Record Bar - 5751-11 Oleander Drive Wilmington NC

With their debut album, Afterglow, Sleep Theory is carving out space at the forefront of modern hard rock, stacking stadium-sized hooks with genuine emotional weight. If their meteoric rise is any indication, this is only the beginning. The album, which offers a stunning display of diverse rock flavors, was produced by David Cowell and mixed by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me The Horizon, Bad Omens, Architects). 

Revolver put it best: “The band’s mix of metalcore, pop, and R&B is clearly connecting in a big way—and has positioned Sleep Theory as one of heavy music’s biggest breakouts.”

Sleep Theory isn’t just another rock band climbing the ranks—they’re an unstoppable force rewriting the genre’s rules in real time. Frontman Cullen Moore doesn’t just sing; he commands, delivering lung-busting hooks that sit comfortably between modern rock’s heaviest hitters and the emotional pull of early-2000s alt-metal. Sleep Theory’s sound blends anthemic rock, metalcore energy, and smooth R&B-inspired melodies, drawing comparisons to Linkin Park’s more dynamic moments. Moore’s vocal range allows for a mix of soaring melodies and intense screams, adding depth and versatility to their music.

In under two years, the Memphis-based quartet—Moore, bassist Paolo Vergara, guitarist Daniel Pruitt, and drummer Benjamin Pruitt—had rocketed from internet obscurity to festival mainstages and the momentum hasn’t slowed. With over 220 million streams on their first eight songs, Sleep Theory is proving that viral moments can have serious staying power.

The industry is watching. Sleep Theory closed out 2024 as the fifth most-played artist on Active Rock radio, with multiple singles cracking year-end rock and metal charts. Heavyweights like Jelly Roll and Disturbed’s David Draiman are openly singing their praises, while Shinedown, Beartooth, Wage War, Daughtry, and Falling in Reverse have already taken them on tour across the U.S. and Europe. 

Forever Howlong is Black Country, New Road’s first studio release since 2022's UK #3 album Ants From Up There, which gave the band their second Top 5 UK album in 12 months alongside their Mercury Prize shortlisted debut For the first time, and follows 2023's Live at Bush Hall, an album The Guardian claimed was a “magical resurgence” in a triumphant five-star review. Now, on studio album three, the band are once again building from the ground up in yet another miraculous musical transformation.

The long-awaited new record was produced by James Ford (Fontaines D.C., Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur) and sees Black Country, New Road settled into a new shape in which vocal duties – and most of the song writing – is split between Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw. “It created a real through line for the album, having three girls singing," says Ellery. "It's definitely very different to Ants From Up There, because of the female perspective - and the music we've made also compliments that."

Forever Howlong is an ambitious, meticulously detailed record that includes everything from folk to prog via baroque pop and touches of alt-rock – with nods to everything from Joanna Newsom to Randy Newman via Fiona Apple and Janis Ian – yet all the while retaining that unmistakably unique sound that only this combination of musicians can come up with. Although hugely varied and expansive, the album also feels deeply cohesive and focused, as it takes three distinct voices and styles and seamlessly intersperses them into a new collective sound.

Celebrate 50 years of RUSH with their first-ever complete career anthology. 50 tracks on 4 CDs and 7 180g LPs featuring selections from every studio, live, and deluxe reissue album. Igniting the experience are the very first two singles, “Not Fade Away” and “You Can’t Fight It,” remastered & reissued for the first time ever. The collection showcases 7 unreleased tracks, including five 1974 live selections with the non-album songs “Bad Boy” and “Garden Road,” a Vault Edition of “The Trees” with an alternate guitar solo, and the very last performance with Neil Peart in Los Angeles on August 1, 2015, of “What You’re Doing / Working Man / Garden Road.” The 104-page hardcover book features new Hugh Syme 50th anniversary artwork along with stunning new song illustrations, photos, and liner notes by renowned rock journalists David Fricke and Philip Wilding. Exclusive to this Super Deluxe are 20 lithos illustrating one song from each studio album and a second 100-page hardcover book The Fullness Of Time, a brand-new graphic novel by Fantoons storytelling a conversation by Geddy & Alex reminiscing on the trials, tribulations, and successes recording each studio album and how the band’s sound evolved with contributions from the producers and engineers the band worked with on their studio albums.

