Reunions?! And scary monsters.

Sometimes bands break up. Sometimes bands reunite. This is a post about the latter, more uplifting scenario. Well, unless Fall Out Boy or Panic! break up -- I'll probably rejoice at that news, since I'm so elitist.

Back in the day, before Pitchfork was giving his solo stuff 0.0 reviews, Travis Morrison was in a nice little band called The Dismemberment Plan. They broke up in 2003. On April 28, they're playing a one-time-deal reunion/benefit show at the Black Cat in D.C. If you're in the area and feel like giving away your life's savings to scalpers, I think you should go for it.

As many of you probably know, the now-Chris-Cornell-less band Audioslave used to be called Rage Against the Machine, a band that actually had something to say that didn't involve metaphors about being a length of paved road. Rage is reuniting with their former lead singer, Zach de la Rocha, to play the sold-out Coachella festival. However, unlike The Dismemberment Plan, Rage has announced more shows, possibly hinting at a future of truly wonderful possibilities, such as a new album or at least a full-scale tour. They will be playing three dates on the Rock the Bells tour, along with Wu-Tang Clan. I have no idea what the situation with tickets is.

Finally, and I know I'm late on this, but everyone's favorite shoegaze pioneer/Sofia Coppola collaborator Kevin Shields -- that's right, I like him better than Kirsten Dunst -- has confirmed that there will be a follow-up to 1991's Loveless. By that, I mean, I hope he isn't taking cues from Axl Rose and plans on actually releasing the album within my lifetime. He told Magnet, "I do feel that I will make another great record... We are 100 per cent going to make another My Bloody Valentine record unless we die or something... A lot of people say the reason My Bloody Valentine didn't make another record is because we couldn't... That's mostly true, but not because we couldn't make another record, but because I never could be bothered to make another record unless I was excited by it. And just by fate or whatever, that never happened." I guess it's hard to get excited about something that has no timetable.

On a final note, everyone should check out Lordi, a Finnish "monster hard rock" band, who, well, dress up like monsters and play ridiculous music. It's basically everything Slipknot should be. Their brilliantly-named album, The Arockalypse, is hitting US stores on March 20. Brooklyn Vegan has an MP3 of their track "Hardrock Hallelujah."

If, in the future, after listening to that band, you completely disregard anything I say, I'll understand.