Chicago (kinda) punk rockers (kinda) Alkaline Trio have a new album on the horizon and today released a video for the first single, “This Addiction.” Want to watch the video? Well, regardless of your answer, here it is:

The album, This Addiction, which features the song “This Addiction” comes out Feb. 23.

We’ve already mentioned that Peter Gabriel has a new album coming out of orchestral covers of other peoples songs. Well, if you think that is awesome and if you want a free (and truly beautiful) copy of the track “Flume” you can head over to Gabriel’s website and get it right now. “Flume” is a cover of a Bon Iver song and it’s pretty damn great.

Gabriel will also be making a couple stops here in the States come April and May. The shows will be orchestral in nature and I’m assuming he’ll be playing the tracks from Scratch My Back, the aforementioned covers album, and a handful of old standards.

Here are the dates:

Apr. 28 – Bell Centre, Montreal
May 2 – Radio City, New York
May 3 – Radio City, New York
May 7 – Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles

I don’t know what you are talking about. This week’s bout doesn’t have an agenda. It’s just a couple songs about people having to make hard choices. It’s totally great that people can make a choice in this country and then make a commercial for the Super Bowl where you say how lucky you are, that despite what people were telling you, you were able to make a choice and have it all work out.

This week we are just making a choice to run these two videos. Having the ability to make a choice is what’s great about this country. Wouldn’t it suck if you couldn’t make a choice? Especially on really important things? Wouldn’t it have sucked if you weren’t allowed to make a choice and it didn’t end up a feel-good story that you wanted tell the world during a Super Bowl commercial about?

Our congratulations and sympathies go out to everyone that’s had to make hard choices and we hope that in all cases (and future cases) it works out for the best – even when those choices are the hardest choice you’ll ever have to make.

So yeah, I don’t know what you are talking about. There is no agenda. It’s just a new video bout…

Last week’s winner, The Who, have been sent to the winner’s circle.

It’s Friday! Yay! We made it through another work week. Well some of us did at least. Barely. But whatever. We aren’t here to talk about making it and not making it. We aren’t even here to talk about work. so what the hell are we here to talk about? Oh yeah, free music! It’s Free Music Friday! Yay!

This week we have a track from the boy and girl combo (boy… there sure are a lot of boy/girl bands runnin’ around right now) of Phantogram. These guys come from Greenwich, NY and have an album coming out in the near future. But until then, here is a free song by them called “When I’m Small.”

Click here to download.

Free Music Friday comes to you every Friday at musicboxer.com with a different free and legal mp3 download for your audacious pleasure. Send recommendations to revdog@musicboxer.com and we’ll be happy to feature them.

Jesus, you guys. What a week it’s been! Am I right? The fact that any of us are still standing is a darn miracle. If the NRA was President and we all had our mandatory, state-issued guns on our hips then we would have blown our heads off by now – that’s how bad it’s been.

Why? Why so doom and gloom this week? That answer is found in the tweets, posts, and interviews announcing the demise to our generation’s Fleetwood Mac. I of course am talking about Fall Out Boy breaking up.

God damn it, you guys. I can barely type that without getting teared up.

Everyone in the band (Fall Out Boy – not Fleetwood Mac) has announced in some way or another that the band is done. Kaput. Dead. Over. No more. Just like everyone else in the entire world (and probably universe because our radio waves go out into space – I’ve seen Star Trek!) I’m finding it hard to wake up in the mornings now. Why bother waking up? Who wants to wake up to a world where we won’t hear that one song that Fall Out Boy sang that you thought was that other band that sounded just like them? I don’t. Well I guess I technically do but I’m not happy about it.

I don’t know how we’ll do it but I guess we will have to get by. I suggest we start a candlelight vigil every Thursday night until the band members realize that individually they are 4 separate, dumb asshats but together they are one big dumb asshat and reunite.

Dear Jesus, please make Fall Out Boy get back together soon – for the kids.

Gorillaz have released a trailer (really?) for the upcoming Plastic Beach album. The video features an orchestral score so if one was looking to get an earful of the new album… it wouldn’t be found here. Unless the album is actually just a Danny Elfman score. If that’s the case then yeah, this trailer is full of the new album.

Anywho, here is the trailer:

The island there kinda looks like a cake from “Ace of Cakes.” In fact it should be! The people behind Gorillaz should hire Charm City Cakes to make a cake shaped like this plastic beach. And then they should video tape the making of the cake and have it be an episode of “Ace of Cakes.” Why? Because “Ace of Cakes” is the best show on TV. And if you don’t agree then you are an asshole. Just sayin’…

Oh yeah, the album, Plastic Beach , is due out March 8.

AFI has a new album out (and a brand new look!) and on that album is a little song called “Beautiful Thieves.” A pretty standard AFI song by all accounts, and a decent song by some accounts. Well, there is a video, as of today, for the song “Beautiful Thieves” and we figured you’d like to see it. So… here you go:

Ok. Let me get this straight. The newly un-vamped boys of AFI crash a rich person party, look annoyed and disinterested, then poison everyone and leave without “thieving” anything. Sure. Makes perfect sense.

Electric President, a duo from Florida (yuck – to the state, not the band), has a new album out at the end of the month. This album, The Violent Blue, will be the band’s third. In preparation for that release, the band has released a video for the title track from the new album.

And here it is, the video for “The Violent Blue”:

If you have a hankerin’ for more Electric President, head over to the band’s MySpace (really? People still use Myspace?) page to hear a couple more tracks from the new album.

We’ve got two new reviews for your reviewing pleasure. The Music Boxer staff takes a close look at new albums from Spoon and Los Campesinos!.

The first is a look at the new Spoon album. Music Boxer Matt thinks this new album “rocks. Seriously.” A glowing endorsement indeed. Click here to read the full review. Oh, and while you are there, buy the album from the widget at the bottom of the review.

The second review is of the new Los Campesinos! album, Romance is Boring. Revdog thinks this album is “Loud, noisy, messy pop rock goodness.” Another positive review of a new album. That’s two in a row for those counting. Click here to read the full review. Oh, and while you are there, buy the album from the widget at the bottom of the review.

Next week we’ll have a couple more reviews so make sure you check back… and buy the albums from the link because we like money. We also like paying taxes and bills so… yeah. Word to that.

Frightened Rabbit has a new video for the song “Nothing Like You.” What? You’ve never heard of Frightened Rabbit? Honestly we really hadn’t either. For whatever reason they’ve flown under the radar here at Music Boxer central. But now we all over them… not literally. That would be weird.

Frightened Rabbit is from Scotland and have been around since 2003… unless Wikipedia is lying to me. The band has a new album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, coming out in March.

So here’s a video by Frightened Rabbit for the song “Nothing Like You.”

Hmm… I really should start paying attention so I don’t miss good stuff like this again.