Keith Urban #1’s CD includes 24 #1’s Hits on 2 CD’s (all packaged in 1 jewel case) from his entire catalog of albums.  The album spans from Keith’s very first #1 song to his latest and includes duets with Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, and Julia Michaels.  This is the ultimate Keith Urban album and a must have for all fans.  Each CD will include a limited-edition double-sided poster.

Darius Rucker will be releasing his 6th Country Studio album- Carolyn’s Boy which will feature 14 songs including #1 song- “Beers and Sunshine” and his latest hit single- “Fire’s Don’t Start Themselves.” The album title is named after his mother. Rucker embarked on a successful solo career, applying his versatile baritone to acclaimed R&B and country efforts like the platinum-selling Learn to Live (2008) and True Believers (2013), and 2023's Carolyn’s Boy, which featured the hit single "Beers and Sunshine."

Over the course of his career, Sufjan Stevens has blurred distinctions between the major and the minor, between the details that color our existence and the big events that frame our lives. He has turned historical footnotes of States into kaleidoscopic pop, and rendered the immeasurable grief of loss with intimacy and grace.

His new album Javelin—Sufjan’s first solo album of songs since 2020’s The Ascension and his first in full solo singer-songwriter mode since 2015’s Carrie & Lowell—bridges all these approaches. Sufjan uses the quietness of a solitary confession to ask universal questions in songs we can share communally. Accompanying the CD and LP formats of the album is a 48-page book of art and essays. With a series of meticulous collages, cut-up catalog fantasies, puff-paint word clouds, and iterative color fields, Sufjan builds order from seeming chaos and vice versa. And toward the middle of it all are 10 short essays by Sufjan, another window into the process that informed Javelin.

“I’ve been wanting to make a record like this for a long time. The band, Franny and I produced it ourselves in my living room with no adults present. It’s all acoustic, not an electric lick on the album…banjos and mandos and string basses and stripped-down drums. I put a ton of work into the tunes and I’m pretty proud of this batch. Had a little help from my old co-writing pal Jaida Dreyer on a couple, also wrote a good one with my screenwriter buddy, Brian Koppelman. Lots of gambling songs and lots of minor keys. And my band guys absolutely killed it too, they’re all badasses.

I’m dedicating the record to my old compadre, Ian Tyson, who passed away a few months back. I’ve named the album for him as well. ‘El Viejo’, or ‘the old one’ is what our mutual friend Tom Russell took to calling him in later years. The title track is a pretty special one for us.

We had a blast making this thing, and we hope you enjoy it too.” 

- Corb Lund 

Twenty Twenty: Joe Keery, who you may also recognize from the show “Stranger Things,” began playing music in his teens after co-opting his sister’s guitar, but it was during his college years at DePaul University in Chicago that he formed his first band and began to seriously pursue music. That band was Post Animal, the heavy psych rock outfit that went on to release a self-titled EP and two subsequent albums via Polyvinyl. They also toured with artists like Twin Peaks, Wavves and Cage The Elephant and played a number of US festivals. In 2019, with no announcement or fanfare, Keery’s solo-project Djo was unveiled not with a single, but a lush, self-reflective, layered 12 track full-length album titled Twenty Twenty. “Joe Keery built a carnival. The resonance of each riff or beat is not new, but redesigned and reshaped into the beauty it is today. The face of psych or alternative mirrored through his own design, and it reveals a person who shouldn’t be underestimated,” said Rodeo Mag. Despite the album being released under the radar and without a label, fans found their way to it, and Twenty Twenty has now seen more than 200 million streams to date.

