Item specifics – Wristwatches

• SIZE: XL: 41 – 47 MM 3 to 9 O’Clock.
• 100 M: Good for Surfing, Snorkeling, and Spear Fishing.
• Light: Use Your Watch in the Dark.
• World Time: Knows the Time in Other Parts of the World.
• Sleep Mode: Digital Display Turns Off.
• Day and Date: Displays the Day and Date.
• Alarm: Has Alarm Functionality.
• Movement: Custom Ana/Digi World Time With 34 Cities, Alarm, Chrono, Sleep Mode And Light.
• Case: Custom 100 Meter Stainless Steel With Hardened Mineral Crystal And Triple Gasket Crown.
• Band: Custom Solid Stainless Steel With Double Locking Clasp.

Saosin “Starwars” Sweatshirt
Selling Price: $35.00
Model: SO126
Colour: Black

Model: SO141

Sep 04, 2009
LIVE IN LA AND CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF SAOSIN LIVE?
Make sure to catch Saosin during the first week of their highly anticipated new release In Search Of Solid Ground out on Tuesday, September 8. See below for all the exciting events happening in your neighborhood. The band will sign your copy of their NEW ALBUM after each set!

Monday, September 7
Secret Show at Pac Sun
Time: 4:00 PM
LOCATION: TBA!
Tuesday, September 8 (Release Day!)
Best Buy Parking Lot Performance!
Time: 6:00 PM Signing: 7:30 PM
Palmdale, CA
Get Driving Directions HERE

Wednesday, September 9
Best Buy Acoustic In-store Performance
Time: 6:00 PM Signing: 7:30 PM
Northridge, CA
Get Driving Directions HERE

Thursday, September 10
Best Buy Acoustic In-store Performance
Time: 6:00 PM Signing: 7:30 PM
Riverside, CA
Get Driving Directions HERE

Friday, September 11
Best Buy Acoustic In-store Performance
Time: 6:00 PM Signing: 7:30 PM
Westminster, CA
Get Driving Directions HERE

Saturday, September 12
Smartpunk.com
Chain Reaction
Time: 6:00 PM Signing: 7:30 PM
Anaheim, CA

HIM frontman Ville Valo seems totally at home sitting poolside at his hotel in L.A. Sipping tea between cigarettes, the lead singer of the first Finnish band ever to go gold in the U.S. is happy to be back in L.A. after spending months at home recording the band’s follow up to 2005’s Dark Light, the aforementioned gold record. Then again, if the quintet hadn’t been at home during the dark, cold winter months they might not have recorded the aptly named Venus Doom, an album that Valo describes as being “Like a trip into my personal hell to a certain extent.”

Musically, the album is the dark, hard rocking soundtrack necessary to accompany Valo’s downward descent. “I felt that we needed a lot less keyboards and there was just going to be more punching to the face type of thing,” Valo says, referring to the differences between Dark Light and Venus Doom. “The whole vibe seems fresh cause the direction we had with the last album we couldn’t go further. So the album sonically is a bit more sparse. That’s the direction we’re heading; heavier, doomier, and gloomier, and it’s great to tour that kind of stuff.”

HIM will get the chance to see how the new material translates to the stage over the summer when they join Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, and more on the main stage of L.P.’s Projekt Revolution tour. “All the bands are kind of crossover in what they do, that’s really interesting,” Valo says. “This is the first kind of traveling festival type of thing we’ve done cause they don’t have anything like that back in Europe, so it’s exciting.” He’s also intrigued by the eclecticism of the tour. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to be there,” he says of the mix of bands.

When talking about the musical references in the album, Valo rattles off Sabbath and old-school Metallica. That rock authenticity and ferocity are evident from the opening match that kicks off the incendiary title track. The savage intensity is kept up in the machine gun style attack of “Love in Cold Blood,” a track that explodes in a vicious guitar solo. The trademark HIM sense of melody is found both in choruses throughout and in tracks like “Dead Lover’s Lane,” as well as the acoustic “Song or Suicide,” a track recorded at L.A.’s historic Chateau Marmont.

