Christmas in June

With the first half of the year nearly over, a quick glance in the rearview reveals some fine albums that will be contending for best of 2009 in another six months. Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz, Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love, and Silversun Pickups' Swoon are standouts of the past five months.

The past is just that though. It's time to look ahead as we always do here. Within the last few days, a ton of new info about bands we love has made its way on the web. Here's a quick rundown with a little sampling of what's to come for the last seven months of the first decade of the next 100 years.

Arctic Monkeys

They exploded in 2006 with their record shattering debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, and led a UK indie rock onslaught that included Bloc Party, The Kooks, The Rakes, Elbow, and Hard Fi. Alex Turner and the Monkeys returned with 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare, a very worthy follow up that advanced the sound of WPSIATWIN's more aggressive tracks ("Brianstorm," "Teddy Picker," and "Old Yellow Bricks") while pulling back at the right moments ("505" and "Do Me a Favour").

Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco produced the new, untitled Arctic Monkeys disc due August 25. Below is the tracklist and an acoustic version of new song, "Fire & The Thud."

01. My Propeller
02. Crying Lightning
03. Dangerous Animals
04. Secret Door
05. Potion Approaching
06. Fire & The Thud
07. Cornerstone
08. Dance Little Liar
09. Pretty Visitors
10. The Jeweller’s Hands

Fire & The Thud (acoustic)

The Mars Volta

Everyone's favorite (or not so much) band of prog-rockin', space-jammin', musical visionaries return for another round of musical complexity and polarization with their new album, Octahedron, due June 23. Below is the album's track list and first single with the alarmingly simple (for these guys) title of "Since We've Been Wrong."

01. Since We've Been Wrong
02. Teflon
03. Halo of Nembutals
04. With Twilight as My Guide
05. Cotopaxi
06. Desperate Graves
07. Copernicus
08. Luciforms

"Since We've Been Wrong"

courtesy of i guess i'm floating

The Beatles

Yes, The Beatles. You may have heard of them. They're sort of the most important band in the history of rock and roll. That statement is debatable obviously, but John, Paul, George, and Ringo's contributions to the world of music cannot be argued. Now, the Fab Four will become video game stars September 9, 2009, with the release of The Beatles Rock Band (and effectively boost the band's catalog sales while introducing them to a whole new generation of fans).

While it was widely known that The Beatles Rock Band would appear on shelves in September, E3 kicked off yesterday with a trailer for the game that you can see below. The game follows the band from their modest beginnings through to the bitter end on top of the Abbey Road studios via 45 playable songs that touch on the band's iconic periods and showcase the musical strokes of genius which define The Beatles' indelible career.