New albums from Social Distortion, Broken Social Scene, and Linda Perry, plus an AC/DC prequel and a four-album hardcore avalanche.
Mike Ness recovers from cancer to make Social D's first record in 15 years. Broken Social Scene reunite with David Newfeld. Linda Perry breaks 27 years of solo silence. Plus: Gang of Four's Entertainm
This Week on Dig Me Out
Stevie Wright’s Hard Road Is the AC/DC Prequel Nobody Told You About
J Dziak, Chip Midnight, Tim Minneci, and Gavin Reid · May 5, 2026
Malcolm Young played on it. Vanda and Young produced it. Stevie Wright turned down the singer job for AC/DC. The blueprint for what would become the biggest rock band on the planet was sitting right there in 1974, on a solo album by the original Easybeats vocalist that almost nobody outside Australia heard. We tell that story this week.
Gang of Four Won the 70s Vote
This one started as a four-way late-70s split between punk, post-punk, hard rock, and industrial in the original poll. Then “Entertainment!” and The Damned’s “Machine Gun Etiquette” finished locked at 7 votes each, which sent the whole thing into sudden death.
And the post-punk revolution won.
That means “Entertainment!” now gets the full Dig Me Out treatment: band history, and album deep dive.
🚨 Know a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it for a future episode.
Coming Soon…
Purusam – Daybreak Chronicles (Tuesday, May 12)
If you missed Purusam the first time around, this is a good place to start. Swedish hardcore-metal that splits the difference between melodic and crushing. Daybreak Chronicles (2024) is their newest, picked by Keith Tasker from the Board of Directors as one of his 2026 album picks.
Give it a spin before Tuesday and come ready with what works and what doesn’t.
Want to hand-pick an album for a future episode and join us on the show to dig into it? Join the Board of Directors at dmounion.com.
New Releases
Social Distortion – Born to Kill
Remember when “Ball and Chain” came on the radio and you couldn’t quite tell if it was country, punk, or rockabilly, and decided you didn’t care? Mike Ness has been writing variations on that song for almost 40 years, and a lot of us grew up with his voice in the background of every road trip, every garage, every late-night cassette deck. Born to Kill is Social Distortion’s eighth studio album, out May 8 on Epitaph, and it’s their first new music in 15 years, the longest gap of their career. The middle of the recording was interrupted by Mike Ness’s Stage 1 tonsil cancer diagnosis. He finished the record after treatment.
What works: Danielle Chelosky at Stereogum frames the title track as the sound of a band that’s earned the right to come back swinging, “the band’s first album since leader Mike Ness beat tonsil cancer.” The 11 tracks were narrowed down from roughly 40, with guest appearances from Benmont Tench and Lucinda Williams and a Chris Isaak cover of “Wicked Game.”
What doesn’t: Reactions on r/punk are mixed-positive rather than ecstatic. The most common note from longtime fans: it’s solid Social D, but if you wanted reinvention rather than a comfortable return to form, this isn’t that record.
Broken Social Scene – Remember the Humans
Think back to the first time you heard “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” and realized indie rock could feel like a fifteen-person choir on the brink of falling apart. That was 2002. You Forgot It in People was the record that made you keep an entire Canadian indie scene on your radar for the next decade. Broken Social Scene are back with their first album in nearly a decade, the first since Hug of Thunder (2017). The hook for longtime fans: producer David Newfeld is back too. He hadn’t worked with the band since 2005’s self-titled. Newfeld is the architect of the You Forgot It in People sound, and getting him back is the closest thing to a homecoming this band can stage.
What works: Charles Spearin told Stereogum “There’s a different kind of honesty in this record.” Hannah Georgas, Lisa Lobsinger, and Feist are all back as collaborators, and the lead single “Not Around Anymore” is squarely in the chaotic, wide-screen mode that made fans fall for the band in the first place.
What doesn’t: Reunions with original producers can feel either revelatory or backward-looking, and the r/indieheads discussion lands somewhere between. If you’ve been waiting for Broken Social Scene to evolve past the You Forgot It in People template, this leans into the template rather than away from it.