Working with producer Tim Palmer (U2, Hot Hot Heat, Switchfoot), who helmed Dark Light, and Hiili, the man behind the controls of the band’s first album, the quintet has created a journey through many moods and feelings. Often times, as on the title track, the epic 10-minute plus “Sleepwalking Past Hope,” and the Zeppelin-infused closer, “Cyanide Sun,” that journey is an intricate one encompassing a diverse series of sonic landscapes in the span of a single song. “In this one we have a bit longer songs so arrangement-wise there’s more differences within the song,” Valo says. “We wanted that contrast, having really nice beautiful melodies and then having that really crunchy guitar thing in there; so to have the balance between the right and wrong so to speak.”

The multi-layered tone of Venus Doom is something the band was striving for. “The idea to have nine songs was based on Dante’s Inferno, cause hell has nine layers, so it’s like going deeper down into hell and then coming back,” Valo says. “There are so many different vibes and moods in the album that it’s cool once you listen to it again, because you can’t absorb everything with one listen.”

While that complexity hearkens back to great albums, something Valo is very aware of, it’s also a fitting attitude for a band that continues to grow up. In fact, keyboardist Burton had his first kid last year, prompting the group to record Venus Doom back at home in Finland to allow the band members more time to spend with their families.

Valo, who reads a great deal for inspiration, this time turning to Scandinavian poetry, admits recording in Finland had some bearing on the tone of the record. “We recorded the album during the winter so that could be one of the reasons it sounds a bit gloomy and doomy; it’s always dark and super cold.”

Weather and dark poetry aside though, it was Valo’s own evolving life that had the biggest influence on the record. The lead single, “Kiss of Dawn,” was inspired by the death of one of his close friends. “One of my mates from here in L.A. committed suicide two and a half years ago, and that’s a tribute to him,” Valo says of the song. “It’s about how it is on the other side and how we react to it on this side. Just a young guy who had the world, everything is possible, but deep depression and too many drugs cause you to do stupid things. So the subject matter is not light on the album. But it’s good to get this out. It’s cathartic.”

Some of the stuff Valo says he can only get out through songs. “There are a couple of tunes that are too close to me personally, I can’t talk about, so it’s better to leave that stuff open for interpretation,” he says. Nowadays I don’t tend to write songs of just one story, there’s usually three of them going on at the same time. And it’s good to leave people pondering, because my story is as wrong or right as their story. If you find something that fits your life or situation you’re in, that makes it true.”

Don’t let the heavy topics and the self-proclaimed doom and gloom, requisites for any self-respecting hard rock record, fool you though. Valo says the making of this album was all about what would be fun for the band. “This one we were like, ‘Let’s just have a lot of fun and play as loud as we can,’” he says. “And most of the songs were originally on guitars so I was playing riffs differently. It was just me playing my Telecaster through a fuzz box and rocking out.”

So what does Ville Valo want fans to take from the album? “Nobody can say the album’s not heavy or that it’s not emotional or not melodic,” he says. “It’s got everything we’re all about and that’s where we are now as a band.”

But even those who have grown used to the unexpected from Atreyu will be blown away by the musical growth, determination and depth of the band’s Hollywood Records debut Lead Sails Paper Anchor.

Embracing new styles of singing and playing, a previously unexplored level of melodicism and a genre-shattering range of instrumentation – including Turkish saz, trumpets, strings, piano, opera vocals and pedal steel guitar – Atreyu have created an exultant disc that expands the parameters of heavy music and unabashedly exposes the band members’ love of ‘80s metal, thrash, industrial, hardcore, alternative and even alt-country. At the same time, Atreyu have written some of the heaviest, most brutal tracks of their career. “Can’t Happen Here” starts with the sound of machine guns, helicopters and screaming children, then breaks into a marching snare beat before bursting into a melodic mix of raging vocals, abrupt rhythmic shifts and a trademark Atreyu monster hook refrain. And just try to find progressions as driving and pounding as “Becoming The Bull,” “Honor” and “Doomsday.”