Timeless. Explosive. Romantic. Inspiring. How else to characterize Blue Electric Light, Lenny Kravitz’s 12th studio album? Kravitz’s mastery of deep-soul rock ‘n roll is a long-established fact. As a relentless creative force—musician, writer, producer, actor, author, designer—he continues to be a global dynamic presence throughout music, art and culture. Blue Electric Light is an impassioned suite of songs, that broadens this distinction and is the latest contribution of a man whose music—not to mention his singular style—continues to inspire millions the world over. On the album, Kravitz's talents as a writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist resonate as he wrote and played most of the instruments himself, with longtime guitarist Craig Ross. Lenny Kravitz has won four GRAMMY® Awards and sold 40 million worldwide. He was recently recognized by the CFDA with their “Fashion Icon Award” and was also selected as a 2023 Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Snoop Dogg's multi- platinum Doggystyle, heralded as one of the most important albums of all time, Death Row Records will be bringing this back to retail with the original 1993 track listing on vinyl. This new 30th Anniversary edition will include the track "Gz Up, Hoes Down" which has not been on the album since its pressing in 1993. For new and old fans alike, this is the definitive version of the classic album that launched Snoop's solo career and helped define the sound of Los Angeles in the process.

RSD Essential 048 * 40th Anniversary Pressing * In 1983, Cyndi Lauper’s debut album, She’s So Unusual quickly became a worldwide sensation. Its legacy has lived on 40 years later as one of the most iconic albums of its time. Including smash hits, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and more, this exclusive 40th anniversary edition comes on opaque blue vinyl, available only through RSD Essentials.

Djo – the critically acclaimed brainchild of multi-talented musician/actor Joe Keery – makes its long awaited return with the game-changing new album, DECIDE. A spellbinding collage of snaky pop hooks, neon melodies, and deeply personal singer-songwriter lyricism, the album melds high-tech songcraft with quick wit, irrepressible spirit, and an impressive breadth of vision that showcases glowing synths and big beats over the trippy guitars that defined 2019’s acclaimed debut, TWENTY TWENTY. Blissed-out bops like “Change” see Keery delving deep into a broad spectrum of eclectic influences, deconstructing hyperpop, euphoric psychedelia, spiky new wave, and symphonic 70’s rock into something utterly unique via dauntless melodies and technical innovation.

Four Year Strong is releasing a live album of their annual hometown holiday show performance at The Palladium that always sells out. It's their entire set list recorded live!

2020 holiday release. This holiday season, world-renowned icon Dolly Parton releases her first full length Christmas album in thirty years. Featuring an exquisite curation of reimagined classic holiday standards and brand new originals, this collection is set to become a treasured annual favorite. A Holly Dolly Christmas features guest performances by Michael Bublé, Jimmy Fallon, Willie Nelson, Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus, and Randy Parton.

Bright Eyes’ Christmas Album begins with a piano, flute, ambient noise, and musical saw-driven version of “Away in a Manger,” helping weed out casual Christmas music enjoyers, but all too tempting for the most devout of Conor Oberst’s disciples, who originally learned that the warmth of the holiday season is trumped only by its potential for melancholy back in 2002 with the original Saddle Creek release. Oberst and a small army of friends at his house proceed to jamboree through Christmas classics like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” Holiday cheer, when delivered with Oberst’s trademark tremble, sounds more like a lament than it does hymns of ecclesiastical joy. But the spirited listener will find that the fragile, homespun, and somewhat blinkered vibe that permeates the album sets itself apart from the bog-standard, less sonically humble offerings of the holidays, and, both strangely and satisfyingly, is probably more aligned with the true spirit of the season..

Bing Crosby’s Christmas Gems is a remarkable album release curated by the estate, bringing together rare and never-before-released Christmas masters from the Bing Crosby archives. Featuring 14 holiday classics (including 12 previously unreleased recordings.) With its diverse repertoire, rare tracks and iconic collaborations, this album serves as the perfect seasonal gift for music enthusiasts, spreading joy and celebrating the spirit of Christmas.

Cher’s first-ever Christmas album filled with explosive Christmas hits! Come party with Cher and some of her best friends. 
Are you spending Christmas with Cher?

The soundtrack to the holiday film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, features Danny Elfman, who has scored many of Tim Burton's imaginative films (Edward Scissorhands, his two Batman films, etc.), is a perfect musical partner for the somewhat macabre director, and never more so than here, where, in fact, Elfman gets not only to write the music but to play the part of the main character. 12" Zoetrope Picture Disc displaying art from the film.

FEATURES:

• Double LP
• Zoetrope Picture Disc

Danny Elfman The Nightmare Before Christmas (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)