Midge Ure – A Man of Two Worlds
Picture the music video for “Vienna” in 1981: Midge Ure in a long coat, the synth pads rolling like fog, that voice climbing into a chorus that helped define what a synth-pop ballad could be. He fronted Ultravox, co-wrote “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” with Bob Geldof in a single afternoon, and has spent four decades quietly making one of the more interesting solo catalogs in synth-pop’s afterlife. A Man of Two Worlds is his first new music in 12 years, and it’s a double album: eight instrumentals on disc one, eight songs on disc two. The concept came out of pandemic listening habits and his stretch hosting The Space on Scala Radio.
What works: Andy Sweeney at At The Barrier calls the songs side “trademark ethereal harmonies, electronic distortions, guitar slides and soaring synths,” with the second disc dealing in “the frailty of the human condition” through tracks like “The Man Who Stole Your Soul” and “Shouting at the Moon.”
What doesn’t: The double-album structure is a commitment. As Sweeney’s review acknowledges, the instrumental disc demands you sit with it, and Ure himself has said writing instrumentals that hold up “without the help of lyrics or the build to a chorus” is harder than it looks. If you came for the songs, you might find yourself skipping straight to disc two.
👑 If you want to hand-pick an album for a future episode and join us on the podcast to discuss it, that’s exactly what the Board of Directors is for. Join at dmounion.com.
Linda Perry – Let It Die Here
“What’s Up?” comes on at a basement party, and within three seconds every single person in the room is screaming the chorus back at the ceiling. 4 Non Blondes were a one-album band for a reason, but that one album was inescapable, and Linda Perry’s voice has lived rent-free in your head ever since. Then she vanished from the front of the stage and started writing “Beautiful” for Christina Aguilera and shaping records for Pink, Gwen Stefani, and Dolly Parton. Let It Die Here is out May 8 on her new label 670 through Kill Rock Stars, her first solo album in 27 years, and the album emerged out of an unplanned documentary by Don Hardy that captured Perry through her mother’s death and her own breast cancer diagnosis.
What works: Audra Heinrichs at Paste calls it “an unflinching glimpse at a prolific artist, a self-professed workaholic and, ultimately, a person on the precipice of an existential breakthrough.” For anyone who only knew Perry from the “What’s Up?” decade, the record is a recalibration of who she’s been all along.
What doesn’t: The album’s emotional weight is the point, but it’s also the cost of admission. As Heinrichs’s Paste piece details, the record is more existential breakthrough than greatest-hits package. If you wanted the anthemic punch of 4 Non Blondes, this is a different record.
Fresh in the Hopper
The queue blew up this week. Here are the suggestions catching attention.
Hatebreed, Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire (1997), submitted by Keith Tasker as the first of a four-album hardcore deep dive. Keith calls it Jamie Jasta “at his most raw,” before Hatebreed became “the face of heavy music for a generation.” Fourteen songs, twenty-eight minutes, all killer no filler. If you’ve ever circle-pitted, this is foundational.
Snapcase, Progression Through Unlearning (1997), also from Keith. He frames it as the post that came before post-hardcore: “NY hardcore with zero frills. Drop the pretentiousness of Helmet and just drive the nail through.” If you’ve ever wondered what the early-2000s Victory Records explosion was built on, Keith says the answer is here.
Cherry Blossom Clinic, The Great Poptastic Splendorbomb (2002), submitted by whitsbrain. Power pop with crunchy guitars, comparable to Redd Kross or the Blue and Maladroit stages of Weezer. Thirty minutes total, so the commitment is small. whitsbrain says if you’re fond of harder-edged power pop, this should land.
Springbok Nude Girls, Surpass the Powers (1999), submitted by Gary Kalmek. Despite the name, SNG were the biggest rock act in South Africa in the late 90s, a non-ska punk band with a trumpet player who actually contributes to the songwriting. Recorded by Kevin Shirley. Gary’s pitch: it’s the most radio-friendly entry point into a catalog that deserves a much bigger international audience than it ever got.
🚨 Got a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Drop it in the Hopper.
To me Social Distortion proves again that they are always worth the wait. It’s true that it isn’t groundbreaking but it is just damn good!
Linda Perry had become one of my favorite vocalist of all time. She has a vocal range that is all over the place. This album is like that, all over the place but not really. It’s a good album as well.