.

Wednesday 25th June - Sheffield Leadmill
Thursday 26th June - Bristol Academy
Friday 27th June - Manchester University
Friday 11th July - Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Tuesday 15th July - London Forum

Dubliner’s My Bloody Valentine have announced three re-union shows mid 2008.

I’m assuming that they’ll be playing soe festivals around the same sort of time as well, due to the spread out nature of the dates. Tickets go on sale on Friday (16th November), but are sure to go quick so make sure you get them at 9am!

Friday 20th June 208 - London Roundhouse
Saturday 28th June 2008 - Manchester Apollo
Wednesday 2nd July 2008 - Glasgow Barrowland

Heavy rockers from Bridgend, Bullet for My Valentine have announced a quick UK tour in early February 2008. They’ll play five dates around the UK in a week.

Tickets go on sale on Friday morning at 9am, or now for those of you with a Live Nation account (scum), where they’re on presale.

Thursday 31st January 2008 - Newport Centre
Friday 1st February - Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Sunday 3rd February - Glasgow Academy
Monday 4th February - Manchester Academy
Thursday 7th February - London Brixton Academy

Photo is taken from Adam Mulligan’s flickr stream under the creative commons license.

“Big doesn’t always mean better” my mum told me many moons ago, and indeed an ex-girlfriend also commented on much the same. However, in the case of Swedish exports I’m From Barcelona, big does mean better. The 29 piece jangly pop symphony offer a lesson in writing simple, slightly crazy tunes that sound, well, amazing.

Sounding like The Polyphonic Spree if they were Swedish, this collective manage to combine all the excitement and pure jubilation that the ‘spree have in their records with some quality indie-pop tunes that cross over between cult and pop by being extremely accessible.

Debut album “Let Me Introduce My Friends” opens with four would-be singles and received rave reviews from The Music Slut and Pitchfork, but possibly their greatest song is the marvellous off-album track and live favourite “Britney”. Featuring the (simply genius) lyric of: ‘Why do we care if good ol’ Britney wants to shave her hair?/They don’t know a thing about you/Girl I wanna look like you’, it looks set to be one song to transport them onto bigger things.

The album is full of energetic, memorable hooks that’ll have you humming along all day, and whilst the ‘Spree’s tracks can go on for up to 10 minutes on CD (let alone their live shows); most of Barcelona’s tracks are 3 minute pop wonders.

Led by the energetic (and Gogol-Bordello reject looks) Emanuel Lundgren, the 29-piece struggles to fit on most of the smaller stages that they’ve been touring recently, however hopefully in time they’ll come to play larger venues as they become bigger.

After the jump: video of I’m From Barcelona’s ‘We’re From Barcelona’ (confusing, eh?). Photo is from Martin Deutsch’s flickr stream under the Creative commons license.
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Emo returns to the Uk in mid November when My Chemical Romance bring their show for a short three date tour. Expect screaming girls, flicky fringes, crying boys, and more eye makeup than Kiss ever dared use.

Catch them at the following dates: (Though expect more to be added)

Sunday 11th November - Newcastle Metro Arena
Tuesday 13th November - Sheffield Hallam Arena
Thursday 15th November - London O2 Arena

Tickets go on sale on Friday morning (3rd August) at 9am.

Photo taken from Tozzer’s flickr stream.

One of my favourite bands, The New Pornographers (really, they just do pop music - nothing dirty!) have released a taster of their forthcoming new album, the enticingly named “Challengers” that will hopefully be one of the records of the year, going by their progression through their previous three albums.

As a first taste of the album I must say that its good, however not anything that’s made me go “WOW!” It sounds a lot like AC Newman’s solo stuff, with less pop power, which to me is a shame - I did love the pop tastic moments of “Twin Cinema” such as “The Bleeding Heart Show” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, and going by this one track “Challengers” doesn’t have this pop momentum. However, I’m sure it’ll be just as good in other ways… they always are!

News comes via Stereogum

“My Rights versus Yours” is available to download here

Picture is taken from Presta’s flickr stream