“We wanted to push everything about the band further than ever,” explains drummer and songwriter Brandon Saller. “We wanted the heavy parts to be as heavy as anything we’ve done, and at the same time we wanted to go full force with ideas we’ve never even approached.”?

“It’s totally us, but it comes from a musically more mature place,” adds singer Alex Varkatzas. “You can really hear us pushing ourselves to make everything as good as we possibly could.”

?The first single from the album, “Becoming The Bull,” kicks off with a monster guitar groove and stomping beat before shifting into a turbo-charged chorus. Then, mid-song, the band explores dynamics with a soft, atmospheric passage that builds into a horrific scream and another pummeling groove.?

“That song is about the struggle of every day life and trying to deal with it and get your shit together,” Varkatzas says. “Life is all about good and bad and it’s important to realize that in order to keep your anity.” “When we finished the demo for that song, we were all amazed,” Saller says. “It’s so different for us, but it’s so cool, and it was the first indication that this record was going to be everything we wanted it to be.”?

The most adventurous song on Lead Sails Paper Anchor is “Falling Down,” which begins with a shuffling beat and a near-rockabilly riff that builds in intensity until it bursts in a chorus of blaring horns and harmonized vocals, then launches into space with a blazing metal solo.

“We were doing whatever we felt like the whole time, and at one point I went, ‘Dude, I really want some horns somewhere on the record,’” says Varkatzas. “I really like bands like Rocket From the Crypt. So we put them in there and they’re tight and punchy and really help keep the song interesting.”

Another curveball comes on “Lead Sails (and a Paper Anchor)” a blend of alt-country, pop and flamboyant hard rock that features pedal steel guitar, plucked strings and sweeping, dramatic vocals.

“I think I’ve always wanted to do a country ballad,” Saller says. “We did everything we wanted to accomplish on this album. It’s leaps and bounds from where we were. This is us saying loud and clear that we can and will write and do whatever feels good to us.”

One thing that’s always felt good to Atreyu is ‘80s metal, and on Lead Sails Paper Anchor they indulge themselves like never before – especially on “Blow,” in which the band pays homage to the excesses of ‘80s metal and bands like Motley Crue (Buckcherry’s Josh Todd provides guest vocals on the track).

“It has been a long time since someone made a big, epic hard rock song, and that one definitely came from [guitarist] Dan [Jacobs],” Saller says. “He has always been big time into ‘80s rock and metal and this time we took that stuff and made it bigger than life.”

Just as surprising as the eclecticism of the songs is Varkatzas’ growth as a singer. His expanded singing techniques – harsh and melodic, brash and snotty, tunefully melancholy — effectively bridge the band’s previous blend of corrosive howls and tuneful crooning.

“I was screaming for three records straight, and it was time to bring in some new elements,” Varkatzas says. “I did that a little bit on our last album A Death-Grip on Yesterday, but I didn’t have the right tools. For this, I worked hard and practiced my ass off. I don’t have god given talent. My talent is in my determination. I’ll just try fucking hard and suck at something for a while until I finally get it right.”

Some of the riffs on Lead Sails Paper Anchor were written when Atreyu were on last year’s Ozzfest and others came on the bus during headline dates. But the majority of the songwriting took place last December and January after Atreyu got off the road. “I made it a point to sit down and write every single day,” says Saller. “Whether it was a single riff a full song or nothing of importance, I just came up with as much as I could.”

In their native UK, the band have been nothing less than a phenomenon, scoring three Top 20 singles, a gold-certified debut album, headlining the second stage of the world famous Reading/Leeds Festival and winning Kerrang!’s Best Newcomer award. Here in the States, the band has received reams of critical praise while growing their ever-increasing fanbase via tours alongside such like-minded outfits as Linkin Park, Taking Back Sunday, Coheed & Cambria, From Autumn To Ashes and Atreyu. All of which can be quite a headfuck, especially if you factor in the twenty-something tumult as well.

“HOURS,” Funeral For A Friend’s eagerly anticipated second Atlantic Records release, tells the story of that headfuck, passionately essaying the vulnerability of young adulthood via such potent tracks as the album’s first single, “Streetcar.” Following on the heels of 2003′s breakthrough label debut, “CASUALLY DRESSED & DEEP IN CONVERSATION,” Funeral For A Friend have carefully cast a sound by turns heavier and softer than before, with the band’s dual impulses for metallic riffage and melodic bloom no longer at odds with each other.

“We wanted to make a record that had no sense of compromise,” adds guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts. “Something people would either really love or hate, that no one would feel “wishy-washy” about. There’s no middle ground.”

For this purpose, the band left their native South Wales for Seattle, Washington, where they lived for two months recording “HOURS” with renowned hard rock producer Terry Date (famed for his work with Soundgarden, Pantera and Deftones among others). The two months of sessions working at both the legendary Bad Animals studio, and Pearl Jam’s own, personally built studio was the longest the band had stayed in one place for as long as they could remember. They put down roots as deep as they could, digging inside of themselves for the music that would make up “HOURS.”

“To be honest, we didn’t see all that much of Seattle,” drummer Ryan Richards notes. “We were so excited about the process of making the record, we stayed in the studios most days and nights.”

“We knew we had to make a landmark record,” adds bassist Gareth Davies. “It had to be better than anything we’d done before.”

While the band was rightly proud of the acclaimed “CASUALLY DRESSED & DEEP IN CONVERSATION,” they nonetheless viewed it as somewhat compromised, compiling previously released singles and only a handful of new tracks. They were determined that “HOURS” would be a proper album of pace, structure, mood and sentiment. It would reflect the distance Funeral For A Friend had come as both musicians and as songwriters. The bludgeoning hardcore assault was finessed, strengthened; the melodies were stronger, stickier, nagging and unforgettable. Matt Davies’ lyric sheet rang the changes further: deeper, darker, more mature, his words navigating the same emotional icebergs he and the band had encountered over the past year.

“The album is all about the idea that nobody’s perfect, “he reflects, “that perfection doesn’t exist. That nothing is that well-built.”

Though Funeral For A Friend is a true group, stronger than the sum of their parts, it was Matt in particular who felt the pressures of the preceding months. As the group’s focal point, he became the fulcrum and sustained the deepest wounds, learned the hardest lessons, on behalf of the band. There were points where his voice suffered, where his health as a whole suffered. There was a stay in the hospital.

“My body was shutting down,” Davies recalls. “was skeletal, fucked up. I thought, “All this pain, should I just go away? Should I just croak it?” But then I realized I’ve got a lot of things to look forward to. I’ve got to get better, get my ass moving!”

Those feelings inform “HOURS,” from its deeply personal lyrics to its emotionally charged sonic power. While “Monster’s Ball” and “At The End Of Nothing” are fraught with a ferocious ferocity that is, quite frankly, breathtaking in its force and fervor, songs like “Recovery” and “Hospitality” showcase the band’s melodic depth and mounting maturity. Working with the skilled Terry Date enabled FFAF to capture their gifts for multi-faceted songcraft while polishing the diamond-precise crunch of their pulverizing live performances.

“People are going that the emo-screamo tag that was put on us really doesn’t fit,” points out guitarist Darran Smith. “That’s not what we are. We’re a rock band, and with the diversity of this album, we show that there are a lot more strings to our bow.”

The heartfelt noise of “HOURS” makes it plain that, for Funeral For A Friend, their hard won experiences has endowed the band with a strength and self-confidence that will see them through the triumphs and the trials of the rest of their lives. Funeral For A Friend has grown up, and it suits them fine.

Check